Bad Frequencies?

[RevBlue]

Hello all

So I've been thinking of building sort of a high frequencies filter in a stompbox, in lieu of a "musician's" earplugs

But I'm having problems deciding on the freq. to focus on. I know usually its the high ones, but are we talking the 16kHz range? 8kHz? I even read some places where the 3kHz are the problematic ones. What do you say?

Also, thoughts on the practicality of the pedal? Thanks!

[R.G.]

There is a fundamental problem with what you're saying. Unless a person is afflicted with perfect pitch or have abnormal hearing in some other way, like synesthesia, they do not have the ability to sense that certain frequencies are good or bad.

The human hearing apparatus seems to sense the relationship between signal frequencies much more than particular frequencies. This is the basis of different musical scales and the reference pitch of tunings. Musical notes sound good or bad together based on their relative frequencies, and different instruments (and distortions...) have different tonal qualities based on the ratios of the harmonics inside them and to some extent how this harmonic mixture changes with time during the note.

I am not a musicologist ( and yes, that is a real specialty!) nor an expert on either human hearing hardware or psychology, so this is just derived from what I have read. But I've read a lot about this, much more than you'd get from a walk through the internet. But all of the sources seem to agree on this viewpoint.

Filtering out certain frequencies would have an effect on the "voice" of sound coming through an effect, but it would not make it just better or worse in general.

[RevBlue]

I'm not actually talking about right out filtering, im talking more about lowering those frequencies, in about 9-15 dB (controlled). Sorry if that wasn't clear.

I think its pretty common knowledge that listening to loud high freq.  for a time can dmg your hearing, at least thats what i got from doing some research. That's why i said its purpose is to function like a "musician's" ear plugs, those do that same thing

[bool]

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reference_earphones.htm

[karbomusic]

I'm not actually talking about right out filtering, im talking more about lowering those frequencies, in about 9-15 dB (controlled). Sorry if that wasn't clear.

I think its pretty common knowledge that listening to loud high freq.  for a time can dmg your hearing, at least thats what i got from doing some research. That's why i said its purpose is to function like a "musician's" ear plugs, those do that same thing

I can't find where this wouldn't create a catch-22 because removing frequencies that hurt hearing (whatever those are) is going to hurt the tone of what you are listening to. The best method is to not turn up too loud or simply limit the signal as a whole instead of trying to predict and attenuate harmful frequencies. I honestly don't know (I assume I'm just missing the point) how such a thing could ever be achieved. As far as high frequencies in general, most overdrive/distortion pedals already roll those off by that amount and most of them are fairly insignificant anyway above 7k or so.

It's a bit of an unmixing paint, getting pee out of the pool problem.

[blackieNYC]

Hmm. Seems like everyone wears earplugs to shows now. Audience-wise. And they aren't the good ones musicians should have. They are 36 dB, and can really make the experience suck.  So we could:
1 Tell everyone to take the earplugs out and we'll turn down. We won't.
2 Tell everyone we're using the aforementioned pedal (the Big Muffler?) and ask them to take their plugs out. I dunno 'bout that.
Or 3 -turn up out treble until the highs cut thru the earplugs.  Yikes!
Hard to think this pedal is needed out there, but then again, if everyone is used to earplugs at shows, maybe they'll want to duplicate that when they're listening to MP3s. You want to see a freq plot on the earplugs and match that with a low pass filter or whatnot? So make that thing with mini stereo plugs, and I'm in!

[R.G.]

OK, I understand the motivation now.

Sadly, there is no good way to achieve the end result you're thinking of, for at least the reasons already mentioned, and more. A musician who thinks his hearing is being protected by an "earplug pedal" will most likely then turn up the treble (or whatever frequencies are cut) to make the sound have the right tone to them again, not knowing that they're clumsily undoing any good effects the pedal might have.

The real way to guard your hearing is to know that loud sounds damage your hearing and not listen to loud sounds.

[ashcat_lt]

I think the OP is just based on a bad premise to begin.  AFAIK, the threshold of pain/hearing loss is pretty flat across the frequency spectrum.  The real culprit is just sheer SPL, and is pretty independent of actual frequency.  Could be wrong, but...

I wonder if what's called for isn't almost the opposite of what the OP is asking for.  Take a hint from the Loudness control on the old stereos and boost the lows and highs (or attenuate the mids) so that you can turn the whole thing down and still have it sound loud.

[PRR]

> common knowledge that listening to loud high freq.  for a time can dmg your hearing

I believe this is bogus.

That the original observation did notice more deaf workers around machines that went CLANG, but partly because only VERY big machines (or amplified speakers) can deliver a big BOOM.

I believe that bass sounds will damage your hearing. Maybe not as fast as clangs, but not a lot slower.

In other words: ALL frequencies are "bad".

> are we talking the 16kHz range?

There's "no" exposure to 16KHz in occupational sounds (where we get deafness studies from). 16KHz comes from stuff just an inch or so across. You can not put the force into a 1" plate that you can in a 20" plate. The total energy will be smaller.

OTOH, outside a few car factories, there are no 10-foot stamping plates that might radiate strong bass. Most clanging is done on 4"-24" plates, which are ideal sizes for mid-range sounds, CLANG.

If you are gonna hang around 15-inch woofers on 300 Watt amplifiers, we could cut-out everything above 250Hz and your ears would still get hammered.

If you have ringing and deafness after shows, STOP THAT!! A filter can't possibly make enough difference to delay permanent damage.

You do NOT want permanent hearing loss. I have it. It has really spoiled my appreciation of music. It is now ruining my social and domestic life: I can not understand words spoken in the same room.

My loss *may* not be from loud-sound exposure. When I first noticed it decades ago, I STOPPED hanging around loud shows and began wearing 26dB-34dB ear-muffs around power-tools and tractors. Even so, my hearing declines every year. This probably has a genetic component: all my male elders have similar losses, and only one worked around punch-presses. Even if you have a gene issue, you do NOT want to compound that with a noise-exposure issue.

Think: would you poke your eyes with a sharp stick knowing that you would go blind? Going deaf is also a profound loss, and not the way you want to spend your old-age.