Guitar sounds out of key

Hearing Aids
#1

I have severe hearing loss and I am using oticon more1, I love to play the guitar. Unfortunately, when I play it sounds out of pitch, or tune. The tuning is dead on and this happens on all my guitars. I did some research and many HA users have a similar experience. Some suggest using analog HA. Have any of you experienced this? Have any of you found a solution? I have tried the music program, it did not solve the problem.

Have you had a similar experience? Did you find a solutions? Love to play but it sounds horrible.

Love to hear your feedback

2 Likes
#2

Welcome!

The music/musician applications is a regular talking point in this forum. As hearing aids are primarily oriented for speech recognition, and the tricks and tools for that often are at odds with fidelity, you can expect to spend some time wrestling with the settings to get what works for you.

Most likely, the frequency shifting is enabled. If you have the phone app you can try can exploring any other available programs. An uneven frequency response can give a psychoacoustic effect that’s similar… but as you’re a guitar player, I’m thinking that’s not it. I’m not an Oticon expert, though others here are. I hope they drop in with advice too.

3 Likes
#3

I seem to see musicians more likely to use Widex and program their own aids.

https://musicandhearingaids.org/

1 Like
#4

Welcome to the forum, sure this is a very common problem and with a severe loss it may well sound like this even with the help of HAs, post your audiogram as this would be helpful for advice.
You can can use the search button from right here on hearingtracker to see lots of other post on this very topic.

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/search?q=Hearing%20Aids%20and%20music%20

You need to work with your audiologist to get the best possible outcome on your music program, it’s not one size fits all.
More information on how to set up a music program here

https://musicandhearingaids.org/

https://grandpianopassion.com/category/hearing-music/

Good luck.

2 Likes
#5

I’ve played around with mine (Phonak L90) in the fitting software, and even when I input a perfectly flat audiogram, the music mode still applies more gain to some frequencies than others. I don’t know why it would do that when it’s supposed to dealing with equal loss across all frequencies, but it does. The difference is less than in other modes, but it might be enough to throw off the sound. I don’t know about Oticon, but at least in Phonak’s software, that’s something your audiologist would be able to tweak. But obviously getting just the right amount of gain, but not too much, in each frequency is more complicated with severe loss.

2 Likes
#6

Widex used to have the highest input dynamic range which made them preferable for musicians but the other manufacturers have caught up and the Oticon More 1 input dynamic range is 113dBSPL which is the same as Widex.
You need to work with your audiologist to create a music program that works for you. Oticon’s pre set music program can be hit and miss, there are a lot of resources out there for audiologists if they need support with this and they can contact the manufacturer also for further advice. Take your guitar with you when you go see them too!

5 Likes
#7

I am only experienced with Phonak and have their Target software to program my aids, but from what I have been reading most of the other hearing aid manufacturers have similar functionality.

To improve hearing voices, there is a default setting that shifts the sounds down to a frequency that the majority of people will be able to understand without making drastic changes to the default programs. In my case, I do my own programming, and have setup a dedicated music program that I use when playing my Classical Guitar or mandolin. It’s almost analog and has everything turned off except the basic settings I needed to compansate for my hearing loss. Whenever I want to play one of my instruments, I select this program, and the music is in perfect tune and sounds great.

You will need to have your Audiologist make the changes for you, assuming he understands your needs, and has the skills to do this. From what I have read, most audiologists don’t have a clue when it comes to working with musicians. You may need to shop around for someone, or do as I and many others have done, aquire the programming software, and learn to DIY.

If you do stick with an audiologist, make sure you can bring your instrument with you to validate any changes he makes,

When you do your own programming, you can make changes on the fly, without an appointment. It’s very liberating.

Good luck.

4 Likes
#8

The main things to tell your audi to change in the programming software, IMO, are:

#1. Set up a dedicated program on your HAs just for performing music.

#2 Only on the dedicated music performance program, reduce the feedback suppression to almost zero. In my experience, if you turn off feedback suppression entirely, you will get feedback. So give it just a smidgen of feedback suppression. So when you’re in the music program, if someone comes in for a hug, maybe only then you might get some feedback.

If you set the feedback suppression to what would normally be used for maximizing speech comprehension , you will get a warbling effect, especially on sustained musical notes. That might be what’s making your guitar sound out of tune.

#3. Only in the music performance program, turn off all compression.

Hope this helps. Please do use the search function in this forum. You’ll find lots of helpful information here. Also google “Marshall Chasin”.

3 Likes
#9

This is true, the dynamic range factor is level playing field across most models these days. But the notable remaining benefits for musicians that Moments still have are the higher sampling rate much lower lag, 2.5ms lag with music program and minimal lag with PureSound. These do make a difference with live music.

1 Like
#10

Unfortunately oticon app does not give you the option to create programs and save them . The eq only works for streaming. This is one area that oticon needs to improve.

#11

Thank you for the post on music. I will read them and hopefully find some information that will help

#12

How would you get software to program for oticon more1 , oticon won’t provide to users only audiologists?

#13

So it’s easily available, you’ll also need the Noahlink wireless programming device,head over to the DIY forum.

2 Likes
#14

IMG_0055
IMG_00551201×478 49.7 KB

IMG_0053
IMG_0053775×822 75.5 KB

Here are my Latest hearing test results , I hope this information helps.

#15

Did your HCP run the Feedback Analyzer and enable the Feedback Shield feature on your More? If yes, then part of the feedback strategy used by most HAs in the traditional feedback control is to shift the signal a little bit, by 10 Hz or so, to help minimize feedback. So if the Feedback Analyzer was run and Feedback Shield enabled, single tone notes (like guitar strings) may sound out of tune for you depending on whether your ears can notice a 10 Hz tone shift or not. Musical people tend to notice this more than others.

If so, ask your HCP to disable the use of the traditional Feedback Shield feature and use the new Feedback Manager that the More has instead. This should get rid of the 10 Hz frequency shifting.

Another thing to ask your HCP is whether the Speech Rescue frequency lowering feature is enabled or not. With your relatively flat loss, it’s probably not enabled, but it doesn’t hurt to check. This frequency lowering feature transpose your higher frequencies into a lower frequency range, and also stacks up the 3 sections it transposes on top of each other in the destination range. This can cause you to detect out-of-tune tones as well. Make sure that Speech Rescue is not enabled for you, at least not in the Music program.

The built-in MyMusic program shouldn’t cause you to hear out-of-tune tones. It may add emphasis to the volume at certain frequency ranges than others, but there should be no frequency shifting going on in that program by itself.

4 Likes
#16

Thank you , I will ask my Audi, these questions?

#17

I just googled marshal , he has 4 clinics in the Toronto area. I could go see him in person at one of his clinics

1 Like
#18

I play guitar also, you need to have your HCP to program you a specific program for performing and listening to music, in my case I had to turn off feedback management, your case might be different. Bring your guitar to the appointment and test it there.

2 Likes
#19

From a quick read of the thread I didn’t see anyone mention that a perceived frequency shift is a well known byproduct of cochlear damage/disease, which is often at the heart of the reason for the hearing loss.

I speak of what I know, because one of my ears detects musical sounds as about a semitone low compared to the other ear. But if I listen with both ears, then my brain works it out and I don’t notice it.

This is nothing to do with hearing aids and frequency shifting settings. It’s physiology. You can read lots about this if you Google for it.

4 Likes
#20

Great thread,

This probably explains why I don’t run the feedback programme in Target, and prefer not to wear HAs (or use older ones with domes), when playing in the band.

I was under the impression, that pitch shifting was only used in the Phonak “Sound Recover” part of the software.

Peter

1 Like