Hearing Aid Settings for Performing Musicians (poor speech intelligibility)

Question and Answer
#1

Hello, I am new here and am looking for ideas for HA settings for performing musicians. I am not highly knowledgeable on the topic of hearing aid settings - I just understand the basics of frequency, gain, noise cancellation, and feedback suppression. Apologies in advance if this is wordy…I am going to try and include details that may or may not help.

My audiologist has been wonderful, helping me set up a custom music program that does not distort sounds for my instruments (flute, piccolo, clarinet) nor for any other instruments. But I am having trouble communicating to her what I need for speech in music settings. I continually have a problem hearing speech during ensemble rehearsals. I cannot understand (poor intelligibility and low volume) speech in these settings when on my customized music program. I am at great disadvantage in that I cannot understand what the person next to me is saying (for example someone talking to me during warm-ups, or in a rehearsal hall/stage area even if music isn’t being played) and also have trouble understanding what the conductor is saying.

I have experimented with toggling between general hearing (setting one) and custom music (setting two) in a quiet environment and the difference in speech intelligibility and volume is markedly worse on the music setting. I told my audiologist it was like the “mids” were missing and she turned up the gain in certain areas. This resulted in only a slight improvement for hearing speech on my music setting (but not by much) and now I have a significant amount of feedback unless I “shove” my hearing aid (for the ear with greater hearing loss) deeper than it really stays or is comfortable.

If it’s important, this problem has been slightly worse (but NOT new) since the most recent firmware update for my More 1’s. The update totally wiped my previous music setting that took hours and hours to set up, and it has taken additional hours to try and re-create it.

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#2

welcome, lots of musicians, audiologists, informed others here so I’m sure you will get lots of tips.

Post your audiogram. That helps us understand your hearing.

Music is music and speech is speech and ner ---------------------

My #1 advice for a musician is to either marry an audiologist or learn the basics of DIY. It doesn’t take much more time than the time you just spent recreating your setup and you won’t have to go through that again.

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#3

Generally, “music” settings boost very little of the lows, some of the mids, and most of the highs. As a musician, I personally cannot stand the HiFi Music programs on my Jabra’s and Philip’s as they gave me the same feeling you’re experiencing where there’s a noticeable “gap” between the lows and highs; it seems to be a better fit for more enclosed environments or with headphones than in an open theater environment. In terms of speech intelligibility, the experience will be different for everyone as HiFi music settings vary from brand to brand. For me, my word recognition probably drops by 15-20% when it is selected over the general setting. With the music setting, you’ll likely also see the feedback manager disabled as it looks to maximize sound quality. Programming hearing aids is almost never a one-stop thing and adjustments are going to be extra common for musicians who are picky about sound quality like me. The most optimal solution here would be to bring in a tablet/phone and headphones and adjust it with your audiologist while you listen to a piece of music or an audiobook to maximize speech and sound quality. Otherwise, DIY-ing is also a great choice. It’s difficult to give specific info without an audiogram.

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#4

Well, I am married to a musician/audio engineer and am bringing him to my adjustment appointment tomorrow. Hopefully that will help! I will see about a copy of my audiogram.

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#5

All I can say is thank you for this post, and the replies which give further insight. I am just a listener who has lost her music. I have been struggling to find something that gives me better perceptions at concerts and while listening to radio, recordings, et cetera. THANK YOU for opening this thread!

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#6

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Here is my latest audiogram…I hope this is what you are looking for. Typically it is not hard for my audiologist to correct the hideous dissonance of noise cancellation while playing my instruments (I bring them to my appointments) but trying to find a solution to increase speech intelligibility in my customized live music setting (I do NOT use a preset music setting) has been difficult.

#7

You may simply need to switch from your Music to Speech program depending on the circumatances. And yes I understand that you might be playing your instrument and need to immediately switch to voice when someone comments. The thing is, the two programs–musician and voice-- are radically different. there may be no way to square this circle. A halfway compromise is likely to leave you dissatisfied with your musician setting. In the end, simply holding your phone and switching programs as circumstances require may be the best solution.
We’re lucky to have what we do, but there are limitations we need to work around.
I’m not an audiologist, so take this all with that in mind!

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#8

I’m am amateur musician (OK, some folks have been foolish enough to pay me). I’ve got fancy, schmantzy hearing aids (Oticon Intent 1) and find I hear music best while performing or practicing just using the general speech program. At the same time, while practicing in my brother’s basement or another band member’s large den I, too, have trouble no matter the setting discerning what is being said. The whole situation runs almost counter to what you might expect from the general setting responses. It helps me to sometimes use the “speech in noise” setting so I can focus on the person speaking.

Fortunately, for both groups I carry enough of the musical load that if I say: “hey, what tune did you folks at the other end of the room just agree to do next?” I get their attention. I find the “music” program tends to favor voices over instruments and I pretty much ignore it. It also helps that when performing I have a monitor right at my feet.

Good luck with this. It’s one of the more vexing issues for those of us carting around little computers in our ears.

Eliot

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#9

There is a simple answer here. You need to get your partner to do DIY adjustments at home. I am an amateur sound engineer and musician and have been able to setup my Oticon Intents exactly as I want them. It takes a bit of time and lots of A/B ing (which your partner will understand) but working in this way will allow you to get the HAs set up exactly as you want. For example, it’s likely that the music program has a lot (all?) of the automatic speech sensing features disabled (mine does) which is why you may have trouble with speech on this program. If you do DIY adjustments at home, you can try turning these features on and off to see if they help.

The software isn’t that complicated, any sound engineer should find it easy to understand. My audiologist talked me through some of the settings and I have worked with him to tweak the programs he set up for me.

There is a whole area on here dedicated to DIYing and people are very helpful.

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#10

OldMusicGuy I really appreciate the response! It’s perfectly timed as I see my audiologist this morning. We will verify what software she uses (and what we need/can use) as well as needed hardware for my particular HA’s. I doubt she will get weird about us being DYI customers because I do take a disproportionate amount of time when I come in for my frequent fittings. Thank you!

I’m going to keep looking for input on this thread though, because there may be people who don’t have the DIY option and need more information on how to communicate things to their audiologists.

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#11

Music sounds nice with the general program (P1) on my Oticon Intents, but I still prefer a dedicated music program when playing my guitars or using over-the-ear headphones. This music program also works reasonably well for speech, as long as it’s not too loud since it limits or disables some of the “digital features.” I’m also into DIY.

Edit: @wvuflutist you can ask your hearing care professional to restore your latest setup, before the firmware upgrade. It is really easy and it won’t take more than 2 minutes…

#12

EDITED POST

I am editing this post because the graph I attached was something I interpreted incorrectly. It was actually a graph of how a small sample of people rated the new MyMusic program against older programs/settings rather than any type of sound curve. So I am deleting the graph I originally included because it is misleading and I wouldn’t others to also interpret it incorrectly the way I did. True, the “technology” behind the new MyMusic program is significantly different than the old music program. And also I am learning that making a live music/performance program is best done from a basic “general” program rather than a pre-programed “music” program.

Appointment with the audiologist this morning was informative, mainly in the fact that I brought my audio engineer husband with me. We made minimal changes at the appointment and then made the decision to become DIY. It’s unrealistic, in my opinion, to expect an audiologist who works primarily with the general public (to help them hear speech and streaming better) to understand the intricacies of sound design at the level I need it as an instrumentalist. Although my audiologist was doubtful that Oticon would let us have the Genie 2 software, she is in support of it, and one of the Hearing Tracker folks did send me a link to the software download.

Very interesting is that my husband was also (through this Hearing Tracker site) to track down the white paper on the changes Oticon made to the MyMusic program used on my More 1’s. After the firmware update, my audiologist and I tried to recreate the old live music setting we had without understanding that the core of the MyMusic program changed to implement the Harman curve (think about how a muted trumpet sounds). Given that my hearing loss is in the lowest frequencies, it’s no wonder my music program, even customized, has more recently not worked well for me. Attached is a screen capture of the MyMusic sound changes.
[DELETED GRAPH]

Looking forward to DIY!

But hopefully for those who cannot DIY this might explain, and be shared with their audiologists, what is missing for live musicians and how to compensate when editing a music program. I also suspect that we might be better off starting with a “general” setting and using full customization rather than starting with a music program as the backbone of a custom setting.

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#13

e1405, my old music program is pre-firmware update, so according to my audiologist the software won’t even let the pre-update setting be restored (which, yes, would have been an easy solution). See my recent post about the audiologist visit this morning.

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#14

check out the books and articles by Marshall Chasin (sp?). He is an audiologist who has written about musicians and hearing issues.

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#15

Lots of information available here.

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

https://musicandhearingaids.org/

Marshall Chasin

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#16

You write like you are in a symphonic orchestra setting. If so, you have my sympathy–I had the same issues as a French horn player. I’m now 92 and don’t do that any more, though I do play in a band that plays too much Sousa.
The best I could do in your environment is to fasten my phone to the music stand and open the hearing aid app to I could switch between the music program and voice program. Of course when the conductor was giving instructions while the music was playing, I was lost.
With my hearing loss, I could not distinguish between the the ?ee’s especially when I was in the music program. Did she say start at letter B, C, D, E, G, P, T, or V? I tried to train her to specify, e.g. “B as in Brahms.”

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#17

You are on the right track, because the Oticon MyMusic program uses a custom fitting rationale, which can be a real pita to modify, due to the fine tuning it utilizes, and imposing Harman.
Your audi is correct that you can’t reverse the firmware, and Oticon, unfortunately abandoned the legacy Music program.

The good thing about Oticon, is you can have all 4 program slots set up as General programs with different fitting rationales.
Rather than go into a lengthy explanation, you may wish to direct your husband to this site for some great free courses on Hearing aid fitting, the Genie2 software, and the Intent HA’s.
Registration is free, and he can take as many as he wants.
You can input the curve of the waveform you displayed in Genie 2, and turn off all the MSI, and DNN settings, as well as feedback manager to reduce any digital speech compression and enhancements, which ruins pure tone music.
@e1405 and I have done a lot with the music programs, and you can use the search function to find discussions on the topic.

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#18

Cross posting as I put this in the DIY channel, but this seems more appropriate.

Until my very recent (well, a few weeks ago now) unilateral hearing loss, I played the Eb Bass (smaller tuba) in the village brass band. Since my hearing loss kicked in, I’ve found it hard to pitch notes so have taken a step back from band (no one wants an out of tune tuba).

Other than practicing, now I’ve got some hearing aids (Phonal Lumity L90) on trial from Boots, do you have any tips and advice for how to set up my hearing aids to help both in a small rehearsal room and then when we are out playing on a bandstand?

One of the audiologists suggested I don’t use the hearing aids in rehearsals, just use some Senner ear plugs to project my ears (so I may try that).

Any advice?

#19

Not hearing pitch is a major liability for sure! For me, the excruciating effect of noise cancellation and compression on high pitches (flute, piccolo, and clarinet) was terrifying the first time I experienced it several years ago. I have learned that by and large, “Music” programs are for streaming, not live music.

I can’t give you advice relative to your hearing loss and protection needs, but if your audiologist is suggesting you don’t use hearing aids at all in rehearsals, they likely don’t understand how much of a liability it is for a musician to not hear pitch. It may be that your audiologist would be open to learning more about the hearing needs of performing musicians, but as people on this forum have confirmed, a DIY ability, especially with the help of people who are knowledgeable about music needs, will give you a far better chance of getting programming suited to your personal music needs.

Hopefully someone in this thread or other threads can give you some help on what hearing aids to consider from the perspective of their ability to be programmed adequately and what capacity they have for hearing the needed frequencies. I am just a newbie learning a lot!

I am looking forward to starting into DIY next week. This week is full of rehearsals and a concert and I don’t want to inadvertently screw things up until that is all over. Then I will have about a month’s break before my next group starts up…a timeframe that I am more comfortable making changes within.

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#20

Good heavens, have you read Chasin’s article on fitting hearing aids for musicians? I went searching for it on this site but couldn’t find it. This is an issue that comes up several times a month. I’ve begged* the administrators here to pin a link to the several excellent papers written on fitting aids for musicians to no avail. Apparently they don’t play instruments and don’t care. Most audis aren’t familiar with fitting concerns for musicians, and they botch it, to be frank. Most aids can be easily fitted for musicians. But audis haven’t a clue. Hence you need to take Chasin’s instructions into the office with you. That’s far easier than endlessly searching for another poorly programmed aid that will never help until it’s programmed correctly. Phew!

Pin the damn papers!!! make them easily accessible! this is a common concern and doing that would serve a great purpose for many who come here looking for help.
Ah well the administrators here will simply not bother to respond, even to explain themselves. Who knows, there may be technical reasons for them to be unable to make a link readily available. Care to explain?

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