Programming hearing aids for music

Hearing Aid Self-Fitting and Adjusting [DIY]
#14

I am trialing the More 1 and now was able to take this little experiment to the next level. This is what I did:

I have the More 1 and the OPN 1 with the same audiogram. Programmed MyMusic on More 1 using VAC+ formula. Then manually emulated a copy of the “MyMusic” program into OPN 1 (typing all frequency gains manually).

Checking to see if everything matches, I found out that the compression ratios on MyMusic/More are a bit different than those in VAC+/OPN emulating MyMusic.

Then I created another VAC+ program in the More 1, typed the same frequency gains and disabled all processing features I had access to. Now the two programs are very similar.

Finally, I did an A-B comparison (MORE 1 vs OPN 1) playing a classical and an acoustic guitar. The difference in sound quality is minimal. I believe I would not be able to tell them apart in a blind comparison. Both sound great for music if you have them properly set up though.

#15

@e1405 Could you do a comparison with an acoustic piano? I never had any problem with guitars after adjusting the music programs (-8dB lowest dB band and Compression ratio set an uniform 1.3 for Bernafon Chronos 9, Phonak Bolero B90 and Phonak Audéo M90). However, the sound produced by a piano still gave some problems.

#16

Yes, that would be an interesting comparison. I will let you know if I come across an acoustic piano (trying to think where I could find one…).

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#17

New to the forum, but found this thread which is relevant to a question I have regarding Oticon More 1 and the MyMusic program. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I’m an acoustic guitarist trying to get my new Oticon 1’s “dialled in”. They are great for all-around audio, but when I pick strings on my guitar (especially the high E), I get a like a fast tremolo effect on the guitar note coming from the hearing devices. It is reduced a lot when on the MyMusic program, but I can still hear it slightly. Like a very fast quaver, and it kind of drives me nuts.

I’m working with the audio tech to tweak the settings of the MyMusic program, and the next step is to drag my guitar in and try some real-time tweaks.

I was hoping that others here may have had the same issue and could recommend an adjustment that is a known fix, if such a thing exists. We did try to take the feedback control fully off (it is set on “low”), but the devices started feeding back immediately. We didn’t try to turn the gain down as well, though, so I might explore that when I go back.

Does anyone have any hints or known fixes for such a phenomenon? Strumming sounds fine, and streaming music all sounds good: it’s just single notes from my live guitar that have the fast quavering sound.

Thanks for any assistance or advice…

#18

Sure have a read through these links, you can share with your audiologist and work together on this.

https://musicandhearingaids.org/

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

#19

Looking through the instructions for audiologists from the quoted site I see little new. However, new to me is that slow acting compression is recommended. Anybody has any idea what tweaks control the speed of compression in Phonak Target?

#20

@bryant: I don’t see your audiogram so I am going to say what worked best for me: 1) disable feedback management, even if that implies you having a gain below target in the higher frequencies. The feedback control set to low won’t do it…; and 2) set the program up with as little compression as possible. In mine I have a compression ratio of 1:1 for both my ears, but my loss is mostly conductive in my left ear and mixed in my right ear. I am able to handle the 1:1 compression ratio, I do not know how comfortable you will be without compression. In my experience, if you feel fatigued with little to no compression you should equalize your program. It is likely that some frequencies are over amplified and that is not good. I used the audio I describe in this post to eq my music program. If you want to use it, just follow the instructions in the post and use a decent audio monitor (flat frequency response). If your hearing loss requires some compression, set up your music program without compression, then add compression back when the program is properly equalized.

Edit:
Here are some screenshots of my music program. I have tried all available formulas, to my hearing loss DSL v5 has been the best for music. Note that the compression scheme is 1:1

P4a
P4a928×523 46.8 KB

P4b
P4b1666×776 67.4 KB

P4c
P4c1678×560 38.1 KB

#21

Thank you all for your responses, and thank you e1405 for your detailed documentation. I’ve got an appointment booked for next week for a real-time adjustment session along with my guitar, and will use your recommendations as a starting point to see if a similar solution will apply in my case. I don’t have my audiogram available to share, but I’m in the -70 to -80+ range from 3000Hz to 8000 (-30 to -40 from 250 to 3000), so turning off feedback control and winding down the gain to compensate for its elimination may not be practical in my case. We may have to crank the gain down so much that the hearing aid becomes totally ineffective, rendering the exercise pointless. But we’ll give it try: we might be pleasantly surprised.

But I’m thinking that my high-end loss may possibly be too great to be able to forgo feedback control, and I may have to simply put up with the wavering effect as a result.

Thanks again, all.

#22

This is always off by default in the music program, of course if your adding a new “music” program using custom settings them you’ll need to manually turn off.

Yeah this formula is a lot like linear (analogue) so low compression, a lot of severe to profound losses like this one.

It’s off by default in the music program, all other features as well, would be good to start with this and then let your audiologist make any adjustments for you, I’m not a great believer in REM but for you on this music program, you could ask for it to be done to see if it helps you.

#23

Your issue with quaver or flutter is AKA TTTF (Talking Through The Fan) effect.
As mentioned by others, the Oticon More has the ability to turn off feedback management in the Automatics Screen, as shown above in figure 3. (Thanks @e1405 )You need it off for Music!
Turning down the gain at higher frequencies won’t make a difference with your loss. All you’d be hearing is noise, not pure tones if set too high.
Be sure your fitter understands that they should UNLINK the MyMusic Program before doing any changes, so nothing is affected in your General program.
Be sure to have them run the Feedback Test, as well.

Ultimately, taking your axe to your appointment will yield the best results, so have a good fitting!

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#24

Actually, Oticon sets it at Low by default for MyMusic.
Been dere, done dat!

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#25

Oh I didn’t know we were talking Oticon, but that’s good to know ; )

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#26

If I am not mistaken, the default is “low” for MORE @ MyMusic program.

Edit: Sorry, I was too quick to answer… did not read the other posts…

#27

I am just guessing here but maybe those high frequencies won’t be as important as low and mids for a music program dedicated to acoustic guitars…

#28

All good my bad, I do wonder why tho, could be this “OpenSound” brain power thing they have going at the moment.

#29

If that’s the feeeback for music program, Phonak also put it automatically on weak as well, not completely off.

#30

Found this on another thread;
Click this Download link to a PDF file named → Starting-out with a music program

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#31

I know this is an old topic but I’m sure it’s still an issue with many musicians even today. I’ve tried a lot of suggested approaches and lately I started to learn to play of riffs in Melissa I kept thinking my guitar is either out of tune or the youtube video is a least a half step out. The notes just did not sound right even with my DIY custom music program. I also have a modified hifi program for my 9030 Philips HA that I have not done much work with so this is a summary of what I found I needed to do today to get the hifi program to work with my ears. I’m posting this in the event this helps others…I hope that’s true. It would take a Costco fitter months to arrive at what I found in a matter of a half hr of iterations at home. I’m pretty happy with the results although probably still not optimal but it works for me.

Since I’ve been doing some DIY with my 9030 Philips hearing aids in regards to live guitar playing I would like to describe what I had to do today with about 4-5 adjustments to get the hifi music program to NOT sound warbling, distorted and shrill when playing very high frequency notes. Your results will probably vary but this took a lot of gain reduction to work right for me. I used the gain lowering I needed in the app to guide me in the HearSuite adjustment software.
The Hifi program has medium feedback control and I left that in for now but I probably don’t need it anymore with the reductions I’ve made. The standard hifi program really boosts low and high frequency gains a lot over the general program and for me any music, streaming or live is way too tinny and very shrill sounding with the stock hifi program.

I did turn off the soft noise and wind noise controls and all other noise features are already turned off in the std hifi program. I lowered 3k-8k by a whopping 14 dB! I didn’t do this all at once and only tried 6 dB and found 14 dB to be what was needed for my ears and electric guitar. But I still had some sourness in the very high notes (12th fret and above) so I further lowered 1.5k to 2.5 k by 3 dB. And I still had to lower the gain in the app by one step which is -2.5 dB. Of course this is not great for speech but really good for my electric guitar playing and much better than turning the hearing aids off which is like a pillow over my ears. I have a typical cookie cutter loss moderate to bordering on severe at the bottom (-65-70dB) and use the 85 receiver with bass open domes.

I have tried other recommended approaches involving starting with the speech in noise program and playing with compression ratios but this hifi program seems to work and still boost the low to mid frequencies a bit. I have hyperacusis and so I might be an outlier compared to others but this is sort of effort it takes to get HA to work well for musicians, lots of iterative efforts. Don’t give up. I’m considering Widex moments but also want to look at the new Philips 9050’s coming out. I’m not sure with my loss that the 0.5 msec of the Widex will help enough for me and the 9050 is a brand new chip. Even the 9040’s are a bit better for noise control than my 9030 and the 9050 is said to handle artifact noise caused by movement and wind much better, although the body is also a bit thicker I’m told.

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#32

Great thanks for sharing with everyone, always good to hear from a successful project, these links may be of some interest to you and others.

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

https://musicandhearingaids.org/

#33

Thanks I did research those previously. I thought I had a couple of good programs and it wasn’t until I decided to take some guitar lessons to be able to play more solos and worked on learning Melissa that I found my mods fell apart at the really higher frequency vibrato and bends of Melissa. And I bought a new PRS SE “Pauls’s Guitar” model that might have brought this out a bit too. I’m sure none of this is ideal but I made big effort to get close and it took about 5 iterations with HearingSuite software to arrive at my changes. I think there is a fine line where the notes gets sweeter and then suddenly just fall apart in pitch and shrillness and become distorted. The trick is to get pretty close to that point with some margin to actually improve the sound of a live instrument over no HA without overdriving things. Setting up the guitar, amp, etc. requires that I come close to hearing what others are hearing but never quite sure about that, lol. The general program is absolutely horrible for live guitar playing for me and I suspect I could improve it a bit for speech with similar but much smaller reductions in high frequency gains. Save that work for another day, lol.

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