Singer Problems

Hearing Aids
#1

I’m a singer. One of the things I noticed when I was trying out the More 1’s 3 weeks ago was that when I sang with them on, the would distort my own voice in a big way kinda blowing out my ears. I’m a trained opera singer. My voice was so distorted in my own ears and so loud that I sang softly to stop the distortion as much as I could. Is there a way to set the HAs or do I need to take them out if I want to sing. I have an audiologist representing YesHearing coming over tomorrow, I guess I can ask him, but I wanted to get HearingTracker wisdom on this issue, so I could be prepared. Thank you in advance.

Musician

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#2

New hearing aids pretty much always distort your own voice. The more you wear them, the more your voice will sound more natural and your ability to sing will get better

#3

Are you using the MyMusic program?
If not, have your audi enable it, and set the gains for your needs.
It’s great that they are coming to you , so you can be singing while the audi is programming in your environment…
Be sure the audi is aware of the proper way to fine tune the MyMusic program, or it can sound very distorted.
Maybe have them call Oticon for guidance if needed.

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#4

Opera singers are trained to project a very strong voice, no? It does make sense that with the More 1 right at the proximity of your voice to cause you to hear distortion.

Have you tried to simply just reduce the volume on your More until a more comfortable level when you sing? If yes, doesn’t that help?

And what kind of distortion are you talking about? Saturated/crackling distortion due to the loudness? Or distortion in some other funny way?

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#5

I suspect it was feedback kicking in due to facial movement. Whenever I occasionally open my mouth fully. Sometimes it will make the ear canal move to the point it has a gap and sound leaks; thus feedback occurs.

You can test it now by opening your mouth as far as you can. Did you hear something whistle?

#6

This. And this is exactly what I’m going to do. It’s just so amplified I can’t stand the volume of it. You’re right about being trained to project. After all we have to project over a 150 piece orchestra sometimes. Thank you very much

#7

I had no idea. I’m ask him about it tomorrow morning. Thank you very much. Of course the other suggestion of just turning the volume down was a big duh!!! lol. Ty all very much.

#8

@Musician , if you haven’t done so already, have your audi set up a separate program for music performance (I have never used “My Music”. That might be a good starting point).

In that music performance program, have the audi reduce the feedback manager to the minimum that you can get away with without experiencing frequent feedback. That should reduce any “warbling” you might hear while singing high, sustained notes.

Eliminate or minimize all speech comprehension enhancements and compression.

Consider buying some “Hearing aid sweatbands”. These are small moisture-wicking cloth covers that fit over your HAs. Try stuffing some cotton or something into the hearing aid sweatbands to try to muffle the microphone inputs on the HAs. Or think of some other way to muffle the HA mics. Maybe try scotch tape over the HA mics. If one layer of scotch tape isn’t enough, try two or three layers.

As an opera singer you are probably singing really loudly and the HAs are probably distorting right at the microphone input. So your HAs are trying to process sound that is distorted from the very beginning. The key is to reduce the volume of that audio signal (your voice) so the HA mic doesn’t clip the sound wave. Hope this helps. Good luck.

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#9

Ty @ziploc and all others. Great suggestions all! I get my More 1s this morning. Even at my level of HL there is a difference with HAs. Ty again.

#10

If you’re getting feedback when you move your jaw then your molds don’t fit properly. You should never get any feedback

#11

He volunteered MyMusic program and set it all up for me. Thank you.

I do have a kind of a slight white noise in my left ear (worse ear) in quiet situations. It’s weird. He said it was normal and I’d get used to it.I don’t remember it from the trial pair. Odd.

#12

I tried some oticon hearing aids 8 years ago. Things may have changed since then with oticon, but there was no way for my audiologist to program the distortion out of the piano playing during my trial period. When I returned them at the end of the trial, I requested something more like the hearing aids I had before. Piano distortion problems were gone even with the same person programming them. I’ve heard widex has good technology to keep the A/D converter from clipping. Maybe you want to try that?

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#13

I’m a classical guitarist. I also frequent Association of Musicians With Hearing Loss on facebook. Believe me, this comes up a lot. Have a dedicated program with the feedback manager OFF, not turned down. I just went through this with my new HA’s. The standard Musician’s Program came with the Feedback manager turned as low as it could go, and I got tremendous warble from that setting. It’s a bit complicated to explain but super easy for your audiologist to do, perhaps with the help of an Oticon audi on the phone. Just explain to them both that if it doesn’t help (it will) you can simply turn the feedback manager on again. While you’re at it, turn off wind block and a number of other great features that audis and reps love because of how they help patients with speech. They all wreck music.
compression control has to be disabled as well. You want all those overtones, right? And a range of sound from high to low well beyond what speech compression allows.

If you visit the Adults Musician site, enquire about a handy and brief pdf that reputable audis put together concerning adjusting aids for live performers. it make a world of difference. Night and day. And all easy to do, if you can find an audi who will help.

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#14

You might ask your audi to decrease the gain on your left h/a at the higher frequencies to see if that minimizes that white noise.

Sound like the MyMusic program got you sorted, too.
Take notes, keep a journal, and go back for adjustments, if needed, until you are satisfied.

The More aids can do the job, it’s up to the fitter to make it happen.
You have to stay with it.

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#15

I’m having trouble linking. Just google Association of adult musicians with hearing loss.

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#16

Small world. I’m a Julie are trained opera singer. I now teach singing. When you are singing you need to either turn down the hearing aid volume in your app, or use my music. One of my students who is a professional also has the more ones. He uses my music program exclusively. I use the general program and I’ll turn down my volume if I have to sing. It really is an easy problem.

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#17

Hello Musician, I have Oticon opn1. I was wondering if you found a solution to hear better when singing? Thank you.

#18

Are you already using the OPN 1 built-in Music program? It’s not the newer MyMusic program only available on the More or later. It’s the original legacy Music program. Some people actually prefers this to the new MyMusic. If not, give it a try. It sounds a lot more open with less noise suppression and other types of processing compared to the default program.

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#19

Thank you. I am going to give it a try.

#20

It’s not automatically available for you. You will need to get an HCP to select and assign it to one of the 4 programs before you can choose that program and use it. If you’re a DIY for Oticon, you can do it yourself in Genie 2.

But do go into the ON app or the iPhone MFI menu to see if you’re lucky and it’s already installed in one of the programs already without you knowing it.