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thinking you can hear things in the mix that arent actually there

S

staf

Active Member
hey folks

Sometimes when i listen to music i think i can hear certain things in the music that actually arnt there. For example, just about every time i hear John Lennon sing i think i can hear distortion in his vocals, i know that im misguided as i think i can hear it on every Beatles record that i have, and i have heaps. I know for sure that im hearing things because it even happens with cds and nearly, when im in the mood, just about every song.

Am i alone with this one? or do you guys do it as well?
 
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The name of the album --I can't think of right now ---- But in this one song --I swear I hear a phone ringing in the background. Very faint but it's there.
 
Put on some headphones and take one of online hearing tests where they play tone bursts of specific frequencies. Just google "online hearing test" and give a few of them a try. If any of the frequency tones sound unclear to you ask someone else to listen to the same frequency tones and see if those frequencies sound unclear to them also. If they don't you should probably go see an audiologist.

The only time I hear rogue distortion in music is when my ears are fatigued from recent exposure to loud environments.
 
I'd agree that if you're hearing it on ALL your Beatles recordings, it's something going on with your hearing. There are all kinds of intended and unintended things in some recordings, but nothing that pervades all of them like that. Get it checked if you can, just in case it is a first sign of something that could develop into something more serious. Better safe than sorry. Good luck!
 
i have a cd by The Black Keys that sounds like that to me. doesn't matter what i listen to it on everything sounds distorted. everyone else thinks it sounds just fine. :dunno:
 
Per the OP's question, I was listening to Bjork's "Pagan Poetry" thru my Sony JA20ES MD for the DAC it has, and experiencing all sorts of things....

There is a line that says "Morse coded signals.." and in the background, for the very first time, I hear.....MORSE TAPPING!

Probably those badass Yamaha NS690III's. Had never spun Bjork on them.

So, in a nutshell, there are all sorts of odd noises that can creep in a mix. In a christmas cd I made, you can hear my office chair squeak as I lean over to hit a certain chord. I ended up calling that tune "Squeaky Chair Blues"

How about turning this thread, or another one, into "Weird/unintended sounds in music"

such as..

Kim Basinger's pleasure moans (real) in the Batman soundtrack (1989 version) by Prince?
 
I could be partial hearing loss.

I don't hear distortion in John Lennon's voice, but I do hear sibilance in Paul McCartney's voice as well as many other artists. Doesn't matter if it is vinyl, CD, MP3, or the radio and it does not matter what system I listen to it on. It started a couple years ago (at age 50ish). At first, I thought it was my system. Maybe it was time for a rebuild since it was over 30 years old. I took a Johnny Lang CD and listened to it on 5 different systems in my house using a total of 12 different CD or DVD players and got the same result. Tried it in the car. Same thing. I bought and tried compressors and de-essers to get rid of the problem. It helped a little, but it was still there.

Then, last month I went to my daughter's house to see the new office she had built and the sibilance in her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. It was so bad, I could feel my blood pressure getting higher, the longer I stayed in the room. Nobody else in the room could hear it.

Generally, hearing loss starts at the higher frequencies as the hairs in the cochlea die. (the higher frequencies being at the opening) I am thinking that maybe other sections may also become damaged from loud noise of a particular frequency. So maybe my hearing lose is in the frequency of the S in some voices and the sibilance is being created inside of my ear - not by the recording or system.

Enz_Brit_Basilar_membrane_analysis_of_sound_frequencies.gif


As for the weird/unintended sounds in music. I recently bought a couple Jimi Hendrix records and on one of the songs I could swear I heard a dirty pot on the mixing board as one of the instruments was being panned from left to right. I will have to pull them back out and listen again to see where it is in the recording to see if anyone else can confirm it.
 
ΔΔ I have the same problem with in a certain range. Same as above stated some peoples voices cause me to wince and grit my teeth. I'm in my 50's now and chalk it up to hearing damage from years of working around loud equipment. I used to use a phantom channel and it would bring out lots of background sounds in the recording studio.
 
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jsisk said:
I could be partial hearing loss.

I don't hear distortion in John Lennon's voice, but I do hear sibilance in Paul McCartney's voice as well as many other artists. Doesn't matter if it is vinyl, CD, MP3, or the radio and it does not matter what system I listen to it on. It started a couple years ago (at age 50ish). At first, I thought it was my system. Maybe it was time for a rebuild since it was over 30 years old. I took a Johnny Lang CD and listened to it on 5 different systems in my house using a total of 12 different CD or DVD players and got the same result. Tried it in the car. Same thing. I bought and tried compressors and de-essers to get rid of the problem. It helped a little, but it was still there.

Then, last month I went to my daughter's house to see the new office she had built and the sibilance in her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. It was so bad, I could feel my blood pressure getting higher, the longer I stayed in the room. Nobody else in the room could hear it.

Generally, hearing loss starts at the higher frequencies as the hairs in the cochlea die. (the higher frequencies being at the opening) I am thinking that maybe other sections may also become damaged from loud noise of a particular frequency. So maybe my hearing lose is in the frequency of the S in some voices and the sibilance is being created inside of my ear - not by the recording or system.

Enz_Brit_Basilar_membrane_analysis_of_sound_frequencies.gif


As for the weird/unintended sounds in music. I recently bought a couple Jimi Hendrix records and on one of the songs I could swear I heard a dirty pot on the mixing board as one of the instruments was being panned from left to right. I will have to pull them back out and listen again to see where it is in the recording to see if anyone else can confirm it.
Click to expand...

Great post. I am in that camp as well, at 41. I find myself leaning towards more softer sounding equipment and speakers as a result. Also I believe I may have rheumatoid arthritis, as my right pointy finger knuckle has been hot and unable to bend, also in big toes. Either that or gout.

Getting old can really suck.
 
JHS2RT said:
The name of the album --I can't think of right now ---- But in this one song --I swear I hear a phone ringing in the background. Very faint but it's there.
Click to expand...

Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy, last track side 2 "The Ocean", in the guitar solo a couple of bars in, there is a telephone ringing.

Also many other Led Zeppelin songs feature the squeaky Bass Drum pedal of John Bonham (Ludwig Speed King pedal).
Since I've been Lovin you, Houses of the Holy on Physical Graffiti and a host of others....
You would have thought whoever was looking after his drum kit would have put a drop of machine oil on the pedal mechanism.....oh well its all in the history now.....

To the OP, yes I agree it sounds like you have a hearing issue....

When you say "at the club" what does this mean? Are you exposed to high SPL's a lot?
 
Hey guys.

I will get a hearing test soon and hoping there's nothing to worry about. But you see a lot of the time i don't hear anything bad in the mix and i enjoy the music, but then there's times where i do hear flaws.

Not sure.

Cheers!
 
Back when I was selling home audio, the owner also sometimes rented out an old Crown amp or two and a mixer with industrial Klipsch speakers and other assorted gear as a semi-pro temporary set-up for various local functions in schools, churches, businesses, etc. One young college student rented some of this for his dorm room one weekend. He called Monday morning to report that the equipment was not functioning properly, requesting us to pick it up and refund his rental.

The owner asked me to go check it out, and to pick up the equipment. I arrived to find a poor young college freshman in his first psychotic break which would eventually be diagnosed as schizophrenia. The "defective" equipment was unable to either amplify or reproduce recorded voices he heard coming from his walls. I called Student Health and kept him occupied until they and Security showed up. The owner did refund the rental.

So, the good news is that your hearing might be perfect, it may only be your mind at issue. :)
 
I've been hearing impaired for about as long as I remember but not enuff for the cost and severely limited effectiveness of the old analogue aids. It's always been sounding to me like mumbling and distance. Imagine my delight discovering high-resolution audio in the 1970s and being able to control how well I could hear the recordings with moderate sound volume and really good system SQ. There was still an inability to hear well "into" a recording and it's details before I got modern hearing aids tho' before, the difference between indifferent and good gear was still obvious to me. The modern digital processing aids require some accommodation but are well worth it for what they make possible short of re-incarnation and a do-over.
 
Some old Beatles recordings have a rough vocal track that's laid out before or along with bass, Rhythm guitar, and drum tracks. This rough vocal track is not intended to be in the final recording but sometimes its remnants can still be heard along with the final vocals. Yer Blues from the white album is a good example of this although it seems like the rough track was left audible on purpose.

This is a really interesting site that lists most anomalies in Beatles recordings and also explains what happened with the vocal tracks on Yer Blues.

http://wgo.signal11.org.uk/wgo.htm
 
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Could be your imagination. You heard it once as background noise, and now Your Bleeped Up Brain fills it in every time you hear it. Get used to it.

(Great show by the way. On H2 if you get it with your tv package.)
 
Yes Staf, it can happen.

There is the well-known experiment with the omitted frequency. Play pink noise over a system, with a very narrow-band notch filter at say 2 kHz. Have someone listen to this for say 30 - 40 seconds. Then remove the filter - and said person will swear a peak at 2 kHz has been added! There are other such tricks, now eluding my memory (speaking of age and such ....)
 
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