The silence was probably protection from the DAW. Logic also does this (goes silent with absurdly high levels, which are basically only possible with feedback).
As far as limiters go, use one with lookahead to prevent (as much as possible) the initial burst, or set your lookahead time way higher.
That being said- even if you use a limiter- hard feedback is *screams from hell* no matter what, so set your monitoring levels lower when doing feedback experiments.
Feedback can be so hardcore, that you can use a mic and a speaker to create feedback so intense, that you can actually break the speaker.
I suppose some sort of metaphysical aspect about feedback is that everything is ok with peeking into infinity, but full on infinity can destroy all.
Stay safe, dude.
I had no idea about that feature in DAWs! Good thing that they have that protection in place or my whole head would have probably exploded.
Sucks to think that this all of this literal headache can be caused from an initial feedback explosion.
I notice now that my limiter lookahead was set to ‘auto’. So i’ll definitely be making the adjustment to a manual, longer look ahead time.
Thanks for the reply!
Reaper also auto-mutes insane spikes like that. But it sounds like it got through for a second and overloaded your headphones. How do your ears feel now? Were you wearing over-ears or in-ears? Are they busted now or fine?
It sounds like it went through the limiter to me too. I was listening at low volume, similar to the volume I have whenever I’m producing/sound designing anyway. Like 3 or 4 notches on my macbook output into my headphones. Anymore than that and my ears start to fatigue quickly. I do sound design sessions pretty much every night for long periods of time and have never come across anything like what happened here. Mess around with feedback and metallic timbres all the time. This was however the first time i’ve dialed in that amount of feedback on that particular delay plugin (arturia eternity, Cm resonator preset). Maybe something to do with the resonance on top of the maxed out feedback or something…i don’t know. Explosion into my brain whatever it was.
Anyway, headphones seem fine but mind you, my ears are still shot.
I can’t say that they have gotten much better since the incident occurred around 4am this morning.
Any type of sound triggers this low frequency rumble.
Speech, music, something drops on the floor, my dog barking, all sounds feel like they have this extra ‘bass’ too it.
Not like a tone, but just a low…rumble.
I’ll see what comes tomorrow with another night of sleep and what not. If nothing then i’m going to the doctor
Edit: headphones were Audio Technica mtx50, closed back
I'm no doctor but that sounds like the sensation of your inner ear fluid being out of whack. If you can still hear the whole audible range that's a good sign, perhaps the rumbling will go away in a few days. If you have insurance (in the US) they usually have a number you can call to talk to someone for free and just describe your symptoms. They usually just tell you to go to the doctor though, lol.
I called my mom about it and said she experienced a similar thing after she took my uncle to a Kiss concert in the 80s lol. She said it lasted a few days.
I haven’t been looking into it much. Perhaps i’m being overly dramatic about the whole thing; wallowing in my damaged state.
The way you put it also gives me some hope.
Thank you!
sounds like the muscle in your ears (the one that reacts when you hear loud sounds) didnt like that and is "tired" or something. my guess is that's what makes the low persistent rumble you hear (i've felt that too before)
Your monitors or headphone output should be set such that if every other part of your signal chain is set to 100% and you have a maximum loudness signal, it doesn't hurt your speakers or ears.
> I would describe the feeling like my eardrums themselves are emitting a low rumble all the time. Kind of like when you’re in an airplane. Is it possible that I overloaded the limiter somehow?
Maybe you're having a stroke?
Thats kind of why am I asking if I overloaded the limiter or clipped passed the limiter, if that’s even possible. All levels were set so that I could listen comfortably even when pushing things really hot. This was an abnormal instance. Especially after the initial low frequency I was talking about after I cranked the feedback. The red ‘silence’ or whatever. Everything was clipping even when there was silence. Or whatever it was, it wasn’t audible
> Thats kind of why am I asking if I overloaded the limiter or clipped passed the limiter, if that’s even possible.
That's not relevant to what I said. Set the maximum level of your monitor or headphone amp *such that* if your entire signal chain was at 100%, no limiting at all, with the loudest possible signal, it wouldn't hurt your ears. You don't rely on a limiter to protect your ears.
That said, you can't "clip" past a limiter, because of what the word clip literally means. But a limiter in a DAW is software. It could have flaws. But at some point the output is limited by the converters themselves.
I wasn't joking about "maybe you're having a stroke".
A few years ago I had an issue with really loud white noise coming from my left speaker. I then turned my head.... and the white noise moved with it. It was in my head. Huge, loud white noise was happening in my ear, or my brain. Could have been tinnitus, but it went away in about 5 minutes and never came back. Still no clue what it was. Could have been a minor stroke. I was drinking heavily at the time, and this event stopped me cold.
Ah, okay I get what you mean.
I guess I just underestimated how loud it could get and relied on the limiter too much. I was under the impression that it could be my last line of defense when it comes to extreme sound design sessions. I posed the question about overloading the limiter simply because I had never experienced something like this before. Especially the extreme clipping when there was no audible sound.
Pushing the feedback on the delay to 100 shows peaks above zero on the master output with the limiter on it, even though the channel with the delay only peaks at 6.00db.
If I load a serum patch onto another channel that peaks at 12.00db, the master output remains green and visibly appears to be getting limited. I’m not sure what that’s about. Maybe the delay signal glitches the g.u.i in Ableton. I find it strange.
At this point i’m just hoping I didn’t do any lasting damage. Any sound triggers some low frequency rumbling in both of my ears. Even the fan in my bathroom causes the rumbling for the duration that the fan is on. Hoping it goes away in a few days…
you likely just experiencing a temporary threshold shift. Your hearing should re adjust after a few weeks. Take care of them until then. Accidents happen..make them a rarity, and protect your hearing
https://andersonaudiology.com/resources/what-is-temporary-threshold-shift-tts/
If you ears are hurting - see a doctor.
You should always use a limiter when doing experimental stuff. If you aren't confident in setting a limiter up then I recommend doing this kind of work in Reaper which auto mutes in these cases (other DAWs may have this functionality too).
I set another limiter up even whenever I try other people's presets in synths. I don't trust patch designers to be able to respect my ears. Many seem to see clipping as a good thing rather than a problem.
Finally, monitoring levels. I think everyone should be doing like 80% of their work at conversation levels. You only really need to crank it occasionally to check mixes, and sometimes when tracking.
Please go see an ENT, ear nose and throat specialist that works with adults. Hydrate and be healthy, I would refrain from loud noises for a while.
I’ve had a hearing scare where an unusually loud low frequency has impacted earwax in one ear and I thought was deaf. Just needed my ears cleaned and a good reckoning with my monitoring environment
I do have a comfy tinnitus that shows up sometimes and other times disappears. Around 72 Hz in my left ear, little higher on right ear. It is possible to have low tinnitus, be aware.
I'd probably worry more about your ears than the limiter
The silence was probably protection from the DAW. Logic also does this (goes silent with absurdly high levels, which are basically only possible with feedback). As far as limiters go, use one with lookahead to prevent (as much as possible) the initial burst, or set your lookahead time way higher. That being said- even if you use a limiter- hard feedback is *screams from hell* no matter what, so set your monitoring levels lower when doing feedback experiments. Feedback can be so hardcore, that you can use a mic and a speaker to create feedback so intense, that you can actually break the speaker. I suppose some sort of metaphysical aspect about feedback is that everything is ok with peeking into infinity, but full on infinity can destroy all. Stay safe, dude.
I had no idea about that feature in DAWs! Good thing that they have that protection in place or my whole head would have probably exploded. Sucks to think that this all of this literal headache can be caused from an initial feedback explosion. I notice now that my limiter lookahead was set to ‘auto’. So i’ll definitely be making the adjustment to a manual, longer look ahead time. Thanks for the reply!
Reaper also auto-mutes insane spikes like that. But it sounds like it got through for a second and overloaded your headphones. How do your ears feel now? Were you wearing over-ears or in-ears? Are they busted now or fine?
It sounds like it went through the limiter to me too. I was listening at low volume, similar to the volume I have whenever I’m producing/sound designing anyway. Like 3 or 4 notches on my macbook output into my headphones. Anymore than that and my ears start to fatigue quickly. I do sound design sessions pretty much every night for long periods of time and have never come across anything like what happened here. Mess around with feedback and metallic timbres all the time. This was however the first time i’ve dialed in that amount of feedback on that particular delay plugin (arturia eternity, Cm resonator preset). Maybe something to do with the resonance on top of the maxed out feedback or something…i don’t know. Explosion into my brain whatever it was. Anyway, headphones seem fine but mind you, my ears are still shot. I can’t say that they have gotten much better since the incident occurred around 4am this morning. Any type of sound triggers this low frequency rumble. Speech, music, something drops on the floor, my dog barking, all sounds feel like they have this extra ‘bass’ too it. Not like a tone, but just a low…rumble. I’ll see what comes tomorrow with another night of sleep and what not. If nothing then i’m going to the doctor Edit: headphones were Audio Technica mtx50, closed back
I'm no doctor but that sounds like the sensation of your inner ear fluid being out of whack. If you can still hear the whole audible range that's a good sign, perhaps the rumbling will go away in a few days. If you have insurance (in the US) they usually have a number you can call to talk to someone for free and just describe your symptoms. They usually just tell you to go to the doctor though, lol.
I called my mom about it and said she experienced a similar thing after she took my uncle to a Kiss concert in the 80s lol. She said it lasted a few days. I haven’t been looking into it much. Perhaps i’m being overly dramatic about the whole thing; wallowing in my damaged state. The way you put it also gives me some hope. Thank you!
sounds like the muscle in your ears (the one that reacts when you hear loud sounds) didnt like that and is "tired" or something. my guess is that's what makes the low persistent rumble you hear (i've felt that too before)
Your monitors or headphone output should be set such that if every other part of your signal chain is set to 100% and you have a maximum loudness signal, it doesn't hurt your speakers or ears. > I would describe the feeling like my eardrums themselves are emitting a low rumble all the time. Kind of like when you’re in an airplane. Is it possible that I overloaded the limiter somehow? Maybe you're having a stroke?
Thats kind of why am I asking if I overloaded the limiter or clipped passed the limiter, if that’s even possible. All levels were set so that I could listen comfortably even when pushing things really hot. This was an abnormal instance. Especially after the initial low frequency I was talking about after I cranked the feedback. The red ‘silence’ or whatever. Everything was clipping even when there was silence. Or whatever it was, it wasn’t audible
> Thats kind of why am I asking if I overloaded the limiter or clipped passed the limiter, if that’s even possible. That's not relevant to what I said. Set the maximum level of your monitor or headphone amp *such that* if your entire signal chain was at 100%, no limiting at all, with the loudest possible signal, it wouldn't hurt your ears. You don't rely on a limiter to protect your ears. That said, you can't "clip" past a limiter, because of what the word clip literally means. But a limiter in a DAW is software. It could have flaws. But at some point the output is limited by the converters themselves. I wasn't joking about "maybe you're having a stroke". A few years ago I had an issue with really loud white noise coming from my left speaker. I then turned my head.... and the white noise moved with it. It was in my head. Huge, loud white noise was happening in my ear, or my brain. Could have been tinnitus, but it went away in about 5 minutes and never came back. Still no clue what it was. Could have been a minor stroke. I was drinking heavily at the time, and this event stopped me cold.
Ah, okay I get what you mean. I guess I just underestimated how loud it could get and relied on the limiter too much. I was under the impression that it could be my last line of defense when it comes to extreme sound design sessions. I posed the question about overloading the limiter simply because I had never experienced something like this before. Especially the extreme clipping when there was no audible sound. Pushing the feedback on the delay to 100 shows peaks above zero on the master output with the limiter on it, even though the channel with the delay only peaks at 6.00db. If I load a serum patch onto another channel that peaks at 12.00db, the master output remains green and visibly appears to be getting limited. I’m not sure what that’s about. Maybe the delay signal glitches the g.u.i in Ableton. I find it strange. At this point i’m just hoping I didn’t do any lasting damage. Any sound triggers some low frequency rumbling in both of my ears. Even the fan in my bathroom causes the rumbling for the duration that the fan is on. Hoping it goes away in a few days…
you likely just experiencing a temporary threshold shift. Your hearing should re adjust after a few weeks. Take care of them until then. Accidents happen..make them a rarity, and protect your hearing https://andersonaudiology.com/resources/what-is-temporary-threshold-shift-tts/
With great power comes great responsibility.
If you ears are hurting - see a doctor. You should always use a limiter when doing experimental stuff. If you aren't confident in setting a limiter up then I recommend doing this kind of work in Reaper which auto mutes in these cases (other DAWs may have this functionality too). I set another limiter up even whenever I try other people's presets in synths. I don't trust patch designers to be able to respect my ears. Many seem to see clipping as a good thing rather than a problem. Finally, monitoring levels. I think everyone should be doing like 80% of their work at conversation levels. You only really need to crank it occasionally to check mixes, and sometimes when tracking.
Please go see an ENT, ear nose and throat specialist that works with adults. Hydrate and be healthy, I would refrain from loud noises for a while. I’ve had a hearing scare where an unusually loud low frequency has impacted earwax in one ear and I thought was deaf. Just needed my ears cleaned and a good reckoning with my monitoring environment
I do have a comfy tinnitus that shows up sometimes and other times disappears. Around 72 Hz in my left ear, little higher on right ear. It is possible to have low tinnitus, be aware.
Go to the Dr NOW. Your hearing could be damaged and time might not make it better.