Deaf DJs

I have poor hearing and tinnitus in my right ear. Not sure how it started think after a ear infection when I was a teenager. Since I got back into DJing I have started to look after my ears and always wear ear plugs when I go to a club or DJ anywhere loud.

My main problem is that beatmatching can be a struggle with one bad ear and my right ear can’t hear all the sounds in a track. But digital Djing helps me a lot with the sync button 🙂 I only Dj for fun so I don’t really care what people think about that haha

I must admit I am scared that DJing could still ruin my hearing even with the protection so I try to rest my ears a lot and not do it every day. Tonight I mixed for the first time in ages because I have been busy but after 2 hours I have called it a night!

I am very keen to hear more about how people with hearing problems can DJ it might give me more confidence that I wont destroy my hearing for good 🙂

SimBa, post: 40054, member: 5184 wrote: I’d like to know what your initial reactions are . . . Looking forward to hearing peoples opinions on this, so discuss!

Interesting question, and I sense the responses are going off-topic. I bet every DJ in this forum over the age of 25 has lost some hearing!!! However, most of us are a long ways from being deaf.

I’ve heard that Deaf people can actually hear or feel loud booms. Sort of like when you turn a filter sweep to deep muffle. So the Deaf’s perceptions of music not as limited as most people with normal hearing (like me) think.

Assuming this is what a Deaf DJ (DDJ – hope this isn’t an offensive term) would be working with, my reaction is that a DDJ would come at DJing from a completely different angle. And coming at things from a radically different angle is often the source of amazing creativity and breakthroughs.

I think only hearing or sensing the booms would connect DDJs on a primal, raw level with the rhythmic side of the music. I also think DDJs would read crowd reactions much better and be finely attuned to the social aspects of music. That combination could be very extremely powerful.

But I might be stretching things in an attempt to be fair-minded. I don’t think muffled booms are the most interesting part of dance music. To me, the art and craft of DJing is putting the intricacies of the full spectrum of music together. I could also see all sorts of key clashes and musical mismatches happening.

Even though digital software could minimize many sonic clashes, it creates a problem that plagues DJ’s with normal hearing. Another DJ who’s going on top10 lists and software suggestions, instead of feeling the spirit of the music.

But does that matter for the people you’re trying to help? I sense your motivation isn’t to turn DDJ’s into the next Ritchie Hawtin, but expand their horizons. That’s a good thing.

A quick side note: apparently there’s a DDJ out there who’s famous enough to be the star of a national US commercial I saw a year ago.

SimBa, post: 40256, member: 5184 wrote: This is a really interesting well balanced response. So much so I’d like to quote you in the written part of my assignment if that’s cool with you?

Totally fine. Glad I was of help. Feel free to PM me if you want my “real” name and info.

SimBa, post: 40256, member: 5184 wrote: That makes me wonder if, with training, the brain of someone who’s deaf would do a similar trick with the visual cortex? Would a Deaf person be able to perceive as much through the waveforms on something like traktor or Serato as we do with our ears?

I can only guess. Somewhere on this site is an article/discussion on something called “waveriding” which is DJ’s looking at the waveforms and relying on the snyc button to mix without headphones to cue the upcoming song. It might be considered “cheating” for us, but for a DDJ it’s probably a great workflow.

It’s been many years since I’ve done music production, but I remember there was sound design software being developed that would let you take a digital image and convert it into soundwaves and vice versa. This might be the best way to hear the results of sounds created by visuals. As I remember, it was designed more to create individual sounds not music, but you could probably adapt it. And there may have been interesting developments since I last heard about it.

Hello,

Great idea you got here, SimBa! I don’t know much about how deaf people could handle all this, but I’m half-deaf, have tinnitus and I will try to give you some insight what problems a hard-of-hearing DJ might face:

Beatmatching by ear is terribly difficult for me, I have to do it with one ear with the help of the cue/mix knob. A brain can separate different audio sources without a problem, given some time to learn – IF you have two good ears. Even people who are hard-of-hearing on both ears are better off than me in this case. Imagine all audio information reaching your brain is like it is given a big bowl of LEGO, your one ear saying to it: “figure out the bits you want yourself”. Which leads to the next problem:

Exhaustion. Loud music and concentrating on what you hear exhausts your brain/ear after a period of time. With hard-of-hearing people, this occurs much, much faster, since the Brain is constantly figuring out what to do with the crap your ears are sending to it. For example, even following a lecture in the University is pretty straining and tiring for me – from an acoustic point of view. This leads to another Problem:

Background noise. This is my worst enemy and of many other hard-of-hearing people, too. I rarely visit a club with people I don’t know well. Why? I hardly understand them because of the background noise (music 😉 ), while they can understand each other very well. And People are getting tired repeating themselves really quick. This is a real problem i face all the time; Even if you pointed out you have hearing problems, people get tired of saying things again and be like “whatever, not important”. This is getting me really angry…
The Point is, communication is very difficult in a club environment, which can lead to some problems like misunderstanding important things concerning your Djing.

Here are some things you might need as a DDj /HOHDJ:

• As already said: Using the waveforms and cue points. Deaf/hard-of-hearing people have a better hand/eye coordination (i guess) Train your hand/eye coordination: Look at the waveform, see the right point to drop your next tune, with the right cue point, right in. DDjs /HOHDJs rely on it. Maybe play some PC-Games which are benefiting the hand-eye coordination, like Ego-shooters (CS) or speedy RTS games like Starcraft 2.
• Everyone that has something to do with the deaf/h.o.h. – Dj (manager, bouncer…) should know about it – In case of emergency they will come with a written note – no room for misunderstanding!
• Know your tracks inside out. This one is for all Djs, but for the ones with hearing problems all the more. Your Brain needs do familiarize with the tunes so it doesn’t have to work so hard.
• A kind of a thick hide – You need it, more than others.

Oh – wow, Wall of text :DHope you get some info out of it!

Cheers

One tip: show them Pete Tong: It’s all gone.
Love this movie. It reminds people how important the ears are and also show deaf people that they can succeed becoming DJs.

+1 for that ! Its a great watch !