Marshall Chasin

Marshall Chasin, AuD, is an audiologist and the Director of Auditory Research at the Musicians’ Clinics of Canada, Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto (in Linguistics), Associate Professor in the School of Communication Disorders and Sciences at the Western University. He is the author of over 200 articles and 7 books including Musicians and the Prevention of Hearing Loss. Dr. Chasin has been the recipient of many awards over the years including the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award for service to Canada and the Canada 150 Medal in 2017. He has developed a new TTS app called Temporary Hearing Loss Test app.

The vented/tuned earplug for musicians

Marshall Chasin

For the vast majority of musicians a hearing protector that provides a flat or uniform attenuation is the way to go. A hearing protector with a flat attenuation means that the lower frequency fundamental and higher frequency harmonics are all treated the same- everything is attenuated by the same amount that ostensibly reduces the sound level of the music from

Musician earplugs and the 1.4 mm vent

Marshall Chasin

When fitting musician earplugs, the clinical rule of thumb is the longer the better. This has to do with the issue of stability as well as minimizing the occlusion effect. Simply stated, the occlusion effect is caused by the wearer’s own voice (or vibration energy from their instrument that is transduced through the mandible and condyle to the boney portion

Modifying musician earplugs

Marshall Chasin

Musician earplugs use some very creative methods to ensure that the attenuation that a musician receives is as flat as possible. The lower frequency fundamental notes and the higher frequency harmonics are all treated identically- the spectrum of the music remains the same, albeit at a slightly lower level. Technologies to accomplish this typically involve passive acoustic networks that utilize

The romantic side of a 10 kohm resistor

Marshall Chasin

As readers of this blog are already aware, most modern hearing aids do a poorer job of reproducing music than many of the hearing aids in the late 1980s. The limitation with all digital hearing aids is the analog-to-digital (A/D) converter that converts analog sound and music from the microphone into a series of numbers for the digital hearing aid

Sound recording for the hard of hearing Part 5

Marshall Chasin

This is the fifth in a series of blogs outlining some of what we know about optimal music recording. When reading through these blogs one should be struck that we really know everything we need to know already when it comes to recording. In some cases, what was learned in our first year audiology class provided “obvious” recording cues (such

Digital Audio Workstations or DAW Part 4

Marshall Chasin

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts outlining some of what we know about optimal music recording. When reading through these posts one should be struck that we really know everything we need to know already when it comes to recording. In some cases, what was learned in our first year audiology class provided “obvious” recording cues

Music and XLR cables – Part 3

Marshall Chasin

This is the third in a series of blogs outlining some of what we know about optimal music recording. When reading through these blogs one should be struck that we really know everything we need to know already when it comes to recording. In some cases, what was learned in our first year audiology class provided “obvious” recording cues (such

Music and Microphones for the Audiologist – Part 2

Marshall Chasin

This is the second in a series of blogs outlining some of what we know about optimal music recording. When reading through these blogs one should be struck that we really know everything we need to know already when it comes to recording. In some cases, what was learned in our first year audiology class provided “obvious” recording cues (such

Music recording for audiologists – Part I

Marshall Chasin

This is the first in a series of blogs outlining some of what we know about optimal music recording. When reading through these blogs one should be struck that we really know everything we need to know already when it comes to recording. In some cases, what was learned in our first year audiology class provided “obvious” recording cues (such

Why feedback control should be disabled for music programs – Part II

Marshall Chasin

Depending on the three ways that acoustic feedback management is implemented, one should think twice about enabling such a feature. The three ways that have been used are: (1) phase cancellation, (2) overall reduction of gain, and (3) notch filtering. As discussed in Part I of this blog last week, phase cancellation is based on the generation of a sound