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Hello I'm deaf in one ear but I love to play competitive FPS pc games. The problem is I can't pinpoint where people are in the game. Which makes it hard to shoot them in the face before they shoot me in the face. I can kinda make do buy swing around wildly with a wide stereo spread to locate sounds, which is how i find things in real life like my cellphone. What i wanted to try was to mix both channels into the same ear piece, but add an effect or some unique eq setting to only one of the channels to allow me to tell which side it represented.

help!

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  • I'm not sure why this has been put on hold. If you think I'm seeking product recommendations then you are assuming that a product is the only way to solve this problem.
    – hello
    Jan 19, 2015 at 19:38

2 Answers 2

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It's not easy to replicate the actual Haas, or Precedence effect [the time-delay & phase differences normally perceived by 2 ears] in headphones, even for non-hearing-impaired listeners.

That becomes far more difficult to do for only one side of the stereo field.

You could delay one channel by a set amount [I haven't checked the actual delay required to simulate this] but for a true '3D' image, the delay for a sound from the front is not the same as from 90˚ to one side. The delay would have to actively compare where the original sound source ought to be in the 360˚ horizontal plane & adjust accordingly.

It could possibly be done at source, but I don't see how it would be possible from a simple ready-processed stereo soundfield.

Edit:
The simplest solution may be to just sum the 2 sides to mono, with no delay. Then when any given sound is 'loudest' it is either directly in front or directly behind your character. There would be no way to tell which of those even by turning round, without Haas to help you, unless the game employs some equalisation changes depending on 'front' or 'rear' for non-hearing-impared listeners - as, of course, in simple stereo, Haas won't properly be assisting them either.

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    I'm not expecting to be able to exactly locate the equivalent of a pin drop from 30 meters away. What i need is rougher than that. simply adding bass to one channel will give a good impression of a sound that happens the other side of my head. There are some vids of this effect that work quite well and will be good enough.
    – hello
    Jan 18, 2015 at 11:56
  • I just need the correct program to do this! I could do it with the right cables, adapters, and some guitar multi effects. But this must be possible within the software world.
    – hello
    Jan 18, 2015 at 11:57
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    On Mac this could be simply done in CoreAudio with freebie plugins. I'm not sure how to achieve it on Windows. I know of no comparable plugin structure for Windows audio. Let me do some research...
    – Tetsujin
    Jan 18, 2015 at 12:05
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A small mixer with EQ controls and headphone jack, and a few cables and adapters, might work.

Assuming 1/8" stereo outputs from your sound card, a cable will be needed to send that into two separate channels on the mixer. I've used an 1/8" to RCA cable and a couple RCA to 1/4" adapters for just this. For instance, channel 1 is left, channel two is right.

Next, pan both channels to the same side (whichever you can hear with) and plug your headphones in and set up your levels on the soundcard, each mixer channel, the mixer's main volume, and the mixer's headphone outs (if separate). Note that a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter may also be needed for the headphones. Most decent phones come with this adapter.

Tweak EQ as desired. Recommend slightly cutting mids and boosting highs on one channel, while slightly boosting mid and cutting highs on the other. After some time I think you'll begin to acclimate to the difference in frequency response of the two channels.

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  • Was hoping to avoid external equipment!
    – hello
    Jan 18, 2015 at 14:55
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    @hello I'm still researching… have feelers out on other SE sites to try find some Windows software solution to what is easy on Mac… bear with me...
    – Tetsujin
    Jan 18, 2015 at 20:05
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    @hello Most welcome. I'm a sound engineer by trade & can't believe I don't already know how to do this on Windows. I have all the necessary things to be able to do it on Mac & assumed I could port my idea straight to Win… I've been trying to find a realtime, freeware, non-DAW/ASIO solution - but as yet I just have tumbleweed. See how it goes over the next day or so...
    – Tetsujin
    Jan 19, 2015 at 8:38
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    @hello I can still post, no worries. I've got it in my 'hold queue' waiting on some info on the other site - but so far just tumbleweed. Glad you got some semblance of what you were after, though. I'll keep this open for a while in case I get any info.
    – Tetsujin
    Jan 20, 2015 at 13:34
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    @hello - found this, but haven't researched it. Might be some use? jackaudio.org
    – Tetsujin
    Jan 20, 2015 at 18:12

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