The Mechanisms of human hearing

Parts of the
Ear

The ear has many different parts to the ear, the outer ear, middle ear and the
inner ear. each part of the ear have different jobs, each one is very important to
your hearing.
The outer ear consists of the Pinna and the Ear Canal. The Pinna is the part of the
ear that everyone can see, commonly known as the ear is made from cartilage
and soft tissue, this is so the ear can have flexibility but keep the same shape at
the same time. the Pinna is there to direct the vibrations of sound into the Ear
Canal. The ear canal just sends the vibrations of the sound down to the middle of
the ear. The ear canal is roughly 2 cm long.
The middle ear starts at the end of the ear canal, the eardrum is at the end of
the ear canal, in the middle ear, there is the eardrum, and three of the smallest
bones in the body, these bones are called the ossicles, the three bones are called
the Malleus (Hammer), the Incus (anvil) and the Stapes (Stirrup). when the
vibrations get sent down the ear canal, they hit the eardrum that causes the
eardrum to move back and forth which then moves the ossicles, this is what
changes the current soundwaves and then turns them into mechanical
vibrations.
The inner ear is the complicated part of the ear, this part of the ear is where
most of the main work in the ear happens. There are three parts to the Inner ear,
the Vestibule, the semicircular canal and the cochlea. In the inner ear, there is
the Vestibule, this is the part of the ear that responds to the gravitational forces
in the ear, they are commonly known as the Gravity receptors, each one of the
parts on the Vestibule has a sensory cell which can tell on how the head is tilted
etc. The Semicircular canals are the parts which respond to the rotational
movements of the head, they are basically the more specific and second check
on the Vestibule's job. The cochlea (the spiral looking part), this is where hearing
part of the ear takes place. inside the cochlea there are little hair cells that pick
up the vibrations of sound and turn the sound into a sound that you can
understand.

The Limits of hearing

The Threshold of pain is the SPL (sound pressure level) in which the sound
becomes to unbearable for the human hearing and starts to cause serious
damage. The human hearing can here between 0 dB (decibels) to 120-140 dB, if
the sound is any more than that then the sound can start to damage your
hearing, when the Decibels get greater as an amount, less time you r hearing
can handle the sound, for example, if you are listening to roughly 85 dB then
your hearing can last about 8 hours, however if you were listening to about 115
dB, then your hearing could only last roughly 30 seconds until it starts to hurt
your hearing, however these decibels would only be dangerous if these sounds
were continuous.
Different sounds give off different amount of
decibels, for example, if you look at the scale,
some sound like a lawn mower would not do
damage to your hearing because the ear can
handle the decibels for a long amount of time
and you would not be using a lawn mower long
enough to do damage to your hearing,
however if you was shooting a 12-guage
shotgun for half an hour without stopping, then
your ears would get severely damaged and the
hearing would not be able to process the high
decibels what the shotgun gives off.

Psychoacoustics

Haas Effect
The haas effect is the ability for our ears to realise where sound is coming from,
this effect basically lets your mind realise what ear sound is going through, then
it reads on how loud the sound is and how long it takes for your ears to perceive
the sound, for example, if a sound is quiet, then that means that the sound is
quiet a distance away and whereabouts the sound is around you. On Logic we
use the panning effect to get a good haas effect, panning an instrument lets you
decide which side of the headphones you want the sound to come out of or what
speaker you want the music to come out of, either left or right.
Cocktail Party Effect
The Cocktail Party effect is where the human hearing can zone in one a certain
conversation/ sound while multiple sounds are going off at once, when you are at
a party and you are in the middle of everyone talking, if you try to zone into one

conversation then your hearing will automatically adjust itself so it focuses on

what them people are saying, this is the same with other sounds, if you go to a
construction site, there will be lots of different sounds going off at once where all
the different tools are making sounds, if you try and focus on one specific sound
say from a drill, then your ear will try and focus on that drill and ignore all the
other noises going on around you.
Masking
Masking is the effect that covers up unwanted sounds which gets rid of the
sound so you cannot hear it. when you are doing a live recording, there can be
sounds that you do not want to hear, this is where you use the Masking effect,
this will then cover up the sound so that the live recordings don't have any
distractions.
Beats
Beats is where you have two tones that have a slight difference in their
frequency and have roughly the same Amplitude will create an effect commonly
known as Beats, this effect sounds like a repetitive volume surges that are the
same in frequency but have differences. This effect is helpful for when you are
tuning instruments, this is because when the beats slow down, the two tones
begin to pitch match which then gives the sound.
Doppler Effect
"The Doppler effect is a change of a soundwave for an observer moving relative
to its source, for example, when a police car is driven towards you with the
sirens on, the sirens pitch increases as the car gets closer to you, and when it
drives past you the sirens pitch begins to decrease until you cannot hear the
sirens, this is the Doppler effect." Physics of sound

Health and Safety

There are health and safety laws when it comes to being in a recording studio.
You need a music license if you want to popular/any music to the public, for
example, if you want to play some songs from the charts, you need to have a
license to do so, this is so that the songwriter of the song can still have copyright
over the song, this is so the song isn't being played illegally. There are ways to
protect your hearing when you are in a recording studio/work space, for example,
you should wear protective headphone, wearing headphones means that the
sound in a venue example means that while you are working with loud
equipment, it blocks out some of the sound so that your ears aren't working too
much, another precaution you should take is taking a break from the sound in a
recording studio, this is because if you are listening to a loud sound for a long
period of time, you can damage your hearing because the loud sounds are
working your hearing too much for how much it can take.