I have had hearing issues my whole life. I had multiple surgeries as a kid. I’ve taken damned good care of my ears, to keep it from being any worse. Every once in a while, something will change. I’ve recently lost the ability to hear hats in any meaningful way. I’m still determined to work in this space.
Seconding bone conduction, although it probably won’t solve everything, and I haven’t seen non Bluetooth options that would be appropriate for studio use. They are odd - they won’t fix inner ear issues, but you end up getting a bit of a sense for how things feel - like, literally how the drivers vibrate - that sort of becomes another sense that makes up for it. This is something I’ve found myself relying on more and more as my hearing gets worse.
Spectrum Analyzers can be your mixing friend, and help cut down on where things overlap. Can really help with the sound design aspects.
I tend to use much more harmonically rich waveforms for things when I’m “composing” - it all may clash and sound a bit muddy, but it means I can hear things that may otherwise be in a part of the spectrum I can’t hear. I refine these once I’m done.
My personal workflow involves using a lot of these super rich waveforms for bass and high frequencies, then going back and filtering the individual sounds so that they sit nicely in a mix, with the help of a spectrum analyzer - I try to visually make sure that everything has its own place. This can help with getting levels right as well.
I then record a performance, and then listen to it both with good headphones on a headphone amp while looking for outliers on the spectrum analyzer, and then listen with the bone conduction headset if I’m otherwise happy. And that’s the closest to the full mixed experience I’ll get. I have to rely on friends to help with the critical listening once I get to this point, but if I’ve done the work, they usually don’t notice anything as muddy or standing out in a bad way.
Hardware is great, but being able to use a daw as an assistive tool providing the analyzers is incredibly valuable. I tried to work strictly in hardware for a long time, but there’s only so far my stubbornness will get me when it comes to trying to perceive things I cannot hear.
Even though it’s been challenging, I still absolutely love working with all of this.