Record Play App About

Suttonology Recorder Player App for Apple iPhone and iPad

This app does NOT provide medical advice and is NOT itself a medical application. It does NOT treat, prevent, cure or diagnose any medical condition. It is NOT a substitute for professional medical advice.

As with any app that plays sounds, it is your responsibility to use comfortable and safe listening levels. Stop using the app if it causes you any discomfort.

You can use this app to make short audio recordings, like familiar sounds such as spoken word, acoustic music, or nature sounds, then direct the playback of those recorded sounds, to combinations of left ear only, right ear only, both left and right ears, or sequentially to one ear then the other, or sequentially to one ear, then both ears, and then to the other ear. You can also play a masking “noise” in either ear, while playback occurs. 

I created this app after I experienced unilateral Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL). I use this app as a convenient way to play sounds directed to my left ear only, both ears simultaneously, to my right ear only, or sequentially to one ear and then the other, with or without simultaneous White or Pink noise. I have used this app with Bluetooth and wired earbuds and headphones, and via Bluetooth streaming to my hearing aids. I found the best approach is with earbuds or headphones that offer excellent sound isolation.

The use of this app makes no claims or guarantees of hearing improvement or any other outcome.

You should immediately stop using this app if you experience any discomfort or any negative outcome. Always seek advice from your medical professional if you have any medical or health conditions or concerns.

How to use this app

Proper use of this app requires the use of earbuds or headphones. Note that using amplified headphones may increase your risk of hearing damage as they can amplify sounds in a way that surpasses any volume control limits within the device or app, always use safe and comfortable listening levels. While the app will playback audio through the iPhone’s built-in speakers, doing so will not give you the effect of targeting playback to your Left ear, Right ear, or both. Any brand/model of headphone or earbud that is supported by your model of Apple device should work, however Closed Back headphones, or earbuds that provide good sound isolation are best (ie, if you can’t hear sound played through the Left earbud or headphone speaker, in your Right ear or vice versa).

Make sure you have the headphones or earbuds on the correct way – for example, with headphones, make sure the speaker/ear cup marked “R” or “Right” is on your Right ear, and the speaker/ear cup marked “L” or “Left” in on your Left ear. 

Make sure your Accessibility Settings do not have “mono” enabled. 

If you have previously set your Sound output balance to anything other than middle/centre, change it back to middle/centre.

If you have enabled Headphone Safety/Reduce Loud Audio, or enabled Built-in Speaker Volume Limits, you can leave them enabled, you do not need to disable them to use this app. 

To start, set your device volume to above 0% (minimum), but below 50% (halfway), at a comfortable listening level. 

Use the Record tab/module to record any external sound, like you or someone else talking, or playing an acoustic musical instrument, or nature sounds from the device’s microphone. Always get permission before recording someone else.

Consider recording words, phrases, musical passages or nature sounds that are familiar to you. 

The app will save these recordings in app on your device, and you can choose to play them back and route the audio playback to your left ear, right ear, both ears, or sequentially playback left only, both, and right only. You access the recordings you made in the Library tab of the app. In the Library tab you have the ability to play, normalize, rename, trim, delete, export recordings.

Before playing back a recording, go to the Settings tab/module, and use the “Playback Routing” options to select where the audio will play as follows; 

-              Choose L+R, and the recording will go to both Left and Right channels (Left and Right ears);

-              Choose “L only”, and the recording will playback in mono to the Left channel (Left ear) only;

-              Choose “R only”, and the recording will playback in mono to the Right channel (Right ear) only;

-              Choose “L then L+R then R”  and the recording will sequentially play Left only, then Left and Right, then Right only.

-              Choose “L then R” and the recording will sequentially play Left only, then Right only.

Use the “Playback Volume” sliders to set a comfortable volume independently for Left and Right. These settings do not change the iPhone’s master volume level but do change the volume independently for the Left and Right audio channels. If you have more hearing loss in your Right ear than your Left ear, you could adjust the Left and Right volume levels to compensate for that.

You can also choose to play a “Noise Bed” of White Noise of Pink Noise during playback, adjust the volume of the “Noise Bed” and choose if the Noise Bed will play out of Left only, Right only, or both left and right audio channels. As White Noise or Pink Noise noise can be perceived as being loud due to its broadband nature, and if you find those sounds too loud the app gives you additional controls to attenuate/reduce the noise bed signal level by 0dB, -3dB, -6dB, -9dB or -12dB. If the noise bed is too loud, lower the noise bed volume sliders and/or choose a more negative dB attenuation (for example, -12dB will reduce the noise bed sound more than -6dB). If the Noise Bed is too quiet, even with increasing the noise bed volume sliders, you can change the attenuation to -3dB or 0dB. 0dB = no attenuation, while -12dB = most attenuation.

Playback Repeat allows you to choose the number of times the selected recordings will playback. You can choose 1x, which plays the recording once, or you can increase the number of Times incrementally – for example, “3x” would playback the chosen recording(s) three times. Note when you select a playback sequence (like “L then R”) in the Playback Routing section, it will play the entire sequence (Left only, then Right only) and then repeat the entire sequence if you enter a repeat value greater than 1x.

The app saves Recordings on your iPhone as .WAV files. In the Library tab/module, you have the ability to select recording(s) for playback, shuffle the order of playback, play a single recording, play multiple selected recordings, or play all recordings. By swiping LEFT on the recording file name, you will see options to Delete (the trash can), Create Normalized (if the recording is too quiet, try clicking Create Normalized to see if the -norm version is better), Rename, or Trim (clicking Trim takes you to a screen where you can let the app “Auto” trim silence from the beginning and end of the recording, or you can select “Manual” trim and you can place the trim lines where you want on the waveform diagram) the recording.

If you want to reset the app back to all of its default settings, you can do so in the Settings tab/module, and click “Reset settings to defaults”. Doing so will not remove any recordings, it will just reset adjustable settings.