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Hearing Tests


Dutchman

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7 hours ago, tommy p said:

Dumb still applies in my case.

I don't know that I'd exactly call it "dumb... More like succumbing, maybe, but it feels sooo good! Ok, it's dumb. So are a lot of other things.

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^^^^This!

Case in point: At a jam this weekend. Started out with the earplugs, ended up with them hanging around my neck. Paying for it today. I gotta get a better pair!

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I was tested about 10 years ago when I was fitted for my musician plugs (which were one of the best investments I ever made).

https://www.westone.com/store/music/es49-custom

Mine are flesh-toned.

The technician said there was physical damage to my ears, and that my hearing scores were higher than my damaged ears are physically capable of hearing because my brain has learned to compensate, but eventually this will catch up to me. 

I wear my plugs anywhere there will be loudspeakers - movies, lectures, band practices, and of course concerts. Unlike foam plugs which tame the high end, they are quite balanced across the spectrum and actually improve the concert experience - amazing what you can hear when you aren't overloading your hearing sensors. Mine have interchangeable filters for different SPL (I have a 25 dB set and a 9 dB set).

If I was smarter, I'd put them in every time I pick up an electric guitar.

I should probably get a new pair, as our ears grow over time. This time I'll be smart enough to get the filters in different colors so I can more easily tell them apart.

 

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3 hours ago, hamerhead said:

^^^^This!

Case in point: At a jam this weekend. Started out with the earplugs, ended up with them hanging around my neck. Paying for it today. I gotta get a better pair!

It's hard.  You both have to trust that what you are hearing isn't what it sounds like in general AND still get into what's going on with out the feeling the POWER OF THE LOUD SIDE OF THE FORCE.  

Then again, you're frequency responses washes out so fast without them that you can't trust yourself to EQ anything once you get going anyway.  I really need to start keeping mine in for shows as well, but it definitely isn't as fun as going in raw. 

I'm pretty sure most of my damage is from the cymbals.  My right ear has tinnitus much worse than my left right up around where you usually cut to get the harshness out of overheads, about 12.7k.  Probably 75% of the time, the drummer is to my right for whatever reason, especially in practice environments.  

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47 minutes ago, LucSulla said:

I'm pretty sure most of my damage is from the cymbals.  My right ear has tinnitus much worse than my left right up around where you usually cut to get the harshness out of overheads, about 12.7k.  Probably 75% of the time, the drummer is to my right for whatever reason, especially in practice environments.  

Same here. Not sure I actively thought about cymbals as the source of my hearing degradation, but at two recent gigs, I virtually felt the "hit" to my eardrums during late-second-set songs where we let it all hang out and in which cymbal crashes were frequent and violent. I'm almost always stationed stage-left (and have been since about 1988), so I'm considering wearing one Hearo High Fidelity filter--right ear only.

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On 2/8/2020 at 6:19 PM, The Shark said:

We start our quiet and inch our way up on the knobs.  Mostly the bass player's fault.  And he's not here to defend himself!

My experience over the 33 years I've played in bands and in jam sessions is that the bass player is nearly always the one who nudges the volume up during the session, which encourages everyone else to notch up. Doesn't help that my current band's bassist has significant hearing loss himself. 

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9 hours ago, Biz Prof said:

My experience over the 33 years I've played in bands and in jam sessions is that the bass player is nearly always the one who nudges the volume up during the session, which encourages everyone else to notch up. Doesn't help that my current band's bassist has significant hearing loss himself. 

Yup. No doubt.

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On 2/9/2020 at 8:57 PM, DaveH said:

I don't know that I'd exactly call it "dumb... More like succumbing, maybe, but it feels sooo good! Ok, it's dumb. So are a lot of other things.

I wasn't saying I'm dumb on the hearing protection issue, just in general! 😜

I got custom molded earplugs 10+ years ago and I always wear them at concerts.  Like someone else mentioned, to me it actually makes things sound better.  It's not just a huge wash of sound and most of the time I can understand what the singer is saying between songs.

I'm in two tribute bands (AC/DC as Malcolm, Cheap Trick as Rick) and I didn't think we were practicing very loud, so I had not been wearing them at practice but I'm going to start.  I noticed that 2 of the other 3 guys in the Cheap Trick band and 3 out of 4 of the guys in the AC/DC band ARE wearing them, so maybe we're louder than I thought and I'm just not as sensitive to it as I used to be.

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17 hours ago, Biz Prof said:

My experience over the 33 years I've played in bands and in jam sessions is that the bass player is nearly always the one who nudges the volume up during the session, which encourages everyone else to notch up. Doesn't help that my current band's bassist has significant hearing loss himself. 

One way I've dealt with that is to have the bass player put his amp on the opposite side of the room and point it at himself.  They can hear themselves MUCH better that way.  Same goes for guitar amps too, if you can get them to agree to do it.  I've found guitarists tend to fiddle around with their sound more so sometimes they resist.

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5 hours ago, tommy p said:

Same goes for guitar amps too, if you can get them to agree to do it.  I've found guitarists tend to fiddle around with their sound more so sometimes they resist.

The easiest solution for me is if you're playing a combo, tilt it back. This way you can still fiddle and hear it better. Of course it doesn't work with a llarge cab and head.

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On 2/11/2020 at 7:31 AM, tommy p said:

One way I've dealt with that is to have the bass player put his amp on the opposite side of the room and point it at himself.  They can hear themselves MUCH better that way.  Same goes for guitar amps too, if you can get them to agree to do it.  I've found guitarists tend to fiddle around with their sound more so sometimes they resist.

Yeah, it's hard to hear bass while standing just in front of the amp.  Wavelength of the low E is 12ft or so. 

I used to jam once a week with my brother years ago, leaving the amps/drums in place. We all had other primary rigs.  Week by week it just crept up, until we could barely hear the drummer.  That was the tell.  Dialed it back down, but a few weeks later.  . .

Say what you want, but I swear my guitarist-brother was the one cranking it up.   That's my story.

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