Live Earplugs?

flyswatter

I'm getting worried about my ears when listening to music.

I listen to music constantly now, even more so in the last 6 months and a lot of the time I have the volume up too high on my Ipod. I have a control that caps it but my ears are starting to hurt.

I'll be gigging regularly I hope this summer and I want to invest in a good quality set to protect my hearing.

Can anyone recommend a really good pair for live use?

TheBigRedDog

Get some ER20's now and get moulded ones made up for your ear. Expensive enough but I reckon it's worth it. hearing.ie

drumdrum

TheBigRedDog wrote: »

Get some ER20's now and get moulded ones made up for your ear. Expensive enough but I reckon it's worth it. hearing.ie

+1!!!

You can't put a price on your hearing mate!! Theres a guy in Kimmage called Frank Cass who does them as well. Sound bloke he did mine with no worries what so ever.

You can get moulded ear plugs, but since you are a gigging musician may I suggest you splurge a little more and get in ear monitors? There are a few different versions depending on type, but I have a set and they are great for drummers (like myself!) both live and recording. Also, they pretty much eliminate click bleed in recordings also so the engineer will love you!!

flyswatter

The thing is I haven't started gigging seriously yet, hopefully will this summer as soon as possible. Just worried about my ears recently from all the headphone listening. They have started aching a bit.

How do these things work? Not familiar with them. The sound is still clear but what does it eliminate that might damage your ears?

drumdrum

flyswatter wrote: »

The thing is I haven't started gigging seriously yet, hopefully will this summer as soon as possible. Just worried about my ears recently from all the headphone listening. They have started aching a bit.

How do these things work? Not familiar with them. The sound is still clear but what does it eliminate that might damage your ears?

I'm no expert, you're best ringing up a professional.

But from my experiences they eliminate the harsh frequencies of the sound, particularly in the highend. Lows and mids generally come in fairly fine so you'll find yourself better able to hear your bandmates and yourself and you wont be competing with each other for loudness.
Obviously, its not the same clarity as with nothing in your ears as there is a physical object between the sound wave and your ear drum. The sound will be muffled a bit, which is to be expected. But they are designed for musicians in mind so generally they are quite good. Most professional musicians wear them on stage (the monitors that is). If its just ear protection then I think its the same. I have the monitors which use the same sound elimination process but which have audio drivers in them to play sound.

As I said I'm no expert....best to ring one!

TheBigRedDog

Ever used foam earplugs? The across the counter ones (ER20 versions) will sound like that but with more of a drop in the sound level. They sound muffled but they work at keeping the volume down.

The custom moulded ones are the most efficient way of keeping the loudness from your ear, it's like turning down your headphones really. High end ones will do a good job of making the sound as normal as possible.

The point of it is to lower the volume evenly across the frequency spectrum, from low to high frequencies. Problems are faced with the bass frequencies as small little plugs can do very little to stop bass. This causes the muffled sound. If you don't care about how perfect the sound is when you have these, the ER20s will suffice. The damage, in most cases, is higher frequencies from cymbals, snare, guitars etc.

If you invest in these, get a pair of ones that can be changed to in ear monitors IEMs also. When you get bigger gigs etc, all you have to do is buy some extra bits and you can listen to your band through these rather than the stage monitors, further helping the problem.

GTE

What kind of headphones do you use now?

It could be a, I can only describe it as a placebo effect, but you may need to train yourself to listen to music lower in level. I did that a few years ago and Im doing fine.

Also, on your iPod use a feature called sound check. Apparently it levels each tracks volume so on average a 75% volume setting on your ipod for one song will more or less be the same for each song.

Without that different songs can be on average a bit louder and quieter then eachother. SO, if you listen to some Damien Rice then some Queens of the Stone Age the level difference between the two will be less if you have sound check on. You ear gets used to things so you probably wont notice if it was off.

Also, Mediamonkey (an alternative to iTunes) does this too, even on playback on a PC. One of the many reasons to use Mediamonkey.

The foam earplugs you get in Music Maker are very over priced but check chemists. They have basically the same ones and cheaper. They will always be good to just have on you. I wear them in clubs and I think they are great.

An unbalanced sound comes from wearing them but when I was gigging that was not a problem for me. I do mean to get some of the good ones mentioned here though.

scorcoran90

Do a search for radians ear plugs on the net.
They seem good, gonna order a pair today.

Have a look at this also if you wanna go down the IEM route, don't know how successful it'll be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmk-y_9exJ8