Ears....

rikk · Post by **rikk** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:40 am

Let me get this back on track. I use in-ear monitors while I play my Rickenbacker Bass. I also have used professional ear plugs while playing my Rickenbacker bass. I would highly recommend either, especially if playing a Rickenbacker bass.

pflash4001 · Post by **pflash4001** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 12:44 pm

Yeah, but which earplugs are they and where are they available?

grayk · Post by **grayk** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:04 am

This is a subject I have a lot of interest in. I was born with a hearing defect in my right ear and it is at about 60% of what it should be. Not overly noticeable in everyday life ie speech, however certain situations bring problems with it. The brain is very clever at compensating when one ear is down a bit. The things that bother me are telephones (I dont try holding a phone to my right ear, its too quiet and certain frequencies are uncomfortable) and loud shrill volume. I say this because my good ear can take shrill and harsh frequencies much more so. The worst thing is when I am playing around with my 8 year old and he shrieks or gets loud near my bad ear ! That is painful. So back to the band volume situation. I have been in bands for 27 years or more and have always stood on the stage to the right of the drummer and not had a problem with the bad ear. My most recent band is a 7 piece Pogues appreciation act with a guy who was an incredibly loud rock guitarist playing the Bazouki. We had a struggle with stage positions with it being a big band and we both wanted the same spot to the right of the drummer. So we both ended up to the right. Consequently I have this deaf (through 40+ years of loud rock)guy playing a bazouki at rock guitar volume through a Dean Markley valve combo. The nature of the sound of the instrument is shrill and cutting. My ears couldnt take it on stage and rather than have a big bust up with this guy or leave the band I decided to protect my ears from it if I could. I acquired some of these plugs that looked like small Christmas trees. They were useless, uncomfortable, knocked out all the wrong frequencies and also looked absolutely ridiculous ! I thought about it for a while and experimented. Fortunately my first experiment worked out incredibly well. It was a happy hunch. I work in an office that can be very noisy at times, and sometimes I just put small industrial cylinder type foam earplugs in to get some quiet when I am making calculations. I believe they are E.A.R. Classic?? and they are yellow. When they are new they knock out near 100% of sound in a very noisy office. This would be no good in a band scenario obviously. I was after the top end harshness and a few Db knocking off in order to make life comfortable. What I did was get a new pair of these foam plugs and remove the main of the guts from them with a Dremel. It took all of 2 minutes. I suppose the wall of the plug is left at about 1/8 of an inch or 2.5mm... maybe a little less. They are still strong enough at this to squeeze up and push into the ear canal. When it relaxes in the ear you are left with a non solid plug which cuts out all of the unwanted volume but still allows everything to be heard with ease. I was astounded at how well this works. It is very cheap, easy and quick to do. I hope this over lengthy post will maybe help some of you with a similar problem. The other good point is that when they are inserted in your ear canal properly, they are invisible !

pflash4001 · Post by **pflash4001** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:28 pm

Damn! I gotta give this a try! It's always the simple solutions that astound!

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:50 pm

I'm one of the lucky ones, I've played now for forty years, can't stand ear plugs and have played is some very loud bands with double SVT set up's etc. and my hearing is still good. I think what saved my hearing was staying away from both the guitarist's line of fire (higher sounds are very directional) and also staying away from loud cymbals and snare drums. I have use a single plug occasionally on the band side if I had to with extra loud drummers.
Soft rock bands are like wearing rain coats in showers, but then again there is a limit as to where it can just get ridiculous.
If your ears feel like you have muffs on at the end of the night you need to do something, that is the ears' own protection to overly loud situations and means you've really overdone it. I Forgot the mechanics of it and the name but it is real.
If you feel pain that is a sign to do something right then and there.

dean712 · Post by **dean712** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:57 pm

Scott made a critically good point - for a lot of rock bands playing in clubs, the drummer's ambient stage volume controls how loud the band is. If you have a beast on drums, the guitar will be turned up to get over it, followed by the monitors, etc. It all starts with the drums, which is the loudest acoustic instrument, by far. Get the drummer to tame it down, and everyone else is free to play at a lower volume.

Bob's advice on ear safety (and the others') is good, too.

rickboy88 · Post by **rickboy88** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 7:29 pm

What I do in the jazz band with the Etymotic custom plugs is to usually keep the left one a bit loose so I hear more of my bass trombone sound. The "band side" plug is in all the way always. The bass trombone in a 17 piece jazz band is on the opposite side from the percussion, so there isn't a lot to my left other than the 4th/5th trumpet behind me.

So right Dean about the drummer! When the rhythm section is too loud (including the bass) everyone else gets too loud, including the darned trumpets. The musicality is then lost.

The Etymotic custom fit plugs are pricey, but they do the trick and allow for a decently flat frequency response, which is especially critical for certain things.

Etymotic also sells a much cheaper "one size fits all" plug for musicians, but it'll cut the highs down more than the custom fit ones. I got them first, but didn't like the high frequency roll-off.

pflash4001 · Post by **pflash4001** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:12 pm

Thanks for all the information, guys. I got a few of those foamies to cut out the center and see how they work. I have to engineer a gig tonight. I'll check it out and post a response later. You guys are right about the volume, but like I said, some guys are simply idiots when it comes to this. About the band I had mentioned earlier that kept bitching about the monitors, I spoke to the bar owner later that night. He said the lead guitarist/vocalist told him that I didn't understand the sound they were looking for. He didn't care how it sounded as long as they were loud. So much for musicianship...

feedback · Post by **feedback** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 3:12 am

Ha!...Charlie Harper of the UK Subs(great bunch of guys..no mucking about doing s/check) asked me to turn his monitors DOWN last night...I ask you..these old punks just can't take it anymore!

mfb · Post by **mfb** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 3:42 am

Tinnitus?

feedback · Post by **feedback** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 4:11 am

Thanks, all the same...but no thanks...Rickinitus is bad enough.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:58 pm

Old punks sing in tune if the monitors are too loud, can't have that.

feedback · Post by **feedback** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 3:41 pm

Some other old punk band,coming around a 2nd time, took so long tuning/arguing about it I had to pull them off after 10 mins set..as was Elton at the Di. concert on Sun...very embarrassing.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 6:34 pm

Why'd they pull Elton?

feedback · Post by **feedback** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:12 am

App. tech prob's B4 he went on..which could just as easily be throwing a hissy fit of course..very time constrained at use of venue I should think (o'time fines enourmous)Which left Ricky Gervais filling in (or not!)as the turn B4 with no material prep'd...awfull...