ProSoundWeb: Yes, I get the joke – monitor engineers are all deaf thanks to the job, right?
I made the decision early in my career that I didn’t want to fall into that trap, and I’ve been consistently meticulous about looking after my hearing. It seems to be paying off – a recent test showed that I have the hearing of someone 20 years younger, so I hope what I share helps you to take care of your ears too.
6 comments:
I think some of the advice given in this article is really good advice. In my own life, I’ve seen the effects of loud music for too long. My father has tinnitus from one too many loud concerts and shows as well as aging. Seeing the effects of his hearing and how before he got corrective hearing aids he would always complain aby my sister and me mumbling has shown me that hearing health and sound are really important to take care of starting young. As someone who loves listening to music all the time, I will start to take some of these tips and implement them into my own life. Additionally, as someone who wants to go into audio engineering and mixing, starting these practices early will allow me to have a longer and more fulfilling career ahead of me. I want to keep learning more about the physiology of the ear and how I can shape my practices and hygiene to extend my hearing as much as possible in life.
The health of my ears, much like the health of my joints is something that I often forget to consider but is ultimately critical in being able to preserve as much of my hearing for as long as possible. Preserving hearing for as long as possible is especially critical for sound mixers, engineers and designers to be able to continue doing their job at a high level. Especially in an environment where we are often around power tools, speakers at high volumes and other just generally loud things it’s so easy to forget to try and take measures to protect your overall ear health, even simple ones like putting on hearing protection in the shop. This article does present some solid solutions that are practically implementable for everyday life (some very specific, but some that are generally applicable). I really liked the last point of the article - sometimes, you just need to sit in silence. Our modern world is so loud, and sometimes we forget that!
The more I read on sound the more and more I learn each time and this article is no exception. I had no idea that noise reduction earplugs that didn’t change the quality of the sound existed and it is so cool that they do and it is extra cool that they work through bone in order to do so. I like listening to how concerts and the like sound without ear plugs since when I put my cheap foam ones in I lose some of the parts so it's cool to know about the titanium ear plugs as an alternative. It was also interesting to hear that having two in ears is better than one as I figured that, since the in ears aren’t as good as the titanium in hearing the actual sound quality and tones, people would only have one in order to hear out the other ear. It does sound like people used to do that before the technology got better and it became more beneficial to have both in to control the decibel levels.
love this article because I think looking after your ears as a sound technician is something that is vastly overlooked. Working in an industry where your ears are your livelihood is scary because eventually those will go and your ears’ sound quality only lasts for so long before old age changes how well you hear. Especially nowadays where everything is so so loud, it is so incredibly important but also hard to take care of your ears well and make sure that nothing damages them or at least try to minimize the damage they take. I also feel like in order to get the full experience of an event, I tend to not wear ear plugs or protect my ears but I know that is not good whatsoever for my ears and that I should probably not stand next to speakers at events. All in all, it was a super interesting and informative read.
From construction to manufacturing there are many professions that can cause hearing loss, but in my opinion the live event industry is the one that relies on hearing the most. I’ve always seen hearing protection as another for of PPE, protecting one of my senses like how safety glasses protect the eyes. Even just a little protection can go a long way whether that protection is avoiding loud environments, or wearing earplugs it can help preserve hearing for a lot longer than not using protection. No one wants to need hearing aids by the time they are 30 especially if their job requires them to listen carefully to the levels of sound bouncing through a venue.
I’m always mindful of hearing health when I’m mixing (that being said I don’t mix loud concerts, I mix theater productions). If my mix is too loud for me at the desk, then it’s definitely too loud for everyone else who is closer to the loudspeakers. When I go to concerts I always bring ear plugs with me. I have Loops that I really like. They were a bit pricey but they work well and I bring them everywhere. As for in ear monitors, I tend to just wear my regular headphones. They're not great but they're good for balancing the mix and doing what I need to make it sound nice, and then taking them out to balance the loudspeakers.
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