I couldn’t help but notice that my sense of hearing has diminished somewhat as a result of constantly listening to loud music. It began as a young child listening to rock n roll, progressing to heavy metal in my teens, and finally techno and house as an adult.
As a full time DJ and producer, how do you put up with the noise withstanding minimal damage to your ears? Do you wear earplugs at shows/gigs? I couldn’t see myself wearing ear plugs at home, but at shows it is understandable due to the high decibel output.
I have heard from others that it is actually the high end frequencies that damage the ears rather than the low. Is that true?
Would listening to music at a moderate level while DJing damage the ears over a sustained amount of time?
After a certain amount of time it will definitely impact your hearing, I know mstrkrft uses ear plugs when they do anything and I actually saw that in one of those “whats in your dj bag” interviews with ean
I where plugs to shows and gigs. Sometimes monitors are right behind my head and just blasting. Its something I always have with me when I gig or go out to clubs.
I haven’t always owned plugs and sometimes even left them in my bag and not bothered using them. However i try to remember to use them and definitely where them if i feel my ears hurting or i struggle to hear particular sounds.
I find i get bad ear wax build up. So much i can often wake up in the morning and find an ear or two almost/fully blocked up. To stop this i have to get my ears syringed at least every 8 months really. I don’t know if this is to do with loud music or not but it’s only ever been a problem after about 3 years of Dj’ing and about 5 years of clubbing. I’d be interested if anyone else suffers like i do tbh
But yeah, earplugs are your friend, I try to always use them when I go to raves and other parties with loud music.
When listening to music by yourself, try to turn it down, I’ve found that “weaning” myself off loud music in my earphones (as in, off my iPod, not when cueing) helped me get rid off my “hearing fatigue”. Once you’ve gotten used to listening at music on a lower volume, you won’t really notice the difference (as long as you don’t turn it up again obviously).
I wear moulded ear plugs during all my gigs i play or even when i’m just on a night out. Always reduces the sound and makes listening enjoyable.
I have two friends that have been DJ’n for ten years in the club i resident at and sometimes they have to put me on the decks because they can’t hear anything. Their hearing has got that bad!
I was also speaking to my nose/throat/ear specialist and he said being in a nightclub for 4 hours at roughly 100dB is the equivalent to being in an ‘industrial working enviroment’ for 8 hours.
Depends on how often you’ll use them. If it’s very often, it’s worth to get more “proffessional” plugs, they’ll be more comfortable, work better and they’re reusable. But if you’ll just them like, once every two months, you could probably use cheaper ones.
Well I hope I’ll be going out & gigging every week soon, so I’d need pretty good ones. I don’t have that much money but ideally I’d want ones that lower the highs a bit as they are what causes tinnitus etc, but I don’t want ones that lower the volume significantly.
I have looked on Amazon and there are ER20s and Alpine Music Safe Pro but I don’t really fancy either of them as they stick out of your ear a lot and I have small ear canals.
I use Etymotic ER20s (they are quite long, but I have big lugs so it’s not so bad) I have some other one that are lower profile and fit under my headphones better (name escapes me at the mo)
I dind’t buy custom moulded ones, as I occasionally lose stuff, and finding tiny earplugs on the floor in a a dark booth is tricky (and tbh I probably wouldn’t want to put them back in my ears afterwards …)
I also lost some decibels already despite me being in the early 20s.
That’s why I got some moulded earplugs. They are totally worth the money. Their little bag is always attached to my keys so I (almost) never forget them.
The funny thing in clubs is that you can hear people yelling at each other and understand every word.
I don’t go out if I don’t have something to protect my ears. If the club isn’t particularly loud, there’s a way to wad up bar napkins (that are bone dry, of course) that doesn’t sound too bad and makes a big difference. But that’s only if it was on a whim and I don’t have my real plugs.
I use Hearos musicians plugs in the “new, smaller size” because after about 2 minutes I forget that they’re there. I can actually hear more detail in the music with them in as well as people talking next to me instead of screaming in my ear.
I haven’t done a gig without plugs in for several years. And I wear them at home and at my friend’s house when playing guitar because we use tube amps and they don’t sound right unless they’re loud enough to cause damage…even the “little” 15W tube amps we use.
And as soon as I have the disposable income, I’m switching back to IEMs and having custom molds made for DJing. If the mixer has the right cuing section to support it, it works beter.
But, I’m selling my xone:62 first because it doesn’t have a cue/master blend control for the headphone signal and there’s no logic going on, so cuing a second channel makes it a shit-ton louder (and can cause the headphone output to clip)…which means that IEMs just aren’t viable with that mixer.
Would this be true at any sound level? Or just at club volume? I boogered up my ears from shooting guns when I was younger and am wondering if this is why I have such a dificult time beatmatching.
