Tinnitus

[Kryo]

Do you people have that evil inside your head? How do you take care about this?
It's important for me because personally I've abused of volume some years ago and that fucked quite a lot my ears, luckily its not really hard and now I look much more after it. Despite this, sometimes I forget and go back to bad habits. I suppose only having headsets doesn't help so much

[Mslwte]

As far as I'm aware once you have it, that's it. It's really all about not getting it in the first place. Every now and then I get some ringing in my ears. I don't know if it is just a natural thing or if it is from listening to music. It goes away so it's ok.
I recently bought some ear plugs because of a topics on this forum. And I'm very mindful of caining the distortion when I'm using headphones as its not doing any good at all.

[Kryo]

Yeah, thats it, once you have it, it won't leave, it's for live. Some people get on a deep depress because of it, they can't stand listening that high tone every second of their lives. I got a low one, some times it looks like it disappear, other times when I have it (most common on the night at bed, after long time of music) I get used with it.
The problem is when you go some place where you can't control the volume (clubs here in spain doesn't really have healthy volumes), so the earplugs look like good prevention. Did you get bespoke ones or the "standard" ones do the trick?

[Mslwte]

I got these:

http://www.etymotic.com/hp/er20.html

They definately work, probably to much tbh but it's not worth wrecking your ears.

[Wiu]

I work in a factory and our 'Hearing Protection' training covers this. Once you have it, you have it for ever. People have killed themselves because they simply can't take it anymore in extreme cases. At work I always wear my ear defenders especially as my ears took a real hammering during my raving years. Whole nights dancing infront of speaker stacks is cool at the time, but if I knew what I know now, I'd never of done it.

[oddmyth]

A club night w/ Gaetano Parisio one year destroyed my left ear. It's much better these days, but I'm finding that my ear drums compress and that sound gets muddy much more quickly than it used to. This means it's hard to spend more than an hour concentrating on mixing or producing without taking at least a 20 minute break.

[tdmusic]

I have it a bit in one ear. I'm pretty sure the primary cause was when I was 13 or so, I had what felt like water stuck in one ear (but was probably an ear infection on reflection!) so in my infinite wisdom, I altered the balance of my headphones so it was most of the way over to the side I couldn't hear on and then really cranked the volume so I could hear my Ferry Corsten beats nice and balanced regardless. Oops.

It's not annoying but I can tell it's there if I pay attention - almost certainly made worse by going out without ear protection for years! I have owned a pair of the ER20s for a few years but I've been pretty bad about wearing them out to be honest, if the sound system seemed decent enough I never bothered. I think the trick is to wear them all the way through the night as if you stick them in half way though, everything sounds muffled and lacking in power so you end up taking them out to get the full glory of it! How much truth is there to the rumour that a good sound system (e.g. Berghain) isn't actually too bad for your ears despite the volume?

Anyway, this year I am going to be a lot better about wearing them when I go out (which is nowhere near as often to be fair), I went to a gig without them a few months ago and it really cained my ears, had quite loud ringing for a while and thought "I'd feel like a right twat if this doesn't go away and I hadn't been wearing earplugs!". It went away before it got to "go to the doctors" stage but I wouldn't want it to be like that forever, it was too annoying to try and produce.

Funny you should mention this actually as I was talking to a bloke at work today who lost all hearing in one of his ears due to an ear infection when he was young and it reinforced my "wear earplugs dickhead!!!" (me being the dickhead there..) manifesto!

I'd be interested to know what people do to look after their ears when producing/listening to music, particularly the "pros" on here. I tend to keep the volume down fairly low on my monitors (for social reasons as much as anything else!), but I listen to music quite a lot at work on my HD25s (again, not ridiculously loud, but still can't be great for you) - I guess they aren't too bad as they isolate a lot of noise so you keep the level down, but I guess in-ears would be better?

[tdmusic]

Good post by the way, it wouldn't surprise me if this was an issue that was kind of taboo in the industry - it must affect a lot of people. I do sometimes wonder when you hear once-great DJs who've been in the game for ages playing crappy sets and using Traktor to beatmatch how much of it could be related to hearing loss...

[ashley BORG]

I think I have it in one ear, although what I get isn't ringing but more a "dull type of ache" under my ear. Anyhow I always now wear ear plugs when out.

Tom on Berghain, I took no risks, the others didn't complain of any ringing at all (after 20+ hours). However what I will say is that the system was so clear that if someone spoke to me I could hear them clearly even with the music on, which I've not experienced with my ear plugs anywhere else.

[ARiFF]

@ tdmusic : when you look at it from a medical point of view, than in-ears would be safer for your hearing. The one condition being that they're well snugg fitted possibly even tailored on your ears specifically. The reason being, you want to trie to get an air-tight sealing between the inner-ear and the outside world, thus keeping out ambient noise. Its the noise that makes people crank up the volume, in the end causing some of the damage.

I have been walking around with a high frequency beeping sound in my ears for quite some years now... I hear it most often when @ night, while everythings quiet i have a constant high pitched sound which never stops. During the day i usually dont hear it, because of ambient noise.

The sound is like from the days of the oldschool tv's, when they were playing without sound, you could hear the tube or whatever emit a constant beep. A doctor once told me that some medication have a negative effect on tinnitus symptoms, causing more noise than there actually is... I have no clue where i have picked it up from, because i keep my volumes low as much as possible. But than again i guess one peak is enough to damage your drums.

I myself have earplugs with interchangable filters. Grabbed them from an online store a few years ago, which i cannot remember the name off, but they do the job pretty well, as i feel my ringing noise hasnt become worse throughout the years.

[tdmusic]

I think I have it in one ear, although what I get isn't ringing but more a "dull type of ache" under my ear. Anyhow I always now wear ear plugs when out.

Tom on Berghain, I took no risks, the others didn't complain of any ringing at all (after 20+ hours). However what I will say is that the system was so clear that if someone spoke to me I could hear them clearly even with the music on, which I've not experienced with my ear plugs anywhere else.

Right, next time I see you out, you're to check that I have my earplugs in and bollock me if not! Ha

Yeah the system in there is crystal clear and seems just the right volume, I'm just curious how much truth there is that it's distortion/whatever that fucks your ears up rather than just loud volume... Ahhh, I want to go back there soon!

[Mslwte]

well i reckon the sherman filterbank is what has fucked my ears. it comes with a warning saying "warning dangerous frequency range watch your speakers" lol

[ozias_leduc]

I got these:

http://www.etymotic.com/hp/er20.html

They definately work, probably to much tbh but it's not worth wrecking your ears.

yeah i have used these for a few years now. it makes going to a gig a bit.. weird. but worth it.

[strawMan]

I've had tinnitus for years (late night mixing in headphones as a kid being the main culprit).
I've had periods where after a couple of years of really looking after my ears, it reduces to a level where it's not noticeable -either actually improving or the mind shutting it out. Either way it's academic - if you're careful to not aggravate your ears, it does calm down.
Pretty sure I read a few years ago that the ringing is caused by the cilia trying to repair themselves.
One night at a mates playing records at hefty volume, or a few too many hours in the studio a week, and it's back large though.

It's fucking awful when it's bad - look after dem ears.

[ashley BORG]

I think I have it in one ear, although what I get isn't ringing but more a "dull type of ache" under my ear. Anyhow I always now wear ear plugs when out.

Tom on Berghain, I took no risks, the others didn't complain of any ringing at all (after 20+ hours). However what I will say is that the system was so clear that if someone spoke to me I could hear them clearly even with the music on, which I've not experienced with my ear plugs anywhere else.

Right, next time I see you out, you're to check that I have my earplugs in and bollock me if not! Ha

Yeah the system in there is crystal clear and seems just the right volume, I'm just curious how much truth there is that it's distortion/whatever that fucks your ears up rather than just loud volume... Ahhh, I want to go back there soon!

Haha I'll blast an air horn in your ear

[Mslwte]

Lol

[rktic]

Got a tinnitus as well for as long as i can remember (strugglesome birth...) so i grew up with it. Quite happy to still have good ears after all the years of headphone production. Which often caused the ringing to increase for a while. Same with stress. When dreaming some whack shit i use to wake up with the tinnitus sounding like a broken fridge.

Also use to sleep with the window open and have the city noise to distract me from the stupid bugger. Then again it barely freaks me out.

[Kryo]

Thnx will check them Mslwte!
What about going to a gig with this? More weird than with earplugs



By the way, quite cheap on ebay, if they do the trick just for warning (not for taking precise measurements)...

[bram2000]

What a timely topic... I have an audiologist appointment in an hour for a hearing test.

I've had tinnitus for a long time, but it got noticeably worse after Dimensions festival this year where basically having to queue to get back in to the Ballroom (cylindrical stone tower of the fort) meant I just stayed in there for hours rather than losing all of my mates. It was very load, and I was fucked enough not to care.

Ever since then I have some ER-20's on my keyring, in a pill case. This has turned out to be a great idea! The biggest problem I used to find was being aware of the volume, and wanting to wear plugs, but not having any on me. I would always forget to take them out with me but now I always have them. I highly recommend this for anyone as useless as me at remembering things.

[tdmusic]

Ever since then I have some ER-20's on my keyring, in a pill case. This has turned out to be a great idea! The biggest problem I used to find was being aware of the volume, and wanting to wear plugs, but not having any on me. I would always forget to take them out with me but now I always have them. I highly recommend this for anyone as useless as me at remembering things.

That's a great idea. Going to do it