do your ears ring 24-7?

[noisedude]

My hearing's already starting to go from doing quite a lot of live sound. My ears used to be able to adapt fast, i.e. get quickly over the shock of loud music and become comfortable, and also get quickly over the shock of the music stopping and start being able to hear normally again.

That is already no longer the case. I was watching a film with my brother earlier this evening, and whilst the TV wasn't on particularly loud, once it finished I couldn't hear what he was saying.

I use the Shure E2C earbuds when I'm drumming or just listening on the bus, because I can have the volume so much lower. But what I really need is some even-as-possible plugs to sort me out.

Performers - remember that the show is not for you but for your audience. You'll be able to carry on giving better shows for longer if you protect your ears. It doesn't matter what it sounds like to you because you don't know how the FOH is sounding at any point anyway. Let the sound guy go deaf instead!!!!

 

[bomb]

Hey Hapi,

I get the same thing too, except it's from any loud noise. It's just the right ear, and it feels like the pressure in my ear goes way up, and it doesn't go back down until after the noise goes away. Sounds like speaker crackling when it goes up or down, and it's very uncomfortable.

I also haven't heard anything about it.

I have this problem also, and only in my right ear - but never from when i play my drums, which is strange! Since this has become apparent I have taken a lot more interest in the care of my ears.

I think i've been lucky - when i had a hearing test recently I was told I had the most sensitive ears they've tested for months Quite surprising considering i've played drums in pretty loud rock bands for the last five years or so!

 

[Hearing Loss]

I have had tinitus for 4 or 5 maybe more years. I have been wearing westone plugs for along time and it helps but certaintly hasn't gotten rid of anything. I hear that it can and will go away but once it's to a certain extent it wont. I just read through this thread and wanted to add that my ear doc told me caffine and sugar can add to it as well. FYI.

Oh and you can buy SPL meter's to make sure your mixing levels are under or around 85db.

 

[mshilarious]

Hafta go get a hearing test. Friend of mine recently did and can officially hear up to 18 khz now, which is pretty nice.

Make sure to tell them in advance you want to be tested that high, because ordinarily they only test to 8 kHz, since you don't need to hear higher frequencies for speech recognition.

 

[AllOrNothinEnt]

Nope, never had ringing in my ears.
I monitor at a decent level, and take breaks away from the mix for an hour at a time, to let my ears rest, and re-adjust to normal noise.

No ringing yet.

 

[Hearing Loss]

You can also put a 18khz sine tone through your monitor setup. I did that recently and was elated I could hear it fine. If you cannot hear it DO NOT turn your monitors up a bunch until you can. You could blow your tweeters.

 

[Yareek]

Yeah, caffeine, suagr, nicotine, alcohol (big one), stress, all make the tinnitus worse. I know when I stopped drinking for a couple weeks during finals, my tinnitus got way better. And whenever I have a couple too many, it gets way worse.

 

[mshilarious]

You can also put a 18khz sine tone through your monitor setup. I did that recently and was elated I could hear it fine. If you cannot hear it DO NOT turn your monitors up a bunch until you can. You could blow your tweeters.

Couple of things: you need to make sure nothing in your chain is causing distortion, which results in a lower frequency signal being present, so check the test tone output with a reference mic. Second, you should calibrate the level of the test tone. Can you hear 18kHz at 20dB, or 80dB?

 

[crazydoc]

...But over the past few years I've also developed a new set of symptoms that have so far baffled a team of doctors, and I want to know if anybody else is experiencing anything like it.

When I'm exposed to high-volume noise in a reverberating environment (like, say, screaming kids in a middle school gymnasium), I get a buzzing sensation in my right ear that's really uncomfortable, but not exactly painful. It's kind of like having someone play a kazoo through my ear canal, or like listening to a speaker with a torn paper cone.

I lived with it a few years without much concern because it only happened in really loud, acoustically "live" environments, but now its happening at lower volumes and in a greater number of settings. And it's happening in both ears.

I've had several sessions each with a GP, an ENT, and an audiologist, but nobody can find a cause for these sensations. Right now I'm trying to make an appointment with a neurologist.

Anyone want to play armchair diagnostician with this? Anyone out there experiencing the same thing?

I see this post is from several months ago. Did you see the neurologist?

There are several muscles in the middle ear, among them the stapedius and the tensor tympani, whose function is to dampen the movement of the ear drum and the connecting ossicles to the oval window, to give protection against loud sounds (like a compressor or limiter). I suppose if one of these muscles or the nerve connections to it were damaged, it could produce the type of distorted sound you are hearing, especially in a loud reverberating environment.

You might want to ask your ENT or neurologist about this.

 

[Supercreep]

I only hear it when I'm trying to go to sleep.


Singing for rock bands for many years caused this.... leaning over monitors or sidefills trying to hear myself. Plugs never helped, as it made it harder for me to identify pitch accurately.

Now I know it's the rooms I was in that fucked up the LF and MF so much all I could hear was mud and smear.

I don't perform anymore. I'm done.

 

[Electric_Church]

Sadly ive had ringing in my ears 24/7 for like the last 8 years atleast.

 

[oldboy]

2 years ago I had tinnitus. It royally freaked me out. I went to the ENT and all he did was prescribe me lipflavinoids, an herbal remedy which did not help (although I did not take it for very long). I saw the ENT for 2 months with no improvement.

Then I started seeing a chinese medicine doctor in the Bay Area, who gave me acupuncture and chinese medicine. After 2 months my tinnitus was completely cured - I kid you not. Although tinnitus definitely can occur from acute trauma, according to chinese medicine there is also another cause, which is related to going to sleep very late over a long period of time (which is what I used to do). It drains a particular portion of your body's energy and manifests itself as tinnitus.

Anyway, I wanted to post this and really encourage anyone out there with tinnitus to seriously consider chinese medicine. If you live in the Bay Area, look up Dr. Andrew Wu in Cupertino, CA. He is an amazing doctor. I am so thankful for him helping me, god bless his soul. I also heard of a case where a composer got tinnitus as well as a punctured ear drum from an ENT visit gone bad. This composer learned acupuncture and cured himself through 2 years of needling. I hope this post inspires some of you to give this possible remedy a try. Feel free to email me or post here if you have any questions.