Hearing and That Damn Guitar

Anybody who knows me knows just how deaf I am.  It's funny that there are some people I have been around many times who finally realize that when I'm not playing guitar I wear two hearing aids.  Now, I could make excuses for it, saying it's heredity or that it's from shooting all those bad guys in the last war.  Or I could do what lots of musicians do and just pretend I don't have a problem at all.  But the truth of the matter is, my ears have been blasted to smithereens by years of joyous amp crankage, smashing cymbals, and liberal use of whatever volume knob/pedal is within easy reach.  

Constant exposure to high sound pressure levels have left the hair cells in my cochlea looking like wheat mown down by an end-of-summer storm.  Without my hearing aids I cannot hear the phone.  Birds are mostly mute to me.  I almost never watch TV without the closed captioning dealie-dad on.  You can't talk to me around corners, as I need to watch your lips to make sure of what you said.  I give answers to questions you didn't ask.  I have ringing and space-ship sounds swirling around in my head all the time.  I am never alone.

I have friends that have played as long and as loud as I have, and while their hearing my not be as bad as mine, they do have noticeably diminished sensitivity to at least the high-end of the spectrum.  Everyone is susceptible in different degrees, most likely because of genetics.  I am just unlucky in that my genes must contain the wimpy-hearing DNA.  But no matter if you never get to my level of dulled-out sensitivity, if you play unprotected sooner or later you will go down.

The problem has been at least two-fold.  First, the tube amps that we guitarists love just don't really sound good until they are cranked at least two-thirds of the way up.  You can use a master volume all you want, but nothing is as sweet as that power amp kicking into overdrive.  So what can you do?  Use smaller amps for one, but that's not a cure-all because you have to use a WAY smaller amp that will crank and won't be as loud.  I used to use two Soldano-ized 100-watt Marshalls in Lord Tracy, one of the loudest bands to ever slink across the Earth.  When I started fronting my own band in Dallas I went to my favorite amp in the world, the Fender Super Reverb erroneously thinking that being a mere 34-40 watts it would be 'quiet.'  I used to think then that a 50-watt amp was half as loud as one that was 100 watts.  Really, the difference is marginal.  I will post a link that explains this when I find a good one again.

I have done a couple of things that work to a degree, but I gotta tell you up front that anything that changes your signal AT ALL is a compromise.  If someone tells you that this or that will let you play your amp lower with the same sound, they are either lying or at least grossly misinformed.  The trick is finding a compromise you can live with.

The first thing I have done is what I call the Plexiglass Condom.  I go to the Home Depot and buy a big sheet of heavy plexiglass and either saw it myself or have them do it so that I have three pieces, one large one and two equal small ones.  I then attach hinges or velcro to it so that I have what looks like a transparent fireplace grate.  I set this up in front of my amps and let 'em rip.  This admittedly mostly protects the audience from being slapped upside the head by my power chords, as the onstage volume is still pretty high.  This is the cheapest solution.  It works pretty well except you don't get the touch sensitivity for feedback and that stuff if you're way out at the front of the stage.

Another thing I had wanted to try for a long time, but never did because it was kinda pricey, was the Hot Plate by THD Electronics.  When I was lucky enough to go to this year's NAMM show in Nashville, I finally met Andy Marshall who is the owner of the company.  He turned me on to a 2 ohm Hot Plate for my Super and I have been using it ever since.  I feel that it is the best power attenuator on the market right now.  Still, nothing is perfect.  When you crank your amp down, your ears hear more pronounce mid range with a loss of highs and lows.  This is a natural phemonenon, and if I could remember what it's called, I'd really sound like professor Jimmy.  This effect is more pronounced as you go down in volume.  To compensate, the Hot Plate has  bass boost and treble boost switches on it.  For live gigs, I usually just click it down one notch (4db), put on the bass boost and it works pretty well.  Once again, a compromise I can live with.  I like it better than the Plexi Condom.

The second problem you run into is protecting the ears themselves.  Ear plugs have been around forever, and I have been forever avoiding them.  Why?  Because every plug I have tried has made things sound so muddy its WORSE than wearing a rubber.  You guys know just what I mean!  Ear plugs attenuate all the highs and mids off and leave you with nothing but a muddy low rumble. They even had some plugs years ago that had this little valve that blew shut at sound pressure levels above 90-something db.  The effect was not unlike when your kid brother sneaked up behind you and slapped you on the ears.  Ugh!

For the last several years, I had been reading about ear plugs molded to fit your ears like hearing aids with these discs in them made by Etymotic Research.  The discs come in 9, 15, and 20 db models and they were purported to attenuate sound in a flat response so that whatever you were listening to sounded just like it should, only not as loud.  I had wanted to check these out, but didn't really pursue it because I wasn't playing that much.  Once again, my trip to the NAMM show paid off.  I found the Etymotic booth and they directed me to the Sensaphonics booth.  Sensaphonics are the ones that make the ear molds for these things.  I went and got fitted for a pair and laid down my hunnert bucks not sure that A) they would work as advertised, and B) if I wasn't so far gone that I wouldn't be able to use them.

Now, I hate to sound like some TV pitch-man, but if you are serious about protecting your hearing, you simply owe it to yourself to try these!  They work amazingly as advertised.  Since they are molded to you ears, they fit snug and they are smaller than the average in-the-ear hearing aid. Plus, the stuff they are made out of is really comfortable.  But the best thing is they put a damper on the sound pressure levels making it to your inner ear while not messing with the way things sound.  You don't have any of that dullness that I always hated with ear plugs.  If you just leave them in the entire gig like I do (breaks included) by the end of the night you will be so used to them you may forget to take them out.  One problem I can see for singers though, is that some don't like to hear their voices so loud inside their own head.  Sensaphonics also makes the ear molds for those cool personal monitor systems that EVERYONE in the business uses.  Kevin is thinking about getting some for himself, we'll have to let you know how they work out.

Again, nothing is perfect.  Barring getting fitted for them like I did at the NAMM show, you have to go to a professional audiologist to be fitted for the ear molds.  Plus they cost a hundred dollars or so.  But isn't it worth that to protect your hearing?  I wish to God that they had these back in the late 70's.  Maybe I wouldn't be wearing hearing aids now and using the word "huh?" so much.  I am just thankful that I found these now so I can conserve my rapidly dwindling auditory resources.  I might wanna hear someone say "I love you" without their having to shout it out at the top of their lungs!

JimmyR  8/2002