he pointed out that sound doesn't just enter through the ears; it enters through your face as well.

yes, do not play loud enough to deafen yourself through your face. this is a fine lesson for us all. if you are playing loud enough to make your ears ring through your face, then you should turn down.

tmidgett wrote:also, i love in-ear monitors. i sing better, i enjoy myself more, i don't lose my voice as easily, and my ears don't ring after the show. the only drawbacks are that they look dorky and it becomes a little tougher to hear the crowd if you have a complex mix fed into them. i just feed them my vocal, pretty much.

TM-

What's your rig? How much did it set you back? Are most clubs willing / able to accomodate it?

also, tim, another question... i'm assuming you have the little shure earbud headphone monitor dealies. i have a pair of those which i dig for listening to music while walking or riding the train, etc (excellent isolation) but as much as i've wanted to use them for live monitoring of the vocals, for the reasons you mention liking then, i'm deathly afraid for one specific reason: feedback. what happens if the vocal mix somehow manages to feed back, for whatever reason? do you go completely deaf? i'm way too scared of that happening to even try it... do you safeguard against that, and if so, how?

Most quality in-ear monitors have a limiter system involved that won't allow the volume to reach a dangerous peak.

Anything short of this is tupid.



s




Faiz

yes, do not play loud enough to deafen yourself through your face. this is a fine lesson for us all. if you are playing loud enough to make your ears ring through your face, then you should turn down.

something i've experienced a few times is excessive amounts of infra-sound (i hope i got that term right--it's sound below the human hearing range), which earplugs do little or nothing to stop. this is usually due to crappy live engineering, in which the engineer is convinced that cranking the fuck out of the bass guitar will "fill out" the sound, and/or being absolutely determined to mic the drums, regardless of the fact that the club only holds 150 people. (but that's a personal gripe.)

anyway, it doesn't always have to do with playing too loudly; certain frequencies just creep in easier than others, and that can be avoided by having a good live sound-guy.

last night at the frames gig here in dublin they played at a really small venue for them only a couple of hundred people
the boys played "earlybird" and at the end there's a loop were it sounds like steve ran the analog tape for the whole song backwards really fast and it sounds like some crazy reverse helicopter type thing
but last night it was so loud i could feel the bass (more like a rumble) from it rattle my innards! it was cool to "feel" the song hit you but i woke up at about 4 a.m with my ears ringing! i suppose it was because the room was so small,the ringing hand thankfully stopped stopped when i woke up again,i was a bit worried! i'd wear ear plugs but they sound crap