-12 seems a little weak for a loud band. I use -20 something db Earpeaces just for playing drums alone.

I think an inevitability of playing loud music is that you're always kind of guessing how your voice will come through, so you might as well not ruin your ears at the same time.

I have perpetual, constant tinnitus, typical high-frequency hash. Bilateral. Almost all from close-range cymbals/snare, I believe--both onstage and in the basements of my life.

Gets worse with stress--big factor. Also lack of sleep, caffeine, nicotine. Noise can aggravate but not terrifically if it's short duration.

Doesn't really affect my hearing, which has always confused me.

Dealing is mental. Getting bummed out about it is a spiral and also pointless because there's no real remedy.

I like the Sensaphonics plugs, have all the different filters...-9dB, -15dB, -25dB. Plus solid, full-shell silicone ones for Sunn.

Predictably, the less they block, the better music sounds with 'em in. Whatever you can keep in your ears is better than having higher-attenuation earplugs in your pocket. I don't wear plugs onstage outside of Sunn, usually wear at practice, always at anything else loud.

Note that in Chicago, Sensaphonics will test your ears to the upper limit of 20kHz. Most places stop at 8kHz because they're testing for speech.

Other than Sensaphonics, I like this guy Jordan Teitelbaum on the North Shore. He is musician-sympathetic.

Very recently, I had the unwelcome introduction of unilateral tinnitus in my left ear...down in the regular audio range. It's the middle F# and G# on a piano, alternating like something from a Terry Riley composition, erratic lengths.

It's very intermittent/infrequent, and it's not unpleasant tonally, so I don't actually mind it so much. But its onset was troubling, so I got it checked out. Teitelbaum said it's probably related to blockage/pressure, and if it's intermittent, not to sweat it unless it gets worse.

Aaaaand a few months ago, I had some Eustachian tube dysfunction that was genuinely bumming me out, with everything getting all muffled and shitty sounding. THAT sucked. Teitelbaum diagnosed and helped me figure out how to fix, just by using a Neti pot on the reg and holding my nose and blowing air gently up into the tubes to clear 'em out. So psyched when it cleared up.

Oh: I am trying these Soundbites supplements that are supposed to help protect your ears etc. etc. I have no idea at all if they work. I have a few bottles of them, and once I get through them I'll see what happens when I stop taking them. Probably they do nothing and I won't notice any change--that's my prediction.

----

tl;dr:

I've mostly made friends with my tinnitus and have come to regard it as the price I pay for having enjoyed much of my experience playing music to the maximum extent. It's not an unbearable price at this point, fortunately. But if I could flip a switch and turn it off, I certainly would.

I guess I would recommend wearing earplugs, but rocking is a lot more fun without them. Better plugs are less of a buzzkill. I'll never not have filtered earplugs for the rest of my life.

I'm mostly a lurker on this forum, but I wanted to post about this exact topic for a while.... I love loud and noisy music, but I also want to preserve my ability to enjoy it for as long as possible...

Anyway I wanted to share this panel discussion about hearing health https://www.youtube.com/live/KTJKsskbTxQ
It's hosted by Andrew Scheps (who also interviewed Steve) and they go into quite a lot of detail discussing hearing health, both from a physiological perspective but also how it relates to working in the music industry etc.
I definitely want to learn more about some of the things they discuss.

By the way, I also recall Steve mentioning somewhere in a podcast that he often wears earplugs on tour, except when he's on stage... I found this fascinating...
I wonder if it is possibly related to something quite crazy they mention in the video, i.e. people having more or less hearing loss in response to the same sound pressure depending on whether or not they enjoy the sound (i.e. person attending a concert vs factory worker)...

I hope this may be interesting for somebody else.

For anyone with mild to moderate tinnitus like me … try this One Weird Trick I read somewhere:
1. Put the palms of your hands over your ears, fingers to the back (kind of perp-walk position)
2. Leaving your palms over your ears, blocking them, drum your fingers on the back of your skull as hard as you can muster for a count of 50 or so - should sound like booming in your head
3. Enjoy a break from tinnitus

It works for me about 70% of the time, relief is in minutes or more.

I haven't had my ears checked in a few years, but the last time I got them tested things were looking pretty ok! I definitely have some tinnitus, but it's such a high frequency that I don't notice it or mind it very much.

Anyway, I didn't come here to share my personal tinnitus story. A few months ago I was told about this app "AudioCardio" and I've only tried it for a day because you have to pay. But basically, they claim that they can improve you hearing, and apparently they are backed by some science (I didn't verify it). I figured I'd share it in case someone is at their wits' end with tinnitus or hearing damage and is looking to try another thing. I'm also realizing this post kinda sound like a scammy ad "I've tried this NEW THING and it cured my _____"

I haven't posted here in a couple years and this is by far the weirdest comeback.

Damn, there's a name of legend! Welcome back!

Little ringing at times. Seems to depend on how well I clean my ears tough which makes no sense to me. Fun story. Use to know a enginner that would use a oscilator to tune into what freq. she was ringing at.

Even with years of playing in bands, I managed to avoid the tinnitus all the way until Dec 2019, when it just switched on all of a sudden. Now it's always there, which caused some disorientation and getting used to. I'm ok with it. High pitched and light, and it kinda fluctuates between a couple notes. Did some stunt guitar for a bandmate's solo stuff, and did manage to conjure up a guitar tone which matched my tinnitus exactly, which was kinda neat (Beetronic's Swarm Pedal was the key if anyone's curious). I was always pretty good about earplugs at shows after a certain point, and for sure in a loud rehearsal room, but I also play in a band without drums as my main thing, so I'm not getting blasted as regularly, either.

Went and saw some friends play at the Bottle back in April and the orange bullet cones just weren't cutting it. Had massive ringing and even a touch of headache afterwards, so we upped our plugs to Loops, and they're much better. Not cheap, but not too pricey, either. $35? They're little hollow rings with an ear plug that kinda work like a car muffler. We got the "Experience+" variant of the Loops which has a ring that cuts 18dB, plus a little rubber gasket that fits in the loop for an extra 5dB of extra protection. I like how they feel, and they nook right into the folds of the ear, so they really don't pop out. I did lose one at a big outdoor thing because the case is kinda squirrelly, but I'm hyper vigilant now. Some loud music maven in Vice gave a pretty solid rundown on them, and fittingly they said they saw a band with FM Rich F in it, and those of y'all that know him know he pushes a lot of air. Good enough for me so far.

Oh shit. I forgot about my massive vertigo problem in Jan of 2022. Dizzy, couldn't walk, constant spins while laying down that made me nauseated. Made my eyes ping-pong back and forth. Old buddy from touring days is an ear doc now, and I guess I struck the lottery on otic stones. They're little microscopic crystals that get dislodged from the ear and can rattle around in the ear canals. I somehow ended up with them in both my horizontal and vertical canals. Fucking suuucked. Ended up going to an ear specialist who essentially took me through a series of yoga moves (the Epley Maneuver) to get the stones out of the canals. I think I did five sessions, and the vertigo was cured, but at least it was expensive and my health insurance covered basically nothing. It was unlike anything I've gone through, and I only wish it upon my worst enemies. You know who you are.

^^^^^ That sounds completely awful, glad you got it sorted.

I had a weird ear thing for awhile, I was getting these occasional shooting pains in my ear, mostly the left one. Varied in intensity, sometimes barely perceptible, sometimes It Really Fucking Hurt. Went on for months. Couple nurses at my docs office thought it was allergy related, tried various things, nothing worked. Finally got to talk to an actual doctor instead of a nurse practitioner, and he was more clueless than they were:

He asks "any ringing?"
"Oh yeah, of course."
"How long has that been going on?"
"Haha. Decades."

And I could see his eyes light up "aha! His tinnitus must be the cause of the pain!" I'm like uuhhh, ima guess you don't know any musicians? There's no 54 year old musicians/audio engineers who don't have at least a little tinnitus, I assure you it's not the problem, my hearing's fine, I'd know if it weren't, my clients would tell me.

So he refers me to a specialist, I tell him what's up, he says "yeah you're clenching your jaw, you described the symptoms perfectly, just stop doing that."

Problem: Solved.