5 ms·

You know what the most depressing thing about this article is for me? I no longer have the option of being an audiophile. :( I toured professionally as a dru

You know what the most depressing thing about this article is for me? I no longer have the option of being an audiophile. :( I toured professionally as a drummer with a tech metal band and played with a click track every night. I used Ultimate Ears (high-quality earbuds) with ProTools through a rack amp. I had guitar tracks going behind the click track (metronome) for reference and let's put it this way... the reference guitar tracks had to be louder than the actual live amplifiers/PA and the click track had to be even louder than that. On a scale of 1 to 10, relative to the loudness of the vast majority of electronic music players (computers/mp3 players/phones/etc.)... I'd say my click track was at least 17. It hurts my ears just thinking about it now... constant TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK for 30 (sometimes 45) minutes every night for weeks at a time! I don't wish that upon my worst enemy. If it was another style of music there's no doubt I could have had it turned down to a fraction of what it was... but it was tech metal so it was always loud and heavy and all over the place. Most of the time I'm playing upwards of 300 bpm and the tempo and time signatures were always changing so the click track was necessary. I remember I tried turning it down a few times and it didn't work out so well haha... Bye bye hearing! I miss you.

khafra 16y ago
That's astounding--the UE page says they provide up to 32db of sound reduction; and that wasn't enough to reduce the ambient sound from the speakers and other monitors to non-hearing-damaging levels? I feel sorry for the patrons of the venues you played in. I do care about my own hearing, and I hate it when I forget to bring non-distorting attenuators of some sort to a place which makes a goal of preventing conversation even in shouts.
- TimothyBurgess 16y ago
  I'm not sure if the UE model I used reduced sound by 32db but they definitely reduced it a LOT. That's actually why I bought them. I didn't buy the high-end though. At the time I needed them immediately and could only afford the $50 buds from Best Buy. The difference in sound when wearing the headphones was insane, but the click trick still had to be turned way up. Now that I think about it iirc, it was actually mostly my drums (mostly cymbals) that I had to drown out... the guitar cabs/PA levels varied depending on the venue setup.
tricky 16y ago
Ambient noise is part of the reason why mutemath's drummer duct tapes his headphones to his head, no? Do you think you could learn to play with a tactile click track? I always thought it would be interesting to build a thing you strap to your body that taps/shocks instead of blasting your ears with clicks. It doesn't help with backing tracks, but it might keep someone a bit more sane. Think it would work?

khafra 16y ago

That's astounding--the UE page says they provide up to 32db of sound reduction; and that wasn't enough to reduce the ambient sound from the speakers and other monitors to non-hearing-damaging levels? I feel sorry for the patrons of the venues you played in. I do care about my own hearing, and I hate it when I forget to bring non-distorting attenuators of some sort to a place which makes a goal of preventing conversation even in shouts.

TimothyBurgess 16y ago
I'm not sure if the UE model I used reduced sound by 32db but they definitely reduced it a LOT. That's actually why I bought them. I didn't buy the high-end though. At the time I needed them immediately and could only afford the $50 buds from Best Buy. The difference in sound when wearing the headphones was insane, but the click trick still had to be turned way up. Now that I think about it iirc, it was actually mostly my drums (mostly cymbals) that I had to drown out... the guitar cabs/PA levels varied depending on the venue setup.

tricky 16y ago

Ambient noise is part of the reason why mutemath's drummer duct tapes his headphones to his head, no? Do you think you could learn to play with a tactile click track? I always thought it would be interesting to build a thing you strap to your body that taps/shocks instead of blasting your ears with clicks. It doesn't help with backing tracks, but it might keep someone a bit more sane. Think it would work?