Acoustic Personal Monitor

[oldbandnerd]

Hello folks,
In this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyyQoRJwOE0" target="_blank ) the narrator talks about a ACOUSTIC PERSONAL MONITOR . It's a " non-electronic device " that allows you to hear your own playing. They claim even while playing with a loud group. Does anyone have any experience with this ? I have hearing loss in one ear and struggle to play sometimes because I can't always hear myself. I wonder if this will help. It's only $22.95 including shipping so I have ordered one.

Here's the website for Chasons Music : http://chasonsmusic.com/fr_chasonsmusic.cfm" target="_blank

[oldbandnerd]

I don't know the "Peacemaker" . Must be before my time . You are correct ..... this looks to be a vinyl tube with a earbud . Might just be junk. I will find out soon . I need something to help me . I have a choice of $22.95 for this or $3 K or more for a hearing aid. A hearing aid that I can't afford or wear at work because these things aren't water resistant and I work on commercial dish machines and am around water all the time .

[Mike Finn]

Looks like it could be very helpful in your situation. Let us know how it works out! I know a couple of folks in a community band that I play with who might benefit from such a device, as well.

[MaryAnn]

Try inserting one of those foam earplugs (the ones you can buy at the drugstore for $2 for 10 of them or so) and you will be able to hear your pitch amazingly well. Your sound quality won't come through as well but if you have a developed embouchure it won't matter, and you can figure out how loud you are too. It beats the pants off of blowing your brains out trying to hear yourself in a reverberant room full of elephants, and if it works it also beats the pants off a $3k hearing aid.

MA

[Todd S. Malicoate]

The clip-on tube to earbud that you purchased will very likely work. It's a very simple design. Heck, there's really no reason that it WOULDN'T work. You'll be able to hear yourself better than if you used nothing at all.

Tin cans and string are primitive and silly-looking, but they work as advertised.

[Virtuoso]

Try inserting one of those foam earplugs ...MA

Forgive my ignorance....

What would the earplug be inserted into?

David 'ears work fine, but curious nevertheless' Neider

[Mike Finn]

Try inserting one of those foam earplugs ...MA

Forgive my ignorance....

What would the earplug be inserted into?

David 'ears work fine, but curious nevertheless' Neider

Your ear.


Here's something you can do right now even without the plug: read this post out loud (or recite your favorite poem or whatever) and the read it again, out loud, but this time plugging your ear with a finger. You will hear your own voice resonating inside your head, much the same as you would hear your buzzing inside your head if playing tuba/euph with an earplug.

[oldbandnerd]

Hiya Mike ,
Long time,no talk to. Belated Happy Birthday !
As you know I've had 2 surgeries to repair damage to the ear drum in the left ear. The hearing is so whacked out I can't even explain it. It just doesn't act like a normal ear. Doing what you just suggested is too annoying on the left side.I have "holes"in my range of hearing. Some things in the very low sound frequency I hear fine and then a little higher I can barley hear at all . It goes on like that on up to the higher freqency . Over all I have lost quite a bit of the lowest and highest freqencies. If I coul just install a volume dial on my ear and just turn it up a little I would get a lot of the lost hearing back. A hearing aid would solve all of that but as I state before it's just not practical. I live with the loss and have adjusted to it.I kind of read lips a litte and guess what words I did not understand when some one is speaking or I can always ask them to repeat themselves. But playing in a large group is very differnt . I either hear or I don't .

[imperialbari]

I don’t believe in the said pseudo stethoscope, as it has some equalizing effect, but unlikely the one you need. Which equalizing effect you need may be found out by an otologist. The earplug method is no good, as it is impossible to adjust to ones right place in the overall balance. You simply hear yourself too loudly.

People with certain ear conditions cannot use normal hearing aids. They may use headphones to hear what a microphone picks up and sends through an amplifier with an equalizer function.

In your situation a clip-om mike on the bell may be plugged into the amplifier which preferably should drive an open headset walk-man style. Maybe one-sided only.

Klaus

[oldbandnerd]

I got the APM today and got to play with it some. It's a 1/8" vinyl tubing with a plastic bell rim clip and a ear plug at one end. The inside of the clip has a channel in it where the viny tubing is located to keep it from being flattened out. Looks like it was hand made. Definetly not machine made. The other end has been flared out and lays down in the bell with a slight curl to make it lay against the inside of the bell.
Here are my observation so far :
1) The 3 flanged earbud is very comfortable . I hate almost any sort of earbuds and usually find them painful or annoying.
This did not bother me for the 30 minutes or so I had to play with it .
2) I think the product does what it claims. It does channel the sound of the horn into the ear. I had to get the earbud really
down in the canal before I could tell the difference but it wasn't uncomfortable to do so .
3) I could make adjustments to the volume of the sound by changing how far the earbud was in. By changing the volume I also
changed the balance between the 2 ears.
All the way in-the hearing from that side was dominante.
Pull it out some - I was able to get a good balance between the 2 ears. Which is what I was looking for.

Overall impressions - It initialy took some getting used too. After about 15 minutes I had a good idea of how it supposed to work .By the end of the short 45 minutes I had to play with it I found the balance I was looking for. It's comfortable to wear. Being a euphonium player my sounds goes off to the right and I miss a lot of the sublties of how I sound. When it's really in with a nice tight seal I hear all those subtlties .

Ok .... yeah .... it's a vinyl tubing with a earbud that has a stethescope effect .... and it works . You'll have to make up your own mind wether it's worth the $22.95 . For me it is . I'll let you know later on this week how it works for me in band rehersal.