Do you have protection with you?

[Tubadork]

Hey,
I have been doing more work on loud gigs as of late (drummers, guitar etc..) and I'm not fond of ringing in my ears. I need to find hearing protection that works. I have tried:
Foam earplugs (way bass heavy, all upper frequencies are shot)
Xmas tree style (better, but still not great)
Custom earplugs [25db reduction] (work good, but I can't tell what I sound like)

What do you guys use?
Thanks,
Bill

[MartyNeilan]

http://www.etymotic.com/hp/er20.html
I never leave home without them.

[Chadtuba]

http://www.etymotic.com/hp/er20.html
I never leave home without them.

These are what I use as well, especially during marching band season when I'm walking the field teaching drill. Our stadium is a dome and is claimed to be one of the loudest in the NCAA. I have no idea, but I do know that it is amazingly loud even when I'm not standing next to the band.

[Dan Schultz]

http://www.etymotic.com/hp/er20.html
I never leave home without them.

+1. I ALWAYS have some in my mouthpiece bag.

[bort]

You know, I've never done much about it other than complain when it was really annoying. I'm going to get a pair of the Etymotic plugs though!

For me, the worst part isn't necessarily the noise, but the noise plus bad playing. I've been in so many community bands where the percussionists (er... "drummers") are ahead, behind, way off, no clue...

[Matt Walters]

Bill,
Get the tan earplugs like Hearos and cut about a third of the large side off of them. Then they fit discreetly in your ears with no blatant overhang to call attention to themselves. You can control how much quieting you need that way. Works great at concerts, weddings with stupid DJ's that think the volume turned up so loud the sound system is distorting means fun, and to sleep at night after a long day of having your ears assaulted at a music store. I keep them in my car, work desk, and in my night stand.

[DHMTuba]

Foam plugs have lived in my instrument cases ever since I played bass in an orchestra doing the Janacek Sinfonietta. We were in front of the brass - they had a good time but I didn't (and I'm a brass player for Pete's sake). Doubt that anybody else in front of them enjoyed it either, although the music director didn't say anything.
After the first rehearsal I went to Home Depot and bought a bag of ear plugs. They're light, don't take up a lot of space in the case, and work a lot better than toilet paper from the dressing room! Now, if things get loud the plugs go in. It's hard to hear how you sound, but it's manageable. I figure it would be even harder to hear how you sound if you're deaf.
I thought about getting some big earmuffs like they wear on the tarmac at O'Hare, but they didn't come in concert black .
Interesting that the Janacek isn't painfully loud when you're playing tuba in the back row . . .

[tokuno]

http://www.etymotic.com/hp/er20.html
I never leave home without them.

I keep a pair of low-end Etymotics in every horn case, and have a few pair around the house, too, to grab on the way to the theater or use in-home for louder appliances (e.g. Vitamix: very loud blender)

They're insufficient for high volume racket suppression (chain saw, leaf blower, shop tools and the like), but for the annual Christmas gig where I'm invariably wedged with my back to the upright piano (geez, those things are loud from that side), or the occasional crash-cymbal adjacency, the Etymotics work great.

Less "boomy" than the foamies, easier to pop in and out, better preservation over frequency range, and easier to sustain a conversation. The last batch I bought ran <$8 each on Amazon, iirc.

Ear plugs cost me confidence about how I'm balancing/blending, but it's worth it to me to eliminate discomfort, and perhaps preserve my hearing.

[Paul Scott]

What?

[MaryAnn]

The etymotics (sp?) can be painful even with short wear times.

Foam can be hard to remove, requiring tweezers, if you put them in too far. (But I use them anyway in high noise situations.)
I have the 15 dB musician's plugs and found them excellent for acoustic groups, in the horn section. I almost always use them at movies, where invariably the sound is loud enough to hurt.

With all ear plugs, you can easily determine your pitch from the head noise, and in a bedlam situation by whether your chops are fighting you (if you're in the correct harmonic intonation spot, the note will be easy, but if you wander out of the harmonic series, your chops will fight you, just like trying to sing off-harmonic through the instrument,) but you have to have your sound quality well in hand without having to think about it, and your volume is also going to have to be based on feel or "the [conductor's] hand." It sure beats losing your hearing; sure wish I had had them when I was playing electric violin in a rock band. I might be able to hear better now if I had.

MA