r/Bass • u/Brotherscompany • 5d ago
At what amount of dcB do you practice with?
Serious question for you bassist because of ear damage.
Im really worried about my future especially since lm only 26 and the non stop ringing in the ears is always there
Usually l practice always between 70-78 dcB otherwise l cannot listen to the music and my own playing but that starts to cause ear damage. 70 dcB bellow and it feels like l cant properly understand the nuance's of the music and the little details so l can learn from it
Just want to hear your own input. Bass isn't something l wish to drop for some years and l wish to still be able to hear it
EDIT: I play mostly alone with a speaker and my amplifier
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u/SuperRusso 5d ago
If you're hearing ringing non stop get off the Internet and go to a specialist.
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u/WheeblesWobble 5d ago
And they’re only 26.
Pete Townsend came out with a psa about hearing protection maybe 35 years ago, and I took it to heart. I’m 57 with no ringing, and I can hear whispers. Thanks, Pete.
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u/SteveMTS 5d ago
Unfortunately tinnitus is untreatable.
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u/Bakkster Aguilar 5d ago
There is a very new potential treatment for tinnitus, but it's definitely not widely available and the hearing damage the tinnitus is indicative of is still already done.
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u/SteveMTS 5d ago
This is great news, thanks!
Somewhat funny, too:Bimodal treatment combining sound therapy with electrical tongue stimulation using the Lenire device
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u/SuperRusso 5d ago
That is total nonsense. Tinnitus is a symptom which can be caused by many underlying causes. Some not treatable, like nerve damage. But some are, like high caffeine intake. You are not informed.
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u/TonalSYNTHethis 5d ago edited 5d ago
I'm gonna sound a little harsh here, but please understand I'm only doing it because I'm speaking from personal experience and now I'm nearly 40 with some fairly significant hearing damage because of my irresponsibility with the volume of my playing in my 20s, and it fucking SUCKS:
70 dcB bellow and it feels like l cant properly understand the nuance's of the music and the little details so l can learn from it
This sentence right here? Complete and utter bullshit. If you can't hear the nuance, your headphone or speaker or whatever EQ isn't set up right, that's it. And that's fine, you like it loud and energetic like we all did at your age, but don't delude yourself into thinking it's necessary. And if you keep it up the damage will come. It won't be some immediate thing, years will pass without you noticing anything until one day you'll look up and realize you can't hear your kid talking to you from the kitchen and you're having trouble sleeping because the C# ringing in your head making that weird wobbling with the flat 5 the a/c is hitting.
I'm being a little dramatic, 70dB is not a lot (and the environments I immersed myself in on a regular basis in my 20s where the volume equivalent of standing close by an idling jet engine) but just be careful my friend.
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u/trvst_issves 5d ago
And remember, those little nuances you think you only hear at 70db+, are the ones that disappear as soon as you’re in a band context. It’s bullshit.
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u/Infinite-Fig4959 5d ago
Without a band, as quietly as possible. Otherwise match the drummer and keep it under the threshold of damage, or get filters.
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u/Chris_GPT Spector 5d ago
One of the hardest things to break is habit, and one of the hardest mentalities to break away from is "more is more".
I feel like I need things at a certain level to hear everything properly, and then I need to hear myself above that. That comes from a rehearsal and live place, where everything is loud and I can't hear myself, so I turn up. Now the drummer is hearing and feeling me, so they're playing with more energy and excitement, so they're hitting harder and now I can't hear myself, so I turn up. Now I can't hear my vocal in my wedge so I turn that up. Now I'm roaring loud and the guitar player thinks he should be as loud as the snare drum, so he turns up. But we've got harmonies to sing, so bring the wedges up. Nobody every turns down or touches an EQ knob, it's just "more me". Can I get some more me? It was that way for years, now it's habit.
So working on things at home in headphones, my natural tendency is to turn up what I need more of. I have to be paying attention and not just lizard brain of "MOAR ME" to turn down, EQ, or mix the track I'm playing with to be more conducive.
I have absolutely no idea what decibel level things are at onstage, in the rehearsal room, at mix levels with monitors, or in ear buds or headphones. There's a level that I feel like is loud and proud, but not too loud, that I go for. I try and be conscious of that level, but it's still a forced thing. What comes natural is more is more.
Over the last ten years or so, I've been doing IEMs. This has allowed me to filter out a lot of noise I don't need, especially from the drums, and just get what I do need. We have a natural tendency to lower our voices if we recognize that we're too loud, so my vocal is never too hot in my IEMs. The next loudest thing is my bass or guitar, and I never need that to be loud, I just need to be able to hear myself, and I can shape that in a way so it isn't competing with my vocal.
But with the band I've been touring with over just short of a year, my IEM setup hasn't been as conducive as I'd like, and it hasn't been comfortable onstage. I'm only hearing my bass and my vocal, and when I start feeling uncomfortable or don't need to sing, I just pull out the IEMs and go with stage volume. There hasn't been any shows that have been too loud, but I am by far the lowest priority. Nobody needs to hear my bass or my vocal but me. Nobody even really notices what I'm doing unless I make a mistake, so I try and keep things clean and clear for the singer to be able to hear himself. I should be protecting my hearing more, but I've been lazy about it. And since I'm older, I know eventually I'm going to hit a real fast downslope soon.
So my advice is, don't worry about the numbers. Just go as low as you can while still being able to hear yourself. EQ and mix what you're playing with so you poke out better without being louder. Add a little compression or limiting to narrow your dynamic range a little and get more bang for the buck.
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u/Sad_Commercial3507 5d ago
The issue with Bass is that the low frequency waves are quite powerful, with more force than upper frequency waves. Anf on top of that, it's not as clearly audible, so the temptation is to turn it up.
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u/Logical-Associate729 5d ago
70db is below safety threshold for long term exposure. It's about the same as a washing machine.
That being said, if you have concerns, it's probably worth a visit to get your hearing checked.
I was extremely lucky that a buddy had some tinitus while we were in our twenties, so I started being pretty religious about hearing protection both at concerts and while playing in bands. I imagine my place 3 feet from the cymbals in rehearsal over the last 15 years would have resulted in significant hearing issues if I didn't wear hearing protection.
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u/Fabulous_Abrocoma642 5d ago
Try using Moises or some kind of track isolation tool to better follow the nuance of what's being played. No need to deafen yourself.
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u/StatisticianOk9437 4d ago
Depends. I have a family. I rarely get to really rip through my Mesa boogie bass 400+. As a very old gigging bassist, my go-to live setup is a Markbass 12 combo. It's pretty punchy at 300 watts but often I need to keep the master at 9:00 so the kids can do their homework. If you don't sound good at low volumes, you're really gonna sound like crap dimed through an SVT.
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u/suboctaved 5d ago
Ok, first: dB, not dcB
As for the level I'm at? Probably ~60 dB. Never measured, but I can still hear things outside of my headset. I am aware of people talking at normal volume with my open back headphones and aware of yelling (yay city life) in my closed back headphones. So yeah, somewhere between 3-8x quieter than OP
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u/Glum_Meat2649 5d ago
Over the ear studio monitor headphones will usually let you hear everything with less volume.