I'm afraid your just too darned loud

[swarfrat]

So my 3yo is already butting heads with me over volume. Doesn't want to wear hearing protection any more. Says, "I want to play my drums loud!" My rule was acoustic guitars and electronic drums are ok without hearing protection. For acoustic drums we need to wear them. Usually he refuses, we stop playing, he pitches hissy fit. (He's getting better about that. He really is a good kid, but he's 3)

So I was joking on another forum about a stoplight, and found they make such a device for classrooms. Runs about $100. Yikes. (Also, I don't like their rules for my application) But, as it turns out, I have a plastic stoplight about 12" tall sitting in the closet, and a bunch of microcontrollers in a drawer. Just bought a bunch of LED (easier/cheaper to drive directly from microcontroller pins), and bought a little electret mic/preamp board off ebay. Total outlay for stuff I didnt already have sitting around, like $15.

I showed him the stoplight, told him the new rule. He appears very interested in the stoplight, so I'm hoping this works. Still waiting on the mic board, but I worked some on the controler code this weekend.  Basically it works like this:

<  85 db - Light is green
>  85 db - Light is solid yellow. Hearing Protection Required  (Takes about 30 seconds to clear, may go up to 5min or so)
> 105 db -Red light also comes on (yellow stays on). Too Darned Loud.  Takes about 2 seconds to clear once you drop below 105.

I'm still waiting on my sound board to arrive, but I'm hoping to get my LED's wired up, replace the 120v bulbs &  wiring, and drive it off serial commands for now. It kinda started as a joke, I'm optimistic that it'll help with compliance here, but like... everyone needs one of these in their rehearsal space. (Our limits are kinda strict cause he's so little.) 

 

[Logrinn]

Excellent! I think it's a very good thing teaching your kid to wear ear protection from an early age.

I would know, I should have done so myself, but didn't. And now it's too late. I got tinnitus on both ears. I can manage, but of course I have heard of those that have it really bad. Must be a living hell.

I believe that since young kids hearing is better than adults, they might be more sensitive to it as well. But that's just a guess.

And you could tell him that a lot of cool musicians use earplugs when playing. Paul Gilbert comes to mind, and I happen to know that the drummer Anders Johansson uses them too.

 

[swarfrat]

Acoustic drums, and especially cymbals, are loud enough (and very transient, so they're much louder than you think) that everyone really should practice with protection. If you (adult) want to forgo during rehearsal, I'm ok with it, but if I'm going to damage my hearing I'd really rather it be fun and not just working out  RLRRLRRRRLR.  Plus, since he's so little, he's 6db closer to his obnoxiously loud mini hats than I would be if I were playing them.

The Zildjian low volume cymbals work very well. Kinda pricey but worth it IMHO. They're thin sounding, but they sound cymbal like and behave like real cymbals. But if this doesn't work I may be looking at TWO sets. Ugh.  Or electronic drums and low volume real cymbals. E cymbals can sound ok, but even with moving hats, the left foot action is NOTHING like real hats.

 

[ByteFrenzy]

Not sure about the traffic light... What's the rule exactly, you didn't explicitly mention it? 'If the lights go up to red, you have to wear hearing protection'? That could entice him to play softly, which on drums is going to wreak havoc with your technique, or just the other way round, make him try to keep the red light on permanently. Personally I'd make him always wear the hearing protectors. Maybe show him how his heroes wear in-ears and tell him that's the same thing.

 

[swarfrat]

Yellow and above is "Hearing Protection Required".  I'm fine with no hearing protection for acoustic guitar level stuff. That's a bit excessive, indeed they're not really loud enough to hear well.  That's also why Yellow takes a while to clear.

At age three, I'm his hero. (Enjoying this while it lasts.)

As for technique, learning to play drums softly is probably the hardest thing to do on drums, and also the key to getting more calls. I might have to make a more reactive mode as he gets old enough to actually practice technique.  Also - this isn't a 7 yo jamming away by himself. Drum time is always with daddy present.

 

[GilgaFrank]

My just too darned loud.

 

[Tonar8352]

What did ya say sonny?

 

[Glimmer]

Hah, neat system! (Until your son gets into King Crimson's *Red* LP. ) I agree it's important and wish I had worn protection back in the day. The bands I played in were never outrageously loud, but I spent time in venues that left my ears ringing for hours afterwards.

The only time I ever wore earplugs was at a jam with Greg Ginn. When I got there he asked me if I had brought earplugs and I said no. He said: "Then you'll need these," and handed me a pair. He was right. :laughing7:

 

[swarfrat]

Finally got back to this one. Originally intended to drive the LEDs from the micros pins but found the Teensy 3.0 I used only so sinks a few milliamps. I used an Adafruit adjustable gain electret mic board, and an Adafruit  TCL59711  pwm led driver board, with three white 10mm LED's each light running about 15mA each.

Current rules are 70 and below for 10 min goes idle and blinks every few seconds. 70-85db is green. 85 - 92 db is yellow, downgrades in 1 second (so warning yellow can be seen but backs off if you do). 92db and up is red, and you have to stay below that for 5 minutes before it downgrades. (So he doesn't try to take em off every time the light changes.)

Will have to do a rough calibration, but I think the math is probably close enough for rock n roll.

 

[swarfrat]

Yeah, that didn't take but 10 seconds to turn into "make the red light come on" game.

 

[Axkoa]

Went to my first concert at the end of last year, saw a couple of death metal bands. My dad kept pushing into me to get earplugs and thank god I did. I got a cheap pair from the bar and the rest of the bands were amazing. Not the same for my brother though who didn't have earplugs. No wonder he was hesitant when I wanted to stand up the front near the stage...

 

[swarfrat]

I wore plugs at a concert for the first time, last concert I went to. It wasn't what I would consider obnoxiously loud, but I would definitely expect some serious ear fatigue afterwards.  I decided to wear them anyway. The mix changed a little bit - mostly because I was front row in front of the guitar, and afterwards I couldn't really hear as much guitar.

I took them out for one song, because it's a favorite and the guitar part features prominently. I was kinda shocked - since I wouldn't have normally worn them.  I'll be wearing them in the future for most all concerts - I need to be careful with what I got left. I already have trouble with voices in crowds and stuff.

 

[musicispeace]

Interesting that you bring this up. As a second time around adult player the quickest way to raise my Irish ire is to be too loud. I want to hear all the instruments and the words to the song. Then there is the little matter of taking care of one's hearing. When I was younger and went to concerts I would have been too worried about ridicule to wear hearing protection but I missed my chance to see Van Halen up close at front of stage on their second album tour because (none other than) Sammy Hagar came on to open and was too much volume for me. (when it reaches the point of pain it was hard to justify)

I tend to believe that there is a point beyond which you are losing definition and I went to a club show here a awhile back and wanted to see that the sound man ended up underneath the forest up in the hills. I read an interview with the Cure's guitarist who talked about their stage volume being very livable for all on stage and in front and all the musicians he knows who have hearing loss in midlife.

 

[swarfrat]

A lot of hearing damage occurs at the resonance of the ear canal, which is critical to understanding speech, especially female voices. Crew chiefs who work around jet engines joke about that aspect. But my little boy is often quite soft spoken. He'll be in the back seat talking so quietly that I can't hear him over road noise.

 

[musicispeace]

Definitely worth protecting your hearing. Rush is another well known band that has stated their stage volume is (or was, given retirement now) about the equal of a home stereo kicked up a good notch in the living room but not ear splitting by any means.