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From: Tobiah on 7 May 2008 14:50
I caught rush last night in LA. I knew to
bring ear plugs but I didn't get a chance to
put them in for a few minutes after the first
song started. I found the sound to be ragged
at first. The high end was all distorted as
though a microphone or speaker was being
over driven. Then I got the ear plugs in
and the highs smoothed out. I could still
hear detail in the cymbals, etc. I have to
assume that my ear drum was being over driven.

They also employ very high power strobes in
the back of the stage, and employ them at every
opportunity when the energy of the music is high.
I had to wear dark sunglasses and on many occasions
shut my eyes, for fear that the intense light was
damaging (it was certainly quite unpleasant). I
am guessing that the desired effect is to leave
psychodelic patterns temporarily (?) burnt into
the retina to enhance the over all visual effect.

With sunglasses and good ear plugs the sensory
experience was still exciting without the worry.

If you like Rush by the way, they still 'got it'.

Toby
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
From: Scott Dorsey on 7 May 2008 14:55
Tobiah <toby(a)tobiah.org> wrote:
>I caught rush last night in LA. I knew to
>bring ear plugs but I didn't get a chance to
>put them in for a few minutes after the first
>song started. I found the sound to be ragged
>at first. The high end was all distorted as
>though a microphone or speaker was being
>over driven. Then I got the ear plugs in
>and the highs smoothed out. I could still
>hear detail in the cymbals, etc. I have to
>assume that my ear drum was being over driven.

Yes, this is sadly pretty common. A couple of things happen.. first your
hair cells become fatigued, and secondly your ear canal contracts to
protect itself. But on top of this, you get nonlinearity issues with the
movement of the bones attached to the ear canal.

Do this for very long, and you get permanent damage, mostly because the
hair cells start to break apart.

The hair cell fatigue and canal contraction causes a loss of high
frequencies but it ALSO causes a lack of definition in the midrange as
well.. and so folks tend to crank the high end up to compensate for it,
which just makes things worse.

>They also employ very high power strobes in
>the back of the stage, and employ them at every
>opportunity when the energy of the music is high.
>I had to wear dark sunglasses and on many occasions
>shut my eyes, for fear that the intense light was
>damaging (it was certainly quite unpleasant). I
>am guessing that the desired effect is to leave
>psychodelic patterns temporarily (?) burnt into
>the retina to enhance the over all visual effect.

That's probably less physically damaging than the high sound levels.

>With sunglasses and good ear plugs the sensory
>experience was still exciting without the worry.

I think concerts should hand out earplugs to everyone in the audience.
I certainly have taken to using the Etymotic earplugs while mixing.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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