- This topic has 13 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated January 23, 2007 at 1:45 pm by Ketamina.
-
AuthorPosts
-
January 22, 2007 at 7:50 pm #1040339
We just had a health and safety guy in at college to check the sound levles in our practice pods. it turns out the levle we practice at is 5db loudler than milatary weapons. The advicable time to spend at that levle is 7 seconds a day before your ears are likely to become badly damaged!(i practice at these levles about 3-4 hors a day, and stick my head in a bass bin most weekends!) So it is going to become mandatory for us to were decent ear plugs.
i started talking to the guy and apperently new rules are going to be coming in for all music venues. Clubs and rock venues are going to be forced to lower the volumes as a loss of hearing epidemic is predicted. Will this be the end of FEELING that sweet bass?
Also mabye this is something the boys in blue ae going to be able to use against rig crews putting on events.
Are you worried about your hearing?
Hope this isnt the end of the 30k!!!January 22, 2007 at 8:42 pm #1098376We have this law in France since 3 years …Since that,in every LEGAL event of every kind of music ,the rig is equiped with a db meter associated to a limitator;if it goes in the red too much,the sound is cut for a few minutes.In the begining,cops came to check if the limiter was on…
January 22, 2007 at 8:46 pm #1098373I always wear earplugs to nightclubs as badly tuned sound systems physically hurt my ears [really really sore] :scared: [its similar to toothache]
I imagine a way round it is to have earplugs available for the nightclub punters behind the bar or somewhere so they can make a choice as to whether or not to use them while inside….H&S is about reducing the risks to the acceptable, not entirely removing them or we would all live in padded cells…
Personally I always carry or improvise earplugs [due to the potential for immediate pain] but I know lots of other people who dont even realise that the sound quality is bad [volume isnt really the problem in point of fact – distortion is what kills your hearing fastest and this can be introduced in many ways in the chain of sound reproduction unless you are very good at what you do – I have heard famous musicians on tour who have bad sound engineering at their gigs]:you_crazy:you_crazy:you_crazy
January 23, 2007 at 12:50 am #1098371dont they hand out ear plugs when you go to the valve soundsystem?
January 23, 2007 at 12:55 am #1098380health and safety guys are morons, or ours are anyway. last guy who audited our work managed to electrocute himself by sticking his finger in a live socket. seriously.
January 23, 2007 at 11:02 am #1098377:laugh_at: :laugh_at: :laugh_at: :laugh_at:
Ketamina wrote:health and safety guys are morons, or ours are anyway. last guy who audited our work managed to electrocute himself by sticking his finger in a live socket. seriously.January 23, 2007 at 11:09 am #1098375Thats well shit – fucking nanny state bollocks really pissing me off these days – can’t smoke, can’t listen to loud music…. whatever happened to adults being able to make their own educated decisions in what they choose to do!!!!!
January 23, 2007 at 11:17 am #1098369its very difficult to electrocute yourself on a standard 13A socket unless you have used an unsafe plug or have bypassed the safety features… the British electrical system is safest in the world and is something our engineering profession should be proud of..
OTOH I bet these safety lot will clamp down on concerts and parties but won’t close down a factory where people are working long hours on noisy machinery to meet production deadlines
The cops can’t use the argument against most free parties as unlike commercial venues there is usually always sufficient space to go to an area where the noise levels are safer..
if you enjoy making or playing music you should look after your ears though – me and my mates once set up a computer so we could check our hearing
I was pleased to see I can still hear up to 18.5Khz (which is about right for someone in their early thirties) but a friend of mine who is in his twenties can only hear up to 14-15Khz due to exposure to cheap distorted rigs in the mid 90s onwards..
January 23, 2007 at 11:50 am #1098381General Lighting wrote:its very difficult to electrocute yourself on a standard 13A socket unless you have used an unsafe plug or have bypassed the safety features… the British electrical system is safest in the world and is something our engineering profession should be proud of..i have no idea how he managed it. basically the place i work is a very old historical pub and we were in the middle of a massive refurbishment because nothing had been changed for about thirty years, possibly longer. he was fiddling with something or other behind the bar when we heard a yell.
needless to say, for the rest of the day everyone took the living piss out of him though: “well, that wasn’t very safe now was it nick?” and such-like.thinking about it, the wiring was so old it probably wasn’t his fault but ah well…still damn funny…:groucho:
January 23, 2007 at 1:13 pm #1098374Back to waffle on this having thought about it 😉
The idea of using db meters to monitor sound levels is fatally flawed anyway – db is a logarithmic scale [- each time the number goes up by one the volume is doubled].
The number of decibels of bass required to damage your hearing is less than the number of decibels of high frequencies…..so the measurements need to be made across all frequencies to be accurate [110 db highs are far nastier for hearing than 110db bass]
Our rig can put out 127db of bass – it doesnt reach this level very often as I cant stand within 10 feet of the speakers when they are at this level – its physically painful. The CD horns are never turned up this high – they would make me run for cover at this level and hide behing a wall or something…
Having said all this when I was working in clubs with a hire rig I was always amazed when I had to physically pull people out of the folded horns we used as subs :you_crazy:you_crazy:you_crazy
You would not catch me with my head in those while they were running :scared: baaad idea – dont even want to imagine what that has done to their hearing :you_crazy:you_crazy:you_crazyOh yes – another point – most of the people I know have damaged hearing in my opinion [cos they dont hear as well as I do :wink:] and it has been caused by long exposure to distorted sound waves reproduced on amplified equipment…the redline dj monkeys have a lot to answer for :get_you: when your ears are ringing after a listening to amplified music you have damaged your hearing guys
Dont even get me started on mp3 players and ear buds – in my opinion these will do far more long term damage to hearing than clubbing etc will ever achieve as people listen to them daily for hours on end :you_crazy:you_crazy:you_crazyoften at high volume [the correct volume is as low as possible while still allowing you to hear the music clearly ][mp3 players distort if turned up to loud too ]. Headphones may be less ‘cool’ to look at but at least they are not right next to your eardrum when they are playing….Personally I dont have an mp3 player and I dont want one either…I would like to be able to hear when I get older….
January 23, 2007 at 1:24 pm #1098378Ah sounds about right Raj,
When been in decent clubs i can listen to the tunes all night fine but sat went to a dive in the town center and i couldnt hear the next day lots of ringing and buzzing in my head and couldnt hear naff all….. wasnt nice at all :hopeless:
January 23, 2007 at 1:31 pm #1098372Yeah i know wat you mean starlaugh, never have a problem at the coven but some places you go in oxford can mess your hearing right up.
January 23, 2007 at 1:37 pm #1098379Ah yes the Coven Raverbaby! Lets see how my hearing goes this sat 😉 Probably gonna lose more brain cells though
January 23, 2007 at 1:45 pm #1098370Ketamina wrote:i
needless to say, for the rest of the day everyone took the living piss out of him though: “well, that wasn’t very safe now was it nick?” and such-like.thinking about it, the wiring was so old it probably wasn’t his fault but ah well…still damn funny…:groucho:
:laugh_at:and all the safety guides (and plain common sense) advise that if you’re working on sketchy old wiring you’re supposed treat all cables as live and then de-energise that part of it you are working on or you are bound to get shocked….
I got caught out once a few years back but that was from all night working in a squat whilst on speed (lack of sleep/intoxication makes you take short cuts…) – never assume a circuit is dead even if you think you have isolated it… :yakk:
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.