Roberts Instrument Repairs and Accessories

D’Addario Picato hearing protection
Like most gigging musicians I enjoy hearing my guitar sound through a cranked amp. Such a rewarding experience after spending countless hours and money on gear to get that illusive sound finally realised at a gig.
The down side of course is the potential damage to hearing when playing at more than bedroom volume, especially when playing with a full band! This can be either through hearing loss or the debilitating condition called tinnitus. We have all come back from a gig whether playing or watching and have had that ringing in the ears. Although annoying for a few hours, imagine if it never went away!
So what’s the answer? Ear plugs. Thankfully now days there is a lot of choice, ranging from industrial factory foam plugs to a varying array of custom made ones with lots in between. The big downside with them can be the feeling of isolation and all the frequencies heard are either the high end muffled or low end amplified which although keeping your ears safe can make your great guitar tone sound pretty flat. Having had some ear plugs custom made about 15 years ago which have worked well in protecting my ears against some very loud drummers, they have always had the inherent problem of a pretty muffled sounding experience.
Over recent months I’ve been looking into other options and having been a long time user of D’Addario strings, I found they also make ear plugs specifically designed for musicians and music enthusiasts. The specs of them give a 19db level reduction but due to the design they offer full frequency reduction and minimising what’s called “occlusion effect” which is the correct term for low end frequency emphasis. Playing a gig at the Moto Gp Woodlands festival big top stage would provide a perfect chance to test them.
After doing the gig and listening to other bands at the festival I can report that they work exactly as they are meant to. Very comfortable to wear for a lengthy period of time and the volume reduction was how the specs described, even and with no feeling of isolation due to the low end frequencies being amplified. So although I’ll keep my older custom ones as spares in my gig bag, I’ll definitely be using the D’Addario Picato ear plugs from now on!