I remember it was in the trailer where my beloved and I lived during our first two years of marriage–so this would’ve been 1994 or 1995-ish. I was an active musician, and we had recently been to a concert of some nature. My ears had been ringing. And would you believe, in the newspaper was an article about hearing damage, and a phone number to a telephone based hearing test. You called the number, and listeded to three tones. I remember calling, and remember I couldn’t hear all three. A recording at the end of the test said something like “If you’ve recently been exposed to loud noises, give your ears some time to rest, and then take the test again.” I did, and thankfully the test that time was normal. Since then, I’ve been routinely wearing earplugs when playing the drums.
Fast forward 23 or so years. I was listening to a drumming podcast, and the subject or ear protection came up. Specifically, a company was promoting high fidelity, but affordable and non custom made, earplugs. I decided I’d try a pair. And so, I’ve been on a bit of a quest. A quest to find the best, not custom, affordable earplugs.
I now own four different sets of earplugs, all less than $25. I’m going to give honest reviews of these earplugs here on the blog, with the hope other musicians find these reveiws and find them helpful in choosing something that will potentially save their hearing. Reveiws will begin soon.
Billy, this is in reference to your Ghost segment. I played pretty much continuously for 12 years, mostly on the road with show groups, 5 hours a night, 6 nights a week. I don’t know exactly when I bought my Ghost pedal, but it is a pre-Ludwig and I went on the road in 1972. Anyway I would like to send you a photo of that Ghost pedal which has a good portion of the GHOST on the foot board wore off! Please let me know what email to send it to. Thanks, and BTW, I enjoyed the Ghost site and I own 3 of them but one has a repaired base board, and the other one has it broken off. My original one is still working well although it requires some WD40 occasional to eliminate the squeak! Do you know where i might get replacement parts?