Hearing Health for Musicians & Engineers
A practical reference, not a lecture
If you work in music, your first instrument is your hearing. Everything else – gear, taste, translation – sits on top of that.
Musicians and engineers are at much higher risk of noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus than the general public. The point of this page is simple: what to do, concretely, so you can keep listening for decades without cooking your ears.
This is not medical advice; it’s the working practice of a mastering engineer who wants to still enjoy cymbals at 70.
The short version
If you only read part of this page, make it this one.
• Most of your work day: aim for roughly 70–80 dB; treat 80 as a ceiling, not a target – comfortably under “fun loud.”
• Limit loud exposures: anything in the 95–105 dB range (rehearsals, clubs, side of stage) should be short and protected.
• Wear plugs you can live with: customs in the main bag, decent universals on the keychain, foam as emergency backup.
• Take real breaks: 10 minutes of quiet per hour, and proper low-sound days after big shows or long sessions.
• Measure yourself: get a baseline audiogram, then repeat regularly and watch the trend, not just the pass/fail.
Want the full essay and print resources? See Listening for a Lifetime and Perception as Participation on the resources page.
1. Why our risk is higher
The basic problem:
• We spend more hours around loud sound (rehearsals, gigs, headphones, studio).
• We need more nuance than the average person (12–16 kHz, micro-detail, ambience).
• Damage is cumulative and irreversible. Once you lose the fine detail, you’re mixing and mastering around a permanent bias.
Industrial limits (OSHA, NIOSH, etc.) were written to stop factory workers from ending up obviously deaf, not to preserve a mastering engineer’s ability to hear a 1 dB shelf at 12 kHz.
So for us:
Those limits are outer boundaries, not anything like a recommended working level.
2. Level and time: simple rules of thumb
You don’t need to memorise tables. Think of it like this:
• Workday in the studio: keep the monitoring comfortably below “club loud.” If you meter it, aim ~75 dB at the listening position for most decisions, with short, deliberate loud checks.
• Rehearsal / small loud room: if you’re next to a kit or a loud amp and it feels like a club, you’re probably somewhere around 95–100 dB. Treat that as short, protected time – plugs in, breaks, don’t live there for hours.
• Right by the PA or snare: anything that feels physically aggressive (snare hits painful, PA moving your clothes) is in the 110+ dB world. Safe exposure is measured in minutes, not hours.
If you want a number:
• Use the free NIOSH Sound Level Meter app on iOS. It isn’t perfect, but it’s vastly better than guessing.
Two no-gear cues:
• If you have to raise your voice at arm’s length to be heard, your dose clock is running fast.
• If you step outside and the world sounds muffled or you hear a new ring, that was an overdraft on tomorrow – pay it back with quiet and sleep.
Approximate relative loudness zones in my own work — how I think about studio, rehearsal, and PA levels. A personal reference, not a medical chart.
3. Studio habits that actually help
In the room:
• Work quieter than ego wants. Impact and clarity don’t require “impressive” SPL. You’ll make better decisions with less fatigue.
• Set a timer for breaks. Ten minutes of low sound or silence per hour is not laziness; it’s maintenance.
• Keep the low-end under control. Over-hyped bass forces you to turn up to “feel it,” which just eats your exposure budget.
• Alternate perspectives. Speakers ↔ headphones, loud ↔ quiet. You catch your own drift earlier and rely less on sheer volume to tell you the truth.
Treat fatigue as data:
• If your top end feels “soft” by late afternoon most days, that’s your system asking you to do less, not to turn up more.
4. Earplugs, IEMs, and not killing the joy
Foam is better than nothing, but there are smarter tools:
• Universal musician plugs: cheap, reasonably flat attenuation, good to keep in instrument cases and jackets.
• Custom musician plugs: the adult move – moulded to your ears, with filters (9/15/25 dB) you can swap depending on context. Comfortable enough for full rehearsals and shows.
• In-ear monitors: if you’re on IEMs, use the isolation they give you to run quieter, not louder. A perfect IEM mix at too high a level is still damage.
Practical rules:
• Always have two options on you (e.g. customs + a universal pair on your keychain).
• Seat them properly – deep, snug, jaw relaxed. A half-inserted plug is almost cosmetic.
• Don’t be a hero. “I’ll just do this one song unprotected” is exactly how exposure sneaks up on you.
5. Live and rehearsal reality
This is where most musicians take the biggest hits.
• Measure rehearsal once. Use the NIOSH app for a couple of songs. Knowing whether your room sits at 92 dB or 100 dB changes how you plan.
• Lower the stage volume. Guitars, keys, wedges – if you can get everyone to cooperate and knock the stage down even 3–6 dB, your ears and your FOH both win.
• Plan “quiet days” after loud ones. Festivals, double-sets, long studio days at higher SPL – follow with lighter listening days. Not punishment, just recovery.
If you’re the one steering the ship, frame it in sound terms:
“If we pull this down a bit and everyone wears plugs, we’ll actually hear each other and tighten up.”
People will often do more for better sound than for “health.”
6. Monitoring, bias, and Toole
Dr. Floyd Toole’s loudspeaker work shows two relevant things:
1. Once you level-match and blind the tests, listeners converge on higher-performing speakers, not the ones they’re used to using.
2. Tiny level differences bias preference heavily – slightly louder often “wins” even when it’s objectively worse.
Translate that to ears:
• If your own hearing develops a notch or bias (say, 6–8 kHz), you will quietly “correct” for it in every mix and master unless you know it’s there.
• Without measurement, you can’t tell where the monitor stops and your inner curve starts.
So:
• Get a baseline audiogram with someone used to working with musicians.
• Repeat on a sensible cadence (every year or two, or more often if you’re worried).
• Keep the results and look for trends, not just one-off scores.
Treat your ears as part of the monitoring chain, not an invisible constant.
For the philosophical side of listening, see the Quiet Fire overview.
7. Tinnitus and recovery
Tinnitus is extremely common in our world. Some points that keep it grounded:
• A new, clear, persistent ring after loud exposure is a warning, not something to shrug off.
• Many short-term spikes do settle with quiet, sleep, lower total sound, and lower stress. The key is to stop giving your ears more to deal with.
• Intrusive, ongoing tinnitus deserves a proper look by an audiologist, ideally one who understands musicians.
You can’t undo damage, but you can stop adding to it and make life around it manageable.
8. What to actually track
You don’t need a spreadsheet (though you might enjoy one). At minimum:
• Typical SPL at your mastering/mix position.
• How many “loud days” you stack in a week (shows, rehearsals, festivals).
• Audiograms over time, ideally from the same clinic.
• Any persistent changes: new rings, specific frequencies that feel off, unusual sensitivity.
Pick a simple north star – “I want my hearing to still feel usable for creative work at 70” – and let that inform the boring choices: plugs, breaks, slightly lower monitor level, the odd quiet day.
If you just need a quick checklist, there’s also a Safe Listening Checklist for Musicians on the resources page.