297. Healthy Ears, Limited Annoyance Initiative (HELA)

In Episode 297, it’s all about safe listening levels, hearing protection and more, as Sean and Andy talk to three of the folks behind the Healthy Ears, Limited Annoyance Initiative (HELA) about all things loud (but not too loud)! This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Returning guest Laura Sinnott, AuD is joined by Jon Burton and Jos Wilder to explain where HELA came from, its purpose, and much more. From World Health Organization standards for live event audio to which generic fit earplugs to recommend to friends, there’s a ton of great info in this jam-packed hour.

Healthy Ears, Limited Annoyance is a non-profit group of industry and academic specialists in audio, acoustics, and more, offering training and certification about the benefits of responsible sound management.

Created in response to research conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Audio Engineering Society (AES), and hosted by the Electro-Acoustics Research Lab (EARLab), University of Derby, UK, HELA offers training and certification for everyone involved in the live event sector, from bar managers and security staff to sound technicians and concert promoters. It’s designed to provide a clear understanding of the benefits of having a responsible sound management plan for audiences, staff and neighbors.

HELA supports venues of all sizes, from grassroots to large-scale events, in creating positive relationships with their audiences as well as surrounding communities. Topics covered include the Fundamentals Of Sound, Noise Pollution, Sound Level Limits, Personal Hearing Protection, Management & Communication, Audience Expectations, Venue Design and more.

Episode Links:
Healthy Ears, Limited Annoyance Initiative (HELA) FAQs
WHO Global Standard For Safe Listening Venues & Events
ASI Audio 3DME Active-Ambient Technology
Etymotic Research ER20XS Earplugs
Curvd Everyday Earplugs
Laura Sinnott, AuD: Choosing Earplugs, Loop Earplugs Review, Curvd Earplugs Review
STN Episode 177: Hearing Health Matters
STN Episode 152: Dr. Heather Malyuk, Soundcheck Audiology – “All Ears Are Famous”
Episode 297 Transcript

AES Papers:
Education and Certification in Sound Pressure Level Measurement, Monitoring and Management at Entertainment Events
Sound Level Monitoring at Live Events, Part 1– Live Dynamic Range
Sound Level Monitoring at Live Events, Part 2 — Regulations, Practices, and Preferences
Sound Level Monitoring at Live Events, Part 3 — Improved Tools and Procedures

Transcript

Episode 297 - HELA: Healthy Ears, Limited Annoyance

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com

RCF and TT+ AUDIO.... Delivering premium audio solutions designed for tour sound and music professionals for over 75 years.  Visit RCF at RCF-USA.com for the latest news and product information.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:54] Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and my brain just went up and I have no intro joke this time. Sean's breathing a sigh of relief.

[00:01:04] Sean Walker: Nice.

[00:01:06] Andy Leviss: I literally, I had one on

[00:01:07] Sean Walker: da and none of the jokes.

[00:01:08] Andy Leviss: Yeah, no, we are recording very early for many of us. A but very late for, uh, one or two of our guests.

But, um, it's 6:00 AM for Sean and 9:00 AM for me. So we're just, the gears are just starting to grease up. Uh, how you doing, bud?

[00:01:23] Sean Walker: I'm partying. I'm just, uh, you know, running one business, trying to buy more businesses. Daddying, husbanding, trying to, you know, just keep it all together, bud. Just making it up as we go.

[00:01:33] Andy Leviss: Yep. I hear, I mean, that's all, that's all we do every episode.

[00:01:37] Sean Walker: Yeah, right, totally.

[00:01:39] Andy Leviss: Um, well we, we've got a, uh, three guests to introduce, so we should just hit this hot and heavy and we'll, we'll do some more catching up next, uh, next time we record.

[00:01:47] Sean Walker: I like hot and heavy.

[00:01:48] Andy Leviss: a lot of cool stuff to. I've got a lot of stuff to, to catch you up on, but we'll, we'll catch you up on, on the next one.

So, uh, why don't we just go around real quick and introduce folks first. Uh, uh, returning guest. Uh, Laura, you want to, uh, say a quick hello? And for folks who haven't, uh, heard your previous episode, give us a quick, uh, who you are.

[00:02:09] Laura Sinnott: Sure. I'm Laura Sinnott. I was a longtime audio engineer for the film industry in, in New York City, and then I became an audiologist and uh, I was last on this podcast a couple years ago, I can't remember, but talking about hearing health, everything from should we compensate if we have hearing loss, if we're an audio engineer in our mixes to, by the way No, no you shouldn't.

Um, to, um. What do I, how do I deal with earwax in my ears? So yeah, my life went from holding a boom mic while mixing on a sound device's device to taking earwax out of people's ears.

[00:02:43] Andy Leviss: Right on. And we're glad to have you back and I'm glad to meet you 'cause I, I was a listener last time you were on, so, uh, it's, it's great to meet you in the hosting chair. And, uh, just going around the circle in order, uh, Jon, you wanna say a quick hi.

[00:02:56] Jon Burton: Hi. Yeah, it's my first time here, so thank you for inviting me. My name's Jon Burton, and I am a senior lecturer at the University of Derby. Uh, I've been there about six years, and before that I've had 40 plus years of touring as a live sound engineer, and I'm still working the odd show. So I'm out this summer with a bank called Biffy Claro.

So maybe see some of you at a festival over the summer.

[00:03:17] Andy Leviss: Right on. And last but not least.

[00:03:20] Jos Mulder: Hello, good evening. This is Jo Milder. I'm in Australia in Canberra, where it's 11:00 PM which used to be not late, but these days it's very late. Uh, I am an academic here at the Australian National University. I teach music technology, but until, oh, this is now a very long time ago, but until 2005, I was a, during lifestyle engineer, and somehow I rolled into academia where I've now been 15 years.

So, um, I do, I, I am mixing a festival next week, so I'm not completely out of touch, but, um, yeah, not missing the touring.

[00:03:56] Sean Walker: Cool

[00:03:57] Andy Leviss: it, it is nice waking up in the same bed every day.

[00:04:00] Jos Mulder: There you go.

[00:04:01] Sean Walker: All right, before we dive into why you guys are all really here, two things, Laura. What do we do with the earwax?

[00:04:09] Laura Sinnott: The long story short is if it's not bothering you, it's not causing any pain, leave it. You probably have a lot less than you think. That being said, some people do have a. Massive accumulation and buildup. And if someone looks in your ear and says, oh my gosh, I can't even see your eardrum. That's when you wanna get it removed.

It used to be that you had to go in and have a doctor or someone look in your ear with an otoscope. 'cause those things are really expensive. You can now purchase for like $50. Video otoscopes that are not great, but it will, it will at least give you enough information to say, oh my gosh, there's so much ear wax in my ear.

Or, actually, there isn't that much, but generally don't worry about it unless it's causing you some pain or it's making you, you know, your one in ear monitor sounds really weird and the other one doesn't. That type of thing.

[00:04:55] Sean Walker: Cool. And then the other question, Jon. How cool is it to work with a band like Biffy Kaleido that just commands that fucking stage every time they get on it? I remember the first time I saw them, I had no idea who they were. It was a little club here in Seattle that held maybe five or 600 people was packed to the wall and they tore that motherfucker down like it was the main stage at download, dude.

It was insane. How cool is that to go mix that show up every night?

[00:05:22] Jon Burton: It's really cool and it's been so refreshing. Uh, 'cause I worked for the same band for many years. I worked for a band called Topology for 20 years. And coming in, doing Biffy, Claro, uh, was kind of fresh, fresh air really. 'cause I hadn't really done that kind of guitar band thing. And the great thing about it's, they've got dynamics, they've got quiet songs and they've got some louder bits.

And that level, that sort of, that dynamic thing is just really exciting. And they're great to mix. At the headline show download, I can tell you.

[00:05:50] Sean Walker: Totally. Okay. Now while we're really here, what's, what's up with this hella thing y'all tell, tell everybody about hella. Other than the West Coast, you know, the waves are hella good.

[00:06:04] Jon Burton: It's difficult to know where to start really, isn't it? I mean it's uh, I think each of us are waiting for the other one to start, so I'll go first. Heller kind of came out of, um, it came out of some work of our colleague, really and Joss as well. Um, got involved with, uh, the World Health Organization, um, and some work they were doing towards, uh, hearing health and hearing safety for live events.

Having looked at, uh, sort of mobile phones and all that kind of earbud kind of thing. They then turned on our industry and, um, I dunno. Josh, did you end up in the meetings?

[00:06:38] Jos Mulder: Yeah. Yeah. I was there from, from 2019 when it started. Yeah. So they like, like you said, like they first looked at portable music systems and now what's the issue? If people add to their sort of the, what they call leisure noise, I that like using the term noise, but it's quite common in this, in this business.

Um. On, on top of going to concerts and maybe going to the gym and have your ear screamed out by an instructor. Um, and then also pumping the music up in the car and listening to that headphone music. It's all adding up and it's, it's, it's probably about time to, to, to change that, given that the age at which people are diagnosed with hearing disorders or hearing diseases keeps going down.

And that is generally due to this, this leisure noise that's not just a concerts, not just a dance events, it's, it's gaming, it's, uh, portable music use. So, um, with people like Jon and Adam and uh, uh, colleagues of Laura, um, we've worked for two years on a standard that was released in 2022. That sets out a few.

Really good parameters as to what we can do, what we should be doing to bring the levels down to still get good shows that are acceptable for an audience. But that stop being, that, that avoids from going into stupid loud or into stupid loud because the sound is bad. So not only does it simply say, oh, we're gonna cap it at the, the figure is a hundred decibel, LAQ over 15 minutes, if that's meaningful to you.

Um, it then also has five more steps that tells you how to get there. Take, take, take the acoustics into account. Um, take your system, design into account. Um, and it sort of really brings the point that it's not just down to the lifestyle engineer. It's not just down to the musicians. There are many people who have a play, have, have a role to play in bringing that down and, um.

That's now a standard that that exists. It's, it's not something that can be a a law, it's not gonna be legislation or a rule. Um, but it is there. So the next step is how can we get people to jump on board with this and implement that into their venue, into their festival, into their, uh, life sound practice.

And so this is why we came up with this hella idea with the term comes from Adam Hill, who is not here. He is Jon's colleagues at, at Darby University. Um, and we want everyone to be hella certified. Such sense for our healthy ears limited annoyance where we, uh, think about our own ears, the ears of our audiences, of musicians, of every single staff member in the room.

And, um, and we, we've, we, we really, it is tied to a certificate. You get a certificate that you could print out and then you can look cool. Um, however, the idea really is to, to get. In the near future or in the next decade, get some form of certification for people who ultimately are responsible for the exposure that our audiences are, are, are dealing with.

Um,

[00:09:55] Sean Walker: think looking cool has passed for me, but where do we go to get hella certified?

[00:10:02] Jon Burton: Well, you can go online. Uh, there's a website and all the, all the training and certification is all online and we did it. So there's kind of two levels as well. Um, uh, we started off, originally we started off thinking this is just gonna be sound engineers. 'cause the, we're the, you know, we're the prime, prime place you focus your attention on really when you're talking about how loud is at a concert.

Um, and we thought, you know, it's just gonna be for that. And then as we started writing it, um, we sort of realized that, you know, it's gotta be for everyone. It's gotta be for everyone working at live events. So we've done a. Full. Um, the complete one is probably gonna take about four hours to do, and it covers, it pretty much covers everything, um, from venue design, what the audience needs, how your ear works, um, every aspect of the thing.

And they also thought we'll do a cut down version that takes just 45 minutes, uh, called, uh, core. That's gonna be for anyone else who works in a venue. So we expect, um, so the sound engineer, the production manager, the people in with responsibility to do the full version. But we also like everyone in the venue to do the, uh, core version.

So, uh, the bar staff, the doorman, anyone who's gonna be subjected to sound should be do, should be aware of what's happening and, and what's going on around them. So, uh, we, we've done kind of two trains, both available online. Uh, you can dip in and out at any time. It's multiple choice. Uh, it's meant to be fun.

Most people we've had. Do it. So far I've enjoyed the experience, so it's not arduous. It's, it's hopefully interesting

[00:11:41] Andy Leviss: I, I was gonna

[00:11:42] Jon Burton: and covers everything.

[00:11:44] Andy Leviss: I was gonna ask, if the limited annoyance is limited annoyance to the audience or limited annoyance in terms of getting the certification.

[00:11:51] Jon Burton: It's limited annoyance to the neighbors. So we're very much aware. 'cause you know, I kept, I've, most of the shows I do at festivals where, you know, we're working to a DB level, um, particularly in Europe, it's not so bad in the States, though it will get worse. Um, we're, we're mixing to DB levels, uh, because we don't want to annoy the neighbors or the neighbors don't want to be annoyed by us.

So it's being awareness of how to deal with that. So there's a whole section which we did with two of the major noise, uh, noise police companies, um, DB control in the Netherlands and Vanguardia and, uh, in the uk. They contributed information to that for our friends, Marcel, Alex, um, just to, so we, we put in information about how to talk to your neighbors, how to engage everyone in this process so that we can get, uh, get events that, uh, work for everybody.

I think that makes it sustainable. Makes our industry sustainable.

[00:12:44] Laura Sinnott: If you guys don't mind, I'd like to just take a tiny step back because I, um, and just because it took me a little bit of time to understand the, the, like how the hella online certification came to be and I. I think Jon already mentioned it, it did have to do with the World Health Organization, but there is, um, Jon and Adam Hill, who we mentioned, and Joss, they were all co-authors of this giant document and it's called, um, the World Health Organization, global Standards for Safe Listening.

I. Ven live venues. So, no, most of the time I don't mention that because, but because this is a podcast for audio engineers, it's sort of, it was written, it, it's, it's an audio engineering document. I, I mean, in my opinion it is. So I would encourage people who are interested in looking at these global standards.

So this is basically like, this is what the World Health Organization recommends to everyone in the world who's involved in live music. And then hella was the. First step into trying to put these standards into practice. So that's sort of, it's like an implementation. So you have these standards, but now what?

So that's what was so I think, um, amazing about Hella and how it happened. I was brought on to help co-author hella, I wasn't involved in the global standards. Authoring and I just think it's incredible that they got that far because to have a bunch of international experts come together and agree on what they're gonna publish as a global standard, I think is an a massive effort.

And again, this is just the first step in trying to implement these global standards. I just wanted to clarify that.

[00:14:21] Andy Leviss: Awesome. And I, I just opened the standard up in a browser tab so I can remember to make sure to link it in the show notes. So for anybody who does want to take a look at it, we'll put it in there.

[00:14:30] Jon Burton: I think I'd like to step in and go back again as well, because I think one of the reasons we got, I got involved 'cause Adam came back from the conference going, I think actually we're gonna have to do some papers because. The world Organiz help World Hor World, world Health Organization is a very serious organization.

You know, and they don't just do, they, they will only do something if they're very sure that it's scientific knowledge. They're not gonna put forward what we say unless we prove it. So Joss, Adam and I and a colleague at Moss Co all got involved in writing some papers just so we could influence this. And part of the thing we did, we did a, a survey and thank you to any auto engineer out there who did the survey.

'cause we got two and a half thousand sound engineers around the world do this survey. Uh, asking about what people understood about sound pressure level, did they understand D-B-A-D-B-C, uh, and we used that to help guide the World Health Organization in this process. And one of the questions we put in was.

If we did some kind of certification, would any of you be interested in doing it? And pretty much everybody wrote back and said, yes, they would like to, you know, to have something that said that they understood that because as sound engine is, we don't get many certificates. That's basically Dante level one and Dante level two, and maybe a Sure.

Wireless training and that's about all you get on your cv. So we thought, yeah, we'll do

[00:15:48] Andy Leviss: right

[00:15:48] Jon Burton: that. Um, so this is kind of, yeah. And the ification kind of to a certain extent came out of that conversation following, and, you know, we're not, uh, allied to the WHO. We do recognize the validity of the info information in that document.

[00:16:08] Sean Walker: I've got a Bs and Bs. Does that count?

[00:16:12] Jos Mulder: Maybe we can get a certificate for joining the show. Is that maybe a thing or I, I just.

[00:16:17] Andy Leviss: can, I can probably make something happen.

[00:16:20] Jos Mulder: I'll, uh, I'll, I'll send you the, the, the links to these papers that we wrote now four years ago that they're all open. Uh, what's it called? Open, open source. Now that's not the word, but they're open access.

Um, there's, there's a, there's a few things to consider and, and that we had really in depth discussions about. So the level that it proposes or mentioned is a hundred decibels, a QO for 15 minutes and measured at front of house. So we had really, really long discussions. Like all the people who were more on the hearing health side said, now you going to just measure in the loudest point of the room.

And then we all know, well, that's not going to, there's not gonna be a lot sound left at the front of house if we do it that way with a hundred decibels. So we had to really trade off there. So we, we came up with a, a measurement protocol where we sort of measure in the, in the center of the room where most of the audience is.

It's, it's, it's a little bit less straightforward than just the front of house, but we also know that front of house is in a different place every night. So that's, it's not. Really much of a standard. Um, the other thing to, to really be aware of that, even though it's called a safe listening standards, a hundred decibel for an audience for a whole night or for a whole festival is not that safe.

So it also, step two is to still encourage your audience to wear hearing protection. Um, Laura can fill us in on that indefinitely.

[00:17:40] Laura Sinnott: I sure can, but Sean, you were gonna say something.

[00:17:43] Sean Walker: Oh, I was just saying you were talking about certificates and I was like, I got a BS in bs. Does that count?

[00:17:50] Laura Sinnott: That's what I thought. I thought it was gonna be something funny

[00:17:54] Sean Walker: and just to, just to recap, that was a hundred D-B-A-L-A-E-Q 15, you said at front of house.

[00:18:00] Jos Mulder: that's right. Yeah. No, no. So not a front of

[00:18:03] Laura Sinnott: Center of.

[00:18:03] Jos Mulder: in, in sort of the, the, the geometric rum of the, of the audience area, that's it's described in the, in the standard.

[00:18:12] Sean Walker: at me, 'cause I'm the center of the universe, so obviously it's just put the mic at me, right?

[00:18:17] Jos Mulder: That's absolutely right.

[00:18:18] Sean Walker: Yeah. I mean when you're mixing, we're all that, that's first we're all mixing, right? Because obviously front of house is in the middle. You're not going off to one side or under a balcony. It says so in every writer

[00:18:29] Andy Leviss: you'll go where we put you, Shauna, you'll like

[00:18:31] Sean Walker: if only it worked right.

[00:18:32] Jos Mulder: yeah, only, only ever in the rider. And, and just to, I, I just had a, we did some, some studies in, in the Netherlands recently where we worked with, uh, a, a dance venue. And what I didn't think of, um, is that. They actually don't have a, a room, a room filling system. They just have two mono stacks left and right.

And it turns out that in the center of the audience space, it's actually not the loudest. It's much louder in the, in the, in the, in the left or right. Like really in line with the loud speaker. And the interesting thing for a second night, we really brought the level down, we brought it down to 98, and there we could see that people are actually looking up the largest spots and actually want to be in that sound.

So there's still, there's still a lot of research going on and it's still a, a moving, a moving feast from that perspective.

[00:19:24] Sean Walker: Okay. It also seems like a very reasonable. Concert place to be like a hundred D-B-A-L-A-E-Q 15 in front of house is not necessarily a quiet show. You're not like, oh my God, how am I gonna get under the speed limit? And at the same time, nobody's getting Max L guide in their chair in the front row with their hair blown back crying from their mom.

You know what I mean? That's a pretty, I think, a pretty good place to land. How did you come to that specific number?

[00:19:54] Jon Burton: didn't, the World Health Organization did. So, uh, all these discussions, so the World Health Organization, so, uh, I think we make it need to make it very clear that Heller is not making these decisions. What we're doing is we're giving the advice that was come to, and we're not making judgment on those, value on those levels as well and, and isn't about how to mix it.

A hundred db it's about how to understand what that a hundred DB means. What does a hundred DBA mean? What does a hundred DBA over 15 minutes mean? So it's, it's more, it's not about, we're not about telling you to turn it down to that level or, or set a level. It's not, it's not about that. It's all about understanding what that language is, what that language actually means.

What is the difference between DBA, what is the difference between DB, C? What's the difference over the different averaging times as well? So when we talk about over 15 minutes, uh, over five minutes or over an hour, what does that actually h. If you put that into context, what does it mean to the engineer?

And part of the work we did, um, that did inform the 15 minute decision was looking at when you've got really short times and when you've got really long times. And I mixed a show just last week, uh, where I had a five minutes LEQ and it was really hard because you, you don't get that level of dynamics of having a loud song, a quiet song.

It's all kind of just a medium song. And we proved by looking at, we looked at over 200 show, 250 shows and looked at the dynamic range of the show. And the shorter, shorter times of one to five minutes produced a, a show that was very, very small dynamic range. And the most exciting thing about music is dynamics.

So, uh, it's all about this. Hello is all about understanding so that you can then make your own decisions really.

[00:21:42] Andy Leviss: That that was the thing I wanted to kind of put a point in that we said earlier is that dynamic range and limiting that and, and kind of. Uh, like parceling it out throughout the show, you know, to hit that limit is super powerful. 'cause it's like a lot of engineers who are like going for that loud, it, it becomes so monotonous at how like, there is no dynamic range.

It's just loud and you don't get it. That excitement, like we were saying earlier, like when you hit that loud part, all of a sudden when it's been a little more chill, everybody looks up and is like, oh, hey, what's going on? And it's like, yeah. Like trying to like manage things and hit these loudness levels can actually make a way more exciting show if you, if you learn, you know, learn the tools to do it well.

And obviously by which I mean like, not physical tools, but like the, the level tools like in your toolbox of when to get loud and how to get loud.

[00:22:32] Jon Burton: Lad is only interesting if it's next to quiet. It's only that difference that's exciting. And I've mixed, um, I've been following the World Health Organization guidelines for the last two, three years now. So all my shows I've been trying to mix it under a hundred db, um, which I mean succeeding. And, you know, Biffy Clyro sits, sits underneath that quite nicely as to most of the other bands I work with.

You can do it. You just gotta be aware of dynamics. You've gotta have loud bits and quiet bits, but it makes for a more exciting, punchier show.

[00:23:02] Jos Mulder: Look, and there's only one song that can be the loudest song. Not all songs can be the loudest song. And you know, so you've got to start thinking about that and, and maybe even talk to your band and say, Hey, we've got this show. Which song is gonna be the loudest song? And how do we build to that? You know?

And, and often that's, that's predictable. But it's, it's, it, it's a different way. Of approaching the whole dynamics of the show. Um, and that's, that's, there's another side to that. Uh, once you start measuring and once you start looking at a meter on your desk, that tells you how you're tracking towards that one sable.

Uh, we've noticed there is a risk that over time or people who maybe haven't mastered those, the tools, the level tools yet is to actually see it as a target and they start mixing to fill in all the lights so that you get to hundred db hundred db. So, um, it could actually, if you misinterpreted the data that you had, that you get from your systems, it could actually lead to much less dynamic show.

So this is why training is so infor important and learning to use the dynamic hat room that you have with be informed by the tools that you have and take it from venue to venue or use it with different bands. Uh, and Hella is a good, good place to start.

[00:24:14] Jon Burton: I think one of the interesting things is 'cause we're not just doing this for sound engineers, we're doing this for venue owners as well and venue managers. It's stressing the importance of how important the room is. Um, that if you've got a nice sounding room, you can mix nice sounding shows. We, I.

Looking at some of the data, strange enough, um, one of the nicest gigs was uh, I dunno what it's called, 'em a Heineken musical. It was called in Amsterdam, was the quietest show. I mixed the same, the band and the loudest show was, uh, an ice rink because ice rinks are just horrible. And you end up fighting the room and you end up with a loud show that's got virtually no dynamics and everyone walks away and you kind of think, what's what happened there?

You know, because it's an inappropriate place to try and do a show. And so trying to get over this importance of good acoustics, nice venues, it's just as much the venues responsibility as it is the engineers.

[00:25:10] Laura Sinnott: Jon, I just have an anecdote that I went in 2018. Watch the, um, Olympic ice dancing finals in, uh, South Korea. And I did not have earplugs with me 'cause I just didn't, I didn't even think about it. The loudest, um, music that night was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, a French couple. They won this silver medal and it was so loud.

I had actually put, put my fingers in my ears and who would've thought. But there you go.

[00:25:38] Andy Leviss: I just feel so vindicated that the professional forgets ear plugs sometimes too.

[00:25:42] Laura Sinnott: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:25:43] Jos Mulder: No, but I don't. Laura always has like at least four different sets of head ear protectors with her.

[00:25:48] Laura Sinnott: Uh, I usually do. I usually do. Um, and, and actually, speaking of, sorry, I have a, I have, I'm just getting over a cold. Speaking of earplugs, one thing that I would like to tell this audience is that, um, HEA also has sections on your auditory system, hearing disorders and hearing protection. So we like to look at hearing protection and by when I say we not only just people, um, who've helped author hella, but most music audiologists, we like to say earplugs are the last resort.

They're always a compromise. But at the same time, even if you are mixing with this, um, limit that we've been discussing, you are absolutely still at risk for different kinds of hearing disorders. So. A, a really, I think, crucial part of Hella is providing very introductory baseline information about your actual hearing and your, the anatomy and the physiology and what you are at risk for.

And one thing that I think is also important to know is as, as an audio engineer, as a front of house. Especially, um, mixer, um, you don't want your audience to have to put earplugs in. That's what I would think is someone who's a sound engineer now, an audiologist. I test earplugs. I'm, I'm looking, listening to them all the time.

They don't sound great, but you have to use them sometimes if you wanna protect your, your ears. Um, I worked with a band about seven years ago. I'm not gonna say their name, but they have a. A very good reputation, but also reputation for being one of the loudest bands ever. Their front of house engineer I worked with and he was incredible.

He was so, he so was so obsessed with making sure everything sounded perfect. But then he told me proudly, we give everybody who comes to our show free foam earplugs, and I was young. I didn't know how to respond at the time, so I said, that's awesome. In my mind, I'm like, you are going through all this trouble to mix this show that, you know, somebody with Golden Ears can appreciate.

And then your audience is sticking foamies in their ears. So there, there, there is definitely a lack of, um. Awareness, I think as in the audio engineering world, just generally about hearing health and hearing protection and all those things. So I think again, HEA is, is fantastic for just giving you sort of like the TLDR information about our, our hearing.

[00:28:23] Sean Walker: I love TLDR information 'cause I don't have the time to read the whole thing anyway. That's amazing. Thank you.

[00:28:30] Jon Burton: I,

[00:28:30] Andy Leviss: Laura, well. Sorry. I was just gonna say, while we're on the subject of earplugs, I've got a quick little tangent question on that. I wanna ask him, 'cause I know we lose Laura at a certain point 'cause she has a, a commitment to get to, which is once we're going past foamies and past generic fit to custom molded ones, I've, I've heard varying answers on how often you need to get them replaced.

If, like, if like weight gain or not leads to needing to get them replaced or if just like past a certain year they're made of silicone and they just, you should replace 'em whether you need it or not. So would you, could you shed a little light on that?

[00:29:03] Laura Sinnott: Sure the, the most important reason to replace them is the, because they don't fit anymore. And, um. Yes, if you lose or gain, no one's really studied this, but anecdotally about 15 pounds, if you've lost or gained more than that, um, your ear canal will change. So if you lose weight, your ear canal will get bigger.

If you gain weight, your ear canal will get smaller. So that would be one reason. And there's some, there's very, like any, as long as you have circa headphones, you can do a quick little, we call it real ear attenuation at thresholds. You just measure some thresholds. You know, if you're not an audiologist, just do it with pro tools or whatever.

And then, um, you can, you compare the results with the earplugs in, with them out. And if it's still attenuating, then you're fine. The second reason is a lot of custom earplugs are made with different materials. Some are made of a vinyl silicone blend. The benefit of that is the material smoother, has less friction, faster and easier to get in your ear.

Um. And most, mostly only orchestral players need that to get it in and out quickly, or, uh, that's not true. People on the floor who are maybe backstage who need to pull it in and out quickly, but the medical grade silicone tends to be better because it's softer, it's more flexible, and it does not shrink.

So the vinyl blend of material, it will shrink over time. So you do have to get those replaced between three and five years. But the other ones that are made of full medical grade silicone, theoretically, if your ear canal doesn't change. You don't have to replace them. Um, and most of the time, once you're an adult, ear canals will change 'cause the outer two thirds are cartilaginous.

So, um, they change, but it tends to be pretty gradual. And I know people who've had their custom earplugs for 10 years, they still fit. I know other people who need to get it new pair every two years. So it depends.

[00:30:53] Sean Walker: Silicon. Got it. Is there a, like some of them come with a bunch of different filters and DB filters and that kind of stuff. Is there a range we should be looking at for those or a specific.

[00:31:05] Laura Sinnott: yes. That's a great question. And by the way, custom earplugs are, uh, I always say they're necessary for two reasons. One is simply ear canals are wavy and curvy, and they twist and they turn. And these whole. Universal fit any, whether it's in an ear or an earplug. When they say one size fits all, it is just not true.

So if you do have an ear canal where you just cannot get an earplug to fit comfortably, you, you should go for customs. 'cause you know it will fit, it will seal. Um, the second reason is almost. All over the counter earplugs are unable to reduce a, to attenuate a small amount of sound. I don't wanna get into too much detail 'cause it'll be really boring, but the NRR on the back, it is not accurate.

That's just a simple way of saying it. You almost don't wanna pay attention to the NRR. Anyone listening to this podcast will be able to. Critically listen. So you put the earplug in your ear, listen and you take it out. Um, if it sounds like it's blocking out a ton of sound, it probably is. And what you can achieve with a custom earplug is about 10 decibels of attenuation. There's even a filter that is a five DB attenuator. I haven't tested it yet, but I'm going to in the next couple weeks. And the reason why this is important is a lot of people are unable to keep earplugs in because they're, they block out too much sound, so you're compromising the whole experience, even a really cus a really good custom earplug.

Um, after about six or seven K it will roll off so it will attenuate more, even if the filter is a 10 DB filter or a five DB filter. So if you know you need to protect your hearing, but you can't seem to keep earplugs in your ears 'cause they block out too much sound, get a custom earplug with a nine or a 10 DB filter and start there.

Start low because that actually can make a massive difference. If you reduce the sound from 105 to 95, you are, uh, oh my gosh, you're more than quadrupling the, the safe amount of time you can be in that sound. A little goes a long way.

[00:33:14] Sean Walker: That's awesome to know. 'cause you know, bigger is better in all of our minds. So we would've thought like, oh, I need the 30 DB reduction or the million D reduction, but just the tens or whatever is just a great place to start and quadruples our safe travel. And then

[00:33:30] Laura Sinnott: I think more I'm, I should know off the top of my head, I'm embarrassed that I don't. But even more than that, and I will give you an anecdote. I have people in opera orchestras who are wearing electronic ear earplugs that allow you to reduce the, um, there's a master volume fader. This is the a SI audio 3D me hearing protection.

In your monitor system, I have musicians who are just reducing the sound by two DB and re redo when you're, again, when you're exposed to that amount of loud sound for your career for decades, two DB reduction is still very, very protective compared to nothing.

[00:34:11] Sean Walker: It's good to know. So five and 10 DB filters is sweet.

[00:34:15] Laura Sinnott: I would be pleased to see it. Over nothing. Absolutely.

[00:34:20] Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's, I'm, I'm looking at my set right now. I've got fifteens. I'm like, oh, maybe I should look and see if I've got a, a, a lesser option for those, uh, just to have, just to have the option on me when I need it.

[00:34:30] Laura Sinnott: Yeah,

[00:34:31] Jon Burton: I think.

[00:34:31] Laura Sinnott: Hmm.

[00:34:32] Jon Burton: think one option I go for is, uh, I tend to wear over earmuffs and the 25 DUE ones because I'm making a clear statement that I'm not listening. Especially when you know your festivals. I'm not watching the other bands. I'm less, I'm sitting at my desk, I'm doing my stuff, I'm taking a break from listening, and so I'm just blotting everything else out and it's, uh, it's, it's stands out.

Everyone else can see that you're not listening, so people don't come up and chat to you and stuff, and you can get that clear break time as well. And when I'm listening to pink noise through the pa, I put them on. If I don't need to hear, I'll save that time. But going back to something Laura said, I yeah, this, we've gotta get away from this being that you should be wearing earplugs at gigs.

We shouldn't be wearing earplugs at gigs. We should mixing gigs in a more dynamic way and looking at other ways to, to improve the sound for the experience, for the audience, rather than just blasting it out and having high sound pressure levels. And we, this is one of the things we cover in the training, is the difference between high sound pressure levels and loudness.

They're not the same. Loudness is subjective thing. My loud isn't the same as your loud. So, but loudness is, is a way that we can convince we can get people to get a positive good experience at a concert. And certain extent that comes from dynamics as well. This comparison between loudness and quietness, high sound pressure levels are not needed for loudness.

[00:35:58] Sean Walker: Go on. Do tell.

[00:36:01] Jon Burton: They just aren't. It's like you could, you don't have to just have very high sound pressure level. You can use low frequency sound, put some sub in there. Um, give the people, uh, a, a better experience. Move a bit of air at the low frequencies to get some people get a, um, a haptic response to it so it excites the sandwich sensory system so we can get that kick in the chest.

Or that funny, funny feeling in your tummy that knows, you know, when the base drops, you know it's dropped. Um, this is as much a part of listening 'cause we don't just listen with our, with our cochlear, we listen with our whole bodies.

[00:36:39] Andy Leviss: Sean, I saw that face. You said cochlea.

[00:36:42] Sean Walker: Damnit.

[00:36:45] Andy Leviss: Um, Laura, real quick before we lose you, I just, I know we, we explained why for, for those of us listening, we want custom ears when we've got friends who reach out to us and are like, are, are not gonna go out and buy custom molds necessary, but need something is, are there any particular brands or types of generics you would suggest pointing folks to or away from?

[00:37:05] Laura Sinnott: Yeah, I have no problem talking about this because, um, I, for, for one of my consulting jobs for many, many years, I tested over the counter earplugs, objective tests, subjective tests. S and I do have two favorites because of what I said with the ear canal. Everyone's ear canals being very different fit is gonna be all across the board.

But the etymotic er 20 access is a, an over-the-counter earplug that has been around for decades and it is still one of the best if it fits your ear canal because of the filter inside, it does tend to be a little bit flatter. Um, but there's a caveat again, like it, that that spec can completely change once it's in your ear.

Ear, but I also like that earplug because it's designed to go deep in your ear canal and a deeper fitting earplug will. There are a lot of benefits to it. One is that if you're talking your own voice sounds more natural because, um, there's less what we call occlusion effect, which is the phenomenon of low frequencies that normally.

Travel out of your ear canal that are created by your skull, they, they actually hit the physical earplug and they bounce back in. So it basically amplifies low frequencies. Um, and then also a deeper fitting. Earplug tends to seal better again, if it can fit your ear. So that one's great, especially for the money.

And then the other one I really like is called curved. Everyday earplugs. I have zero affiliation with them, but again, I've just tested so many earplugs and I think, um, it's a to the opposite style. It's a short stubby earplug. You'll see there tends to be these longer triple flange, mushroom tip earplugs, and then the short, stubby ones.

I'm overall not a fan of the short, stubby ones because they, it's so difficult to, for them to seal properly. So people who are not expert listeners. Think they're protecting their hearing when they're not. They fall out of your ears. If you're sweaty, they'll definitely fall out of your ears. Um, and then the occlusion of facts tends to be awful.

But the curved, it's C-U-R-V-D, no e in there, the every day is really good for physical comfort and also for value, because there is a, there's another earplug company out there that. That has fantastic marketing, but personally I just think they're a little overpriced and um, uh, curved I think is just a good value for people who are, are cost conscious and physical fit is the other thing.

If you have an earplug that's physically uncomfortable, you are not gonna wear it. So the curved ones are super soft. Those would be the two I recommend.

[00:39:32] Andy Leviss: on. And again, we'll link to both of those in the show notes for folks. 'cause I know if, if listeners or anything like me, they get asked for recommendations like that all the time or get asked like, I see these loop things, are they great? And I'm like, I don't know much about them, but I'm gonna say no.

[00:39:45] Laura Sinnott: Well, and I'll tell you with Loop, uh, that's the company that I do love them for the awareness they have brought. I mean, I just wanna almost bow down to them because they have, they are almost single-handedly normalizing using hearing protection because their marketing is hitting a young

[00:40:02] Andy Leviss: say they've got like a Coachella co-branded

[00:40:04] Laura Sinnott: Yeah, the actual earplug, I have tested it.

I have videos on U uh, one video on YouTube you can watch that goes into the nitty gritty. It's fine. I just personally think that curved is a very similar type of earplug and it's about half the price. So, sorry, loop, I do like you, but these over-the-counter earplugs, they're kind of all the same in terms of frequency response.

Um, and the most important thing, whatever earplug is sealing your ear. That's the one.

[00:40:35] Sean Walker: But, but no foamies. We're we're done with Foamies.

[00:40:38] Laura Sinnott: Foamies. If you know what any, anybody. Everybody's got different tastes. I have professional musicians in the same orchestra. Some are wearing Foamies and doing their job perfectly fine. Others are wearing the attic. R 20, others are wearing a thousand dollars Electronic hearing protection system.

It's an individual personal thing.

[00:41:01] Sean Walker: Copy that.

[00:41:02] Jos Mulder: I

[00:41:03] Andy Leviss: gonna say a thousand dollars hearing protection. I'm not the. Expensive friend this week.

[00:41:07] Laura Sinnott: You're not what Andy?

[00:41:09] Andy Leviss: I, I'm not the expensive friend this episode. Usually that's my

[00:41:11] Laura Sinnott: Oh.

[00:41:14] Jos Mulder: I, I just, this weekend I saw someone with a foamy and put it in sideways in the ear. So, you know, whatever you put in your ear, make sure you put it in correctly. It's like condoms, you know, that's, it's the same rules.

[00:41:26] Sean Walker: I mean, I was gonna say no kink shaming, bro, but I mean, put it in the right way most of the time,

[00:41:31] Laura Sinnott: With that, I've gotta go watch my kid graduate from kindergarten.

[00:41:35] Sean Walker: dude, congratulations. Woo. Thank you so much, Laura, for coming and

[00:41:41] Laura Sinnott: in the Middle East. Oh my gosh. That's like literal.

[00:41:44] Sean Walker: ear health and earplugs. We appreciate you.

[00:41:47] Jos Mulder: See you, Laura.

[00:41:47] Laura Sinnott: pleasure. And I'm always here. I love to geek out on all things ear related. So thank you all for helping to spread the word about hella I.

[00:41:57] Sean Walker: Welcome.

[00:42:00] Andy Leviss: Cool. And now that Laura's gone, we can talk about now.

[00:42:05] Sean Walker: No, it was great to get some recommendation on earplugs though. You know what I mean?

[00:42:10] Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's, I wanted to make sure we got that in before Laura left. Um, but yeah, uh, I don't know if there's something either of you, gen want to, like dig into a little more. I know Jon, you were starting to talk a little bit about like mixing with impact, uh, and, and effective loudness without blasting folks.

I don't know if we want to dig a little deeper into that, or Jos if there's anything you want to kind of dig

[00:42:31] Jos Mulder: Uh, there's, there's, I think there's two more things, uh, if we can. I, I'd like to talk a little bit more about where that 100 decibels came from. Um,

[00:42:39] Andy Leviss: go for it.

[00:42:40] Jos Mulder: and the other thing is, um, there is, um, uh, tied to which we launch in, in, in, in fall this year. Um, there is a research goal, um, so hella is gonna generate some sort of revenue.

You, you pay, what is it, Jon? Is it five pounds, five UK pounds, or 10, or, I can't actually remember the, it's not a lot. You pay maybe 15 American dollars.

[00:43:06] Jon Burton: 15 bucks for the core, the short of one, and it's about 50 bucks for the, uh, the full four hour, five hour training that, uh, that gets, but that's certify. You then set it for five years. We've done over five years so that when we get, you know, as things are constantly changing as we learn more, uh, then you, you've gotta recertify, but it's still 10 bucks a year.

That's not, it's not a lot of money and it is tax deductible and all the money that we raise goes to, we're nonprofits. So all the money goes into research for our industry towards hearing implications in our industry. So it's not going anywhere else. It's staying for the benefit of, of our community.

[00:43:52] Sean Walker: I'm in. That's awesome.

[00:43:53] Jos Mulder: Yeah, so maybe, maybe we can talk about that a little bit, bit more at the very end about the research go up. Um. I just, I just wanna, because Laura, what Laura said about the hear hearing protection and even if you just take off two decibels or whatever you need, um. The, the, the value of a hundred decibels has, has different origins and, and that's all not that interesting.

But there is examples in Europe, like in, in France and in Belgium it's 102 over 15 minutes. In the Netherlands it's 103 over 15 minutes. Um, and then you can have a discussion, well, what's only one db? Or What's two db? Or what's, what's, you know, what's the difference between 103 over 15 or a hundred? But if you think just in the, in the Netherlands, every night there's a thousand gigs.

Um, if of all of those gigs we take of three DB of the loudest parts of the show, that is a lot of energy we take away from people's ears. Um, so I think the small differences at that higher, higher sun pressure level do really make a difference. And, um, from a hearing health perspective, it's really trying to reduce the amount of energy that.

Goes not into one person, but into the whole general audience of people, of young people who attend these shows, of young people who go clubbing. Uh, and then also, you know, play eight hours of games every day. Or when they're commuting on the train, they've got their, their headphones blasting. Um, yeah, so it's, it's, it's, it's about, um, I like to say it's just avoiding shows could still be loud, but it's avoiding stupid loud and, you know, can't say it enough.

Half dynamic shows where only one song is the loudest song.

[00:45:38] Jon Burton: I think it's worth, say sorry. It's worth saying as well that, um. I mean, we kind of, this, the whole certification thing is, it's all about providing information. It's providing knowledge so you can make your own decisions. But, um, I kind of compare it to, uh, the sort of training you do. You wouldn't go to a restaurant, I.

That didn't have some kind of hygiene training that everyone had done. So they know to wash their hands after going to the toilet. They know how to put not put vegetables with meat. So why would you go to a venue where nobody understands about sound pressure level? So the fact that we're trying to capture everyone in this training, we're not just trying to deal with sound engineers, um, we're trying to capture the bar manager so he's not blasting out music at his bar staff.

So the bar isn't right by the PA stack. So if they are, then they've got the earplugs so that someone is making sure that the security guy in the pit hasn't got a foam earplug stuck in sideways. He's actually got some proper ear defenders on standing by the basement and that he shouldn't be standing right between the basements, which I had at a festival with two days ago.

He should be standing away from it because it's too loud there. People shouldn't be standing there. It's just that knowledge, you know? So that 'cause knowledge is, is power and strength, you know, we've gotta educate people and it's. We would like to try and get venues hella certified. And this is part of what we're doing.

Um, particularly in the uk we've linked up with something called the Nighttime Industries Association and they've got a campaign called Listen for Life. And as part of Listen for Life, you agree to do, uh, the certification so that everyone in the venue has got some basic knowledge of hearing health. So we've got a much safer environment so that people are being more proactive.

We've also pointed out stuff that is in the WHI recommend, which I think is actually really important, but things like quiet areas, there should be somewhere quiet where you can go and rest and relax your ears. And it shouldn't just be the smoking area, it should be somewhere a bit quieter. So trying to give, uh, examples of good practice really, and you know, down to the acoustics of the building where things are cited.

Uh, so we try and cover everything. It's a very much as a complete, complete set of knowledge. Hopefully that. That will hopefully lead to better gigs. And this way we're looking to try and get venues hella certified. So if you see a sticker in the window, it's like having that hygiene five star, you know, you know, this is a place that takes, takes its audience response, uh, responsibilities.

Seriously. And it's one of the reasons, the first module in the training is all about audience expectations. It's about what we should be giving to our audience. Because without our audience, we don't have jobs.

[00:48:19] Sean Walker: Totally. So don't kill your audience and get rid of all your customers. I like it. I'm into it.

[00:48:25] Jon Burton: It's logical.

[00:48:26] Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm stoked. I'll get this for all my team. Anybody that wants to go do it on my team, can, we'll get 'em signed up and get 'em going. What, where can we, I. Send people. What's the, what's the website?

Andy, you gonna link that in the show notes? Some people know where to find.

[00:48:43] Jon Burton: It's Helen hella initiative.com. HELA initiative.com. And you sign

[00:48:51] Jos Mulder: I reckon it's a do org. Lemme just

[00:48:54] Jon Burton: is it do org? It might be do org. Yeah. Um, but yeah, Helen, do a search for Hella Initiative. Um, we should come out

[00:49:02] Andy Leviss: It's it's dot com I've, I've got it open here.

[00:49:04] Jos Mulder: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. It's a.com. Yeah.

[00:49:08] Jon Burton: yeah. Sign up and, uh, you can either choose the, the core, which is, it's maybe 45 minutes, an hour.

It's all multiple choice. You can dip in, dip out, uh, or you could do the full one, which is gonna cost you about 50 bucks. Uh. And that's gonna take you four, four or five hours. But you can just dip in, do a bid, come back, do a bit more. It's ideal stuff to do while support band are on. You can look like you're being clever.

[00:49:38] Sean Walker: totally look like you're working.

[00:49:41] Jon Burton: Yeah. And we're just, we're just certifying. The good news is that we've, uh, we've been adopted in Norway by, uh, they've got a cultural finance, uh, group called Culture On, and they've adopted, uh, hello, hello as a certification for that, for all the venues that they sponsor. So hopefully we're getting picked up in all the venues in Norway.

Uh, we've got some stuff going on in the uk. I'm just trying to convince everyone on the Biffy Claro. Tour to, uh, sign up. So hopefully there was some good news about that soon. I'm mentioning it to every, I'm being really boring this summer. Don't, if you see me and don't want to hear about Heller, stay away.

'cause I'm literally pounding everyone with information about it. Anyone who's mixing a band, anyone who's working on the crew, from bus drivers to truck drivers, none of you are safe because I'm just banging on about it this year because, uh, I think, you know, you probably realize that we're all really passionate about it.

Strangely enough, we didn't get, this is all non-profit as well, so we're just doing this for, because we feel so passionate about the subject.

[00:50:45] Andy Leviss: Well, and this is like perfectly time for folks in the Discord, uh, for signal to noise too. 'cause I know, uh, a friend of ours, Arnie, who's a sound engineer in Iceland, was just posting that apparently Iceland is in the, in the, you know, period of like trying to revise and improve and make actually useful their, you know, legal requirements for sound.

Levels. So I know I'm gonna drop into the discord and, and point him and the folks he's working with on that towards this. And you know, I know in the US it's more and more localities are working on that sort of thing too. So to have a, a standard that's got the WHO behind it and that actually seems reasonable is, is a great place to start.

[00:51:25] Jon Burton: Yeah, but I think it's worth stressing heller's not about the, it's not about the decibel level, it's about everything else. The main thing is just having that knowledge so that when we talk about, when we, when we can go to the talk about is a hundred DB a good level? You've actually got some information to, to understand what the conversation is rather than just either accepting or rejecting, which is what tends to happen.

People go, oh no, I can't mix that. Oh yeah, that sounds fine.

[00:51:53] Andy Leviss: Fair point, fair point.

[00:51:58] Sean Walker: I think

[00:51:59] Andy Leviss: Um, and it is.

[00:52:01] Sean Walker: I think it's pretty cool that you've got kind of the education component in, you know, bite-sized chunks and also something that you can walk away with a little certificate so people can kind of feel proud about learning something new. Like you said, Jon, there's not a ton of certifications in our industry other than, you know, Dante and a couple other things, so that'll be sweet to have people going.

And I think a lot of, as this kind of builds momentum, a lot of employers are gonna look at that too. You know what I mean? Hey, this'll be something, you know, we have a lot of conversations at our Discord about how do I get more gigs? How do I get better gigs? How do I do this? You know, as freelancers they're asking these questions and this will be something cool for, you know, to, this would be something to have.

That people would think, oh man, that person is probably more likely to know what time it is than not. If they've got a bunch of research about hearing health and, and gone through the training and have the certification, rather than just, I make loud like, Hey, I can, I can figure out how to do it within a reasonable set of measures.

And I also probably then have figured out how to measure that. You know what I mean? So it'll be, I think, probably good to help differentiate people in, in our marketplace as they're looking for gigs and, and trying to get better gigs. Wouldn't you think,

[00:53:17] Jon Burton: Yeah, we don't really have any money. Common standards do we? Uh, you just say, what'd you do? I'm a sound engineer. Okay. Why

[00:53:23] Sean Walker: man, I barely got any common sense, let alone common standards.

[00:53:27] Andy Leviss: Sean's standards are very low.

[00:53:29] Jon Burton: see how we, we've got who you worked for last, you know, what was your last tour? Who have you done, you know, and have you done this? But have you used this before? I mean, you can talk about training and stuff. You know, a lot of us have done, we've been through the, you know, the Martin training, the acoustics training, the DB training.

We've got this. But, uh, I think this is, I, I think if I was running a venue, I'd quite like all my staff to, to have some knowledge. Like, and part, it was one thing in my back of, back of my mind certainly was, um, I'd like venues to have Sanz engineers who had this level of knowledge and had a a, an understanding of duty of care.

[00:54:09] Sean Walker: Totally. And to get your whole team on the same page and, and rowing in the same direction would be super helpful. And having something to do that with is great, rather than just saying, Hey guys, we want to not be hurting people's ears, but to now have a, a training program or training course to do that is awesome, I think.

Good job you guys. Thanks for

[00:54:26] Jos Mulder: Yeah. And, and on top of that it's, it, it is for the whole team. So it's no longer just you, the sound engineer's problem. It's a problem for your venue. It's a problem for your audience's, problem for everyone. And we all play a role, and Hella is, I think, is really trying to enforce it.

[00:54:42] Jon Burton: It's been great how way the lamp is on my tour at the moment, have really embraced the, the concept of doing the training and, uh, speaking to my lead truck driver. And he was just saying, I'm gonna take this back to the. I'm gonna go and do the training next week, and I'm gonna tell, tell my boss that we should get all the truck drivers because we're subjected to loud noise sometimes, and we should know this stuff.

And I have, you know, he has tinnitus. It's, it's just information that we should all have. And I think hopefully the universality of the training, uh, we'll, we'll appeal to a wide range of people and we'll see much more, uh, awareness and people acting more, uh, more sensibly, hopefully.

[00:55:25] Sean Walker: Totally. That's awesome. I mean, the lamp piece have been over us for years, man. They, they've been on the earplug train for years.

[00:55:33] Jon Burton: Yeah. And you can't, you can't blame them, can you?

[00:55:36] Sean Walker: the heck no, you can't blame 'em. That's why we mix in sunglasses. Same thing, you know?

[00:55:41] Jon Burton: It's where we, it's why, why we wear hard hats though.

[00:55:43] Sean Walker: Yeah. Right.

[00:55:48] Jon Burton: But yeah, if we can get everyone involved, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm sending this out to, to bands managers. I'm sending it out to production managers. Production managers should be doing the full training. You know, 'cause they've got the overview. They should have an understanding of every aspect of the venue I'm sending out to.

And we've got musicians, uh, uh, signing up as well. And, uh, you know, hopefully doing the training.

[00:56:11] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And that's great having like ma, like the managers and the musicians do it because at the end of the day, like we as sound engineers can be, you know, concerned about, you know, how loud we're making our shows and what we're doing to our audiences, but if the folks who are telling us what to do aren't buying into that too, you know, best case it's a battle and worst case, they're gonna fire you and bring somebody else in who doesn't care.

And we will just mix it louder. So if we can get them on board with making things safe and comfortable, you know, that's super important.

[00:56:41] Jon Burton: Yeah, and it's all to do with awareness. It's all to do with awareness and having those conversations to a certain extent. Bringing stuff out into the open and starting to talk about stuff that we probably should have been talking about for 50 years.

[00:56:55] Sean Walker: Totally,

[00:56:56] Andy Leviss: could do an entire series of episodes on stuff that our industry should have been talking about years ago and haven't been yet, but um, yeah.

[00:57:03] Jon Burton: I'll, I, I'll, I'll join in with those any day. Andy, I.

[00:57:07] Sean Walker: totally. Well that, unless you guys got anything else to chime in, that's about the hour mark. Seems like a good place for us to, to wrap it up. Thank you to Alan Ahe. Sorry, go ahead.

[00:57:18] Jon Burton: I, sorry, can I just say on the last thing, 'cause I promise just that we'll talk about research. We have, uh, we have got the research agenda and we have managed to raise, uh, more, more money than we thought. We put in for a research bid, uh, for about 50 grand and we got back 10 times more than we expected.

So we're now very seriously looking at researching, uh, different areas and it's gonna be research that's gonna be done in conjunction with academia and industry. Every bit of research is gonna be linked to a real problem in our industry. Do you wanna talk about that, Jess?

[00:58:01] Jos Mulder: Yeah. Well, um, that, that says it all. Yeah. That, that is a really exciting development, uh, particularly Adam and, and Jon and a few other colleagues in the uk We're behind it. This is a, this is a big grant from, from the, from the Major UK funding body. And the aim is to, to really get the hella goop started.

Like, like we said, we, we, in, in the future, we want to use the revenue of hella to fund research, but we need the revenue first, and we need to know this is gonna be a long journey, getting the word out. This is maybe our first major outing in media that we're doing. Um, it's gonna go country by country. Um, it's gonna go word of mouth.

It will go slow, but it will go. Um, but we can't do the research if we don't have the funding. So now we have the funding that will cut us over the next three years while we increase, grow, hella, uh, start generating a little bit of revenue. Like we said, it's not expensive. Um, and all that money is going to go to research.

Like we, we have some discussions about, um, can we use something like loudness units that you use in broadcast? Can we use something like that live to get a better understanding of. The, the loudness of the program material we're sending out, you know, how would that work in a live setting? That's something that you need to research.

Um, I work a lot with hearing health researchers and we have to use semus. You put the assymetry of someone and you can then measure whatever sound they're exposed to during the night. They're expensive, they break, the microphone is on, on someone's shoulder, and then it's no longer on someone's shoulder.

So I'm working on a plan to maybe tag a few people with little Bluetooth tags, track them over the night, and then map that to, to, to a good, uh, like before the show, you put some, some noise on the pa and you measure in the grid of, of, of, you know, one by one meter and you can, you can make a map of your, your, your, um, your contours.

For, for in, in, in I one, one third Octa bands or so. So, but these are things that need to be researched. Um, the protocol that is mentioned in the. Standard, like to what I said about measuring in the geometric center of the audience area. But then we had this, ah,

[01:00:13] Andy Leviss: I think we just lost Josh, mid-sentence.

[01:00:16] Jos Mulder: uh, then we had this issue, um, um, where the PA system wasn't really covering the room and it

[01:00:23] Andy Leviss: he comes back in. Jon, is there anything else

[01:00:25] Jos Mulder: middle.

So

[01:00:25] Andy Leviss: up

[01:00:25] Jon Burton: Yeah. No, it's so.

[01:00:26] Jos Mulder: work. So we need to

[01:00:28] Jon Burton: We, we, we've got the C con, uh, thing, so we can, we're gonna be able to put some money into actual research and start building the research side of it

[01:00:34] Jos Mulder: So those just some examples of the research we're hoping to do,

[01:00:37] Jon Burton: if anyone's got any questions, don't forget. Hello Is is just a really small organization. It's pretty much just 10 of us.

Um, it really started with five and we felt a great responsibility, so we dragged in Laura and her co colleague, Heather and other people, but we're still very much a core things. But if you've got any questions, just do drop, just drop us a message, uh, to the Hella website if you're interested about signing up.

As an individual and you've got any questions to ask us. Have you got any questions about signing up as a company? So, one of the things we had founding members, so, uh, we reached out to colleagues in the industry to, to actually get some money to get the website built 'cause this stuff doesn't come cheap.

Um, and people put them hands in the pocket straight away. So we got support from one, we got one or two speaker manufacturers, so then they all joined in. So we got support from Martin, from Maya, from all acoustics, from DMB, from nexo, one of the first we got. Support from big international production houses like Solar Tech who actually put some money in to help us get off the ground 'cause they can see the value in it.

Um, but we want other companies. Uh, we've got one, we, our first company I saw saw some members of the first company. They certified the entire company. Um, so we've got a couple of companies signed up already. If you're interested, we can do, uh, do different pricings if you, for a big company, we don't just have to do an individual.

So we've got prices for, for venues and we've got prices for companies. Just ask us. 'cause the main thing is to get the word out there. This is not about making the money, this is about getting the word out there and doing some good.

[01:02:13] Sean Walker: I understand. Company I'm in. We'll talk about it later.

[01:02:16] Jon Burton: We'll do it.

[01:02:17] Sean Walker: I'll get everybody certified and let's get on it and I'll dig into my pockets and give you money. You seem like a guy that likes money.

[01:02:23] Jon Burton: you're just giving it back to

[01:02:24] Sean Walker: I don't need it anymore. I don't like it anymore. You can have it.

[01:02:27] Jon Burton: you're just gonna give it back to yourself. But it's gonna take a while to get back to you.

[01:02:31] Sean Walker: There you go.

[01:02:32] Jos Mulder: Yeah.

[01:02:33] Sean Walker: Hey, Josh. It's back. What's up buddy?

[01:02:35] Jos Mulder: Oh yeah. Oh, and I, I finished that sentence, so it's recorded locally, so it should be fine.

[01:02:40] Sean Walker: Nice.

[01:02:42] Jos Mulder: I find out whatever happens. I'll just keep talking. This is the amazing Australian internet that just occasionally a kangaroo jumps over it and it stops working

[01:02:51] Andy Leviss: I say, is it 'cause it's upside down?

[01:02:53] Jos Mulder: probably, yeah. Upside down bits.

[01:02:55] Sean Walker: Oh

[01:02:56] Jos Mulder: They're the best.

I don't know. Jon, have we covered most of it?

[01:03:01] Jon Burton: I dunno. Have we covered most of it? Sean? And Andy,

[01:03:03] Jos Mulder: I think

[01:03:04] Jon Burton: have you got any? Have you got any more questions, Andy?

[01:03:07] Andy Leviss: Uh, I think we've covered most of it. I think I'm gonna, I mean, I know I'm putting it on my docket for this week to go through the certification, and I'm sure I will have questions after that. So we'll, maybe we'll do a follow up with you guys or, you know, if, if you have the time and bandwidth and want to drop into the discord a little bit and take questions from listeners, we can certainly make that happen too.

Um, but I think, I think we covered a lot and gave a good overview and hopefully, you know, I've encouraged everybody listening to, you know, set some time aside and, and do it.

[01:03:37] Jos Mulder: Awesome.

[01:03:39] Sean Walker: Great. Thank you so much guys. I appreciate y'all coming

[01:03:42] Jos Mulder: we appreciate you guys.

[01:03:44] Sean Walker: yeah man, you're welcome. We're, we're, we're stoked to, stoked to be a part of it. Thank you also to a heath for letting us yap about audio thanks to RCF for making ripping speakers so we can all make a pile of money. And that's the pod y'all...see you next week!

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green