DJ Hardy

Are you a person who is exposed to loud music or loud noise? If you are, this may be of interest to you.

I’ve averaged anywhere from 100-170 shows per year since I started DJing professionally. At each show, I’m exposed to loud music for three to five hours. Even if you are not a working DJ or musician, you are subjected to damaging loud noise in day-to-day life. Simple tasks such as vacuuming your house, trimming your lawn or operating a laundry washer/dryer are traumatic enough to cause hearing damage.

There are two main types of non-genetic hearing loss – conductive and sensorineural – that can occur in individuals. In most cases, it is not reversible. There are exceptions to this rule, especially if there are timely measure taken by an Otolaryngologist. But just like many other health issues, prevention is more effective than any treatment when it comes to hearing loss amongst adults.

I recently had an audiogram done by a professional audiologist at the University of Michigan Audiology department. It’s usually a pain-free and short appointment where your hearing is tested in a sound-proof booth at various frequencies. Many places will also include a word-recognition test to along with a regular hearing test that includes various frequencies. I was fortunate that even after all this exposure, my hearing is relatively intact. Here is a snapshot of my results, so you can see what your results should look like:

The next step for me was to ensure that I don’t allow my ears to suffer any more damage. So I chose to purchase a pair of custom-fit musician ear plugs. These ear plugs use different frequencies (-9, -15, -21 and -25 db are some of the options available) to restrict the amount of sound that reaches your ears. They are made from an impression/mold of your ear, which is usually taken by an audiologist. A pair of these plugs will typically cost you about $150, but that price may vary depending on the type of products you choose. And the visit to audiologist may or may not be included as a part of the cost, depending on the clinic where you purchase these plugs.

Here is a picture of the impression (in my ear!), the ear-plug itself, and the filters you attach to the plugs:

I’d like to note that you can have a pretty normal conversation with people even with these plugs in your ears. I used a pair for about a year and half until I somehow managed to lose one of the plugs last April. They feel really comfortable since they are designed to fit the exact shape of your ear.

I hope that this information was helpful to you guys. If you have any questions, feel free to post in the comments or contact me directly.

Have a great weekend!

-Hardy

I’m gonna keep this short! I have two mixes for everyone, and these don’t have vocals from my MC on it. It’s just music with some occasional drops.

1st mix is from about 10 PM on until almost 11 PM. It starts with some deep house for about 30 minutes and then goes into some electro and then mainstream dance stuff.

Part 1 (Download Here)

2nd mix is from about 11:45 until 1 AM. It’s one of my favorite live sets so far because the energy was crazy!

Part 2 (Download Here)

Check these out and please spread the word!

I hope that everyone is enjoying the spring-like weather! This past weekend was a blast, and it was awesome to see a couple get engaged in the middle of a club while I was playing to a packed crowd of 800+ people!  As always, I tried to record my set and came up with 3 different parts of the night:

1) Early night, about 1 hour and 7 minutes, starting at 9:00 PM: House and Electro

2) Middle of the night, 30 minutes, from about 12:15-12:45 AM: Mainstream Pop/Dance

3) End of the night: Hip-Hop and Rock

I’ll post a track list later if anyone is interested.

It also happens to be the 13th anniversary of the death of Christopher Wallace, better known as Notorious B.I.G. In tribute to arguably the greatest MC of all time, I’d like to share his original demo he sent out to get noticed: Microphone Murderer

I look forward to another exciting weekend of getting paid to do what I love the most. I hope you guys enjoy these mixes!