I am going on my first tour this summer with the Sacramento Mandarins, and during the auditions we went inside the schools band rooml (8 snares, 4 tenors, 5 basses) we just switched people in and out. and it was amazinnnggg loud. i auditioned last year, but we never went inside. so i want to purchase ear plugs for this up coming tour and want to determine which would be best. my instructor told me too get some called air filters or something. Any better ones out there?

To be honest man, you don't need to get crazy with the ear plugs. Low price, working product, and quantity is what you want.

I go for the beige ones or the light green ones you find at any pharmacy or retail music store for like 5-6 bucks, maybe less. for that, you get like 30 or 32 earplugs. I use the 32db and that's more than enough for me. I prefer the 29db so i can better hear the techs when they talk.

plus, you'll easily lose a pair of those within a day or two. so it's better to go cheap, IMO. they all do the same job just as well.

Font's right. They do make those really expensive ones where it filters out the sound but still lets you hear all the music "more clearly." I haven't tried them myself, but with the standard ones you get at the pharmacy or music store are fine. As long as they're rated at at least 29db, then you shouldn't have to worry. Plus when you get outside (which for you guys, your inside days will probably end very soon) it's a whole different story, and the risk of hearing damage is lessened (but not obliterated, so you still need to be able to afford enough earplugs to last you throughout tour). So cheap is the way to go.

I looked in to expensive earplugs but never got them. However, if you're a younger player and you know you're going to be doing it for a long time it's probably worth it. You get a mold of your ear made, and they custom make a hard outer shell that exactly fits your ear. Then you get these inserts that do the actual sound filtering. The benefit to this method is that the sound gets filtered evenly for all frequencies, with the cheap ear plugs everything will sound low and muffled. Many players don't like the way this sounds so they just go without earplugs at all... bad call. So like I said, if you plan on being involved with the activity for a long time, expensive earplugs may be a good investment. Cheap earplugs will provide the same level of protection.

Of all the inexpensive earplugs I've tried, my favorite by far are the Etymotic ER-20 "High Fidelity" earplugs, which you can find for $10-12 per pair.

Some cheap earplugs block certain frequencies more than others, so once you take the plugs out, things sound very different and you might find that you've been playing out of balance. The Etymotic plugs' response is pretty flat throughout the audible range, so things sound close to the the same when you're wearing them -- just quieter.

I used to go the gun shops to get ear plugs, but some of their clients were a bit scary. The last time I found a bottle of 40 pair at the drug store. They looked like a bottle of vitamins. Most importantly they did the job and were cheap.
If you do use the foam plugs make sure you use them properly. Roll the plug between your thumb and first finger into a thin tube. Using your opposite hand, pull up on your ear to straighten out the ear canal. Use your forefinger to hold the plug in as it expands. Once you have both in, check to see that they are effectively blocking the sound. Cover both ears with the palm of your hands. You should hear no difference between when you have your hands over your ears and when you don't.
What ever you do, protect your ears. Tinnitus is no fun, and is a subject worthy of its own forum.

Yeah. I have Tinnitus. It happens at least once every day, and is incredibly annoying. Not to mention, scares the balls out of me because I know this is from damage caused by watching drumlines, playing cymbals, playing set without ear plugs, going to extreme metal shows without ear plugs, and listening to music at a high volume in the car.

I'm a fool. And now I wear protection once I read up on why my ears kept ringing.

Check out the reviews on this site.

http://www.drumlines.org/reviews/showproduct.php/product/171/sort/7/cat/49/page/1

These North Sonic plugs work great for me. They have holes in them with some kind of sound filter device. You can hear people talking and snare shots don't hurt. At first they weren't comfortable because they went in too deep for me. I just bit off the tips down to the second ring one day at band camp and they are perfect now. They are about $10 at Cabela's website and well worth it.

to be honest i've never used earplugs. i use skullcandy isolation earbuds, the kind you use to listen to an mp3 player. they work just like earplugs and they let you plug in to a metronome or w/e else or like me, you can just have the exercises recorded on ur mp3 player and play along with them. and its cool because they're isolation so you can listen to comfortably quiet music and still hear it just fine.

you guys are using those styrophome ear plugs but i don't really like those, ok they last a few weeks then you have to go buy more. I bought plastic ear plugs for that price and they're completely reusable. they're hunting earplugs too, so I should be just fine.