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Hi folks, Just wondering if anyone has ever used one of these as I am one of the people who have problems when using a condenser mic in an untreated room, http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog...ved=0CH0Q8wIwBAThanks for any opinions. musiclover
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I haven't used such as that but what I do is:
Hang blankets over two mic booms to the front and have a heavy couch cushion propped up in the rear. Plus some pillows to dampen the noise from the computer. A bit unsightly but it works pretty good.
Don S.
Last edited by Curmudgeon; 07/21/12 03:28 PM.
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I sometimes make something similar with some foam and whatever else is handy. I have a 3-panel room divider that I drape with a couple towels. Not as pretty as the device in the ad, but then I am not as pretty as the girl in the ad...
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I made a "corner" for a room out of 3 doors and moving blankets that make the sound DEAD when I set it up. And I mean really DEAD. I didn't believe how reflective my studio room was until I built that gobo, and now I believe. I just bring the stand with the mic around it, and it's totally flat in there.
Once again, it's not as pretty as what's in the picture, and to piggy back on Flatfoot, I'm not as pretty as the girl in the picture, either.
Hell, I'm probably not as pretty as Flatfoot....
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Hi musiclover, I have one very similar to what you show in the picture. I like it. One drawback that I didn't anticipate, though, was that the one I have is incredibly heavy and it is not suited for a standard mic stand. Because I wasn't prepared to buy a heavy-duty mic stand, in the end I set it up as below on top of a shelf and with a dropdown mic. (I suggest that you find out the what weight of the device is and what it is made from. If its housing is made of aluminium as opposed to steel (like mine), it will be much lighter.)  My thoughts are that it would be very easy to make something just as functional from cardboard and foam that could be fixed to a music stand. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Think about the sound reflections.
Many times it is a matter of figuring *where* to put the mic as opposed to treating a room or building a booth.
Early reflections = trouble a lot of the time. A square room offers a lot of these early reflections as sound bounces around off four walls right back into the mic creating a 'boxy' sound.
Sometimes I find puting a vocalist in a long hallway with a large open end works well. The direct signal hits the mic and everything else travels down the hall and dissipates into a large room without any way to return to the mic.. just a three foot wide hall with an open end has worked surprisingly well at times.
Or you can build a booth. I've done that with good results also. It's those early reflections that seem to cause the most trouble in my experience.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Quote:
Hi folks,
Just wondering if anyone has ever used one of these as I am one of the people who have problems when using a condenser mic in an untreated room,
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog...ved=0CH0Q8wIwBA
Thanks for any opinions.
musiclover
Partial vocal "booth" such as this can work very well, as already mentioned in this thread, one can build one themselves for pennies on the dollar if so inclined and get much the same results.
A good source for the acoustic material needed, on the cheap, is to contact local Home Theater isntallers and ask them if they have any scrap panel pieces leftover from job installations. Often can be had for nothing more than the asking...
--Mac
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Thanks very much indeed for all the replies. Looks like a good setup you have there Noel. Room isn't square Rharv so maybe that will help a bit.
As I have just returned am AKG 120 mic to amazon I am now well aware of all the unwanted sounds a mic can pick up, though my cheap basic shure mic doesn't seem to have the same problems as I had with the condenser.
1 I was wondering would cast off foam from the cushions off a an old sofa give the same result as the above? Probaby would improvise and string 3 or 4 foam pieces together with rigid wire or something like that.
2 since the booth thing doesn't go all the way around I take it unwanted sounds can still find their way to the mic from behind etc?
I don't know if there is any home theatre installers where I live, but ill have look in yellow pages. Thanks for suggestion Mac
Thanks agian
Musiclover
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Old couch cushions should have foam in them. You could also look to craft stores for 2 inch foam. When I built mine, it cost me time. Yes. Time. I found a guy on Craigslist giving away doors. I drove 14 minutes each way to get them. Then I stopped at the U-Haul near me (if you are in the south, it'd be Y'all-Haul) and asked if they had any old moving pads or blankets they were looking to dispose of. They gave me one of the thick pads and 4 blankets. I laid the 2 doors down on the floor butted against each other and stretched the pad across them, then stapled the hell out of them all along the perimeter. And stapled some more. I emptied a staple gun twice going around those doors.
Now when I want to sing, I set the mic stand up, set those doors at about 75-80 degrees so it stands but closes me in, with nothing behind me. Any sound that would come from behind me would have to be reflected, and the thick pad absorbs everything. It is REALLY dead in there.
I also suggest keeping a spray bottle of Febreeze handy, as the air can get a little ripe singing up into a moving pad.... spray the thing liberally before you start or at some point you may go for a big gulp of air and come up empty.
And for me, I also do vocals with no room sound, all headphone. I don't want any bleed into the vocal mic. I suppose most people do that as well but I wanted to add that just in case.
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I have 1 and it seems to work okay.
There appear to be 2 or 3 brands that all seem the same except for price.
WSS
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Before going any further - is there a clothes closet in the room or an adjacent room? If so, open the door, loosely stuff it with hanging clothes, put the back of the mic facing the open door perhaps 10 cm from the hanging clothes and voila, you have your booth. It will have way more absorption than the item in the link.
Honestly, before you do anything else - try that. It might take investment in a long mic cord to reach down the hall, and some time to cut out the unneeded extra time in your recording as you walk from your PC to the 'booth' and back.
-Scott
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1 thing, eddie, if you have sonar x 1 producer you should have the pro channel.
Try 1 of the vocal presets on the input, I just used it for the first time and really liked it.
I understand there are more free vocal presets on the sonar site.
Hopefully when I get more time off I will mess around with some vocal tracks.
WSS
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I know how time can be. You have a big show coming up soon, don't you? 
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Well not really just a lot of dates in the islands at around town.
That's the catch 22 about playing and recording.
It seems like it's a good idea to sing and play in the studio during the summer what I'm really busy, the throat and fingers are a lot stronger.
But it's hard to get motivated on your 1 or 2 days off...
WSS
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Quote:
Before going any further - is there a clothes closet in the room or an adjacent room? If so, open the door, loosely stuff it with hanging clothes, put the back of the mic facing the open door perhaps 10 cm from the hanging clothes and voila, you have your booth. It will have way more absorption than the item in the link.
This works especially well if you are using a mike with a figure-8 pattern (such as they typical ribbon microphone).
An ordinary heavy cardboard box can work too, used in the same manner as the 'portable booth.' It has enough give to it to absorb a certain amount of sound, enough substance to block some sound as well (nesting a couple boxes is even better). I've seen cardboard refrigerator boxes used as full-sized vocal booths in a pinch.
the Insolent LadEnough small empty boxes thrown into a big empty box fill it full. ~Carl Sandburg
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Journeyman
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Quote:
I know how time can be. You have a big show coming up soon, don't you?
Lol
Sorry I was a little dense there....
WSS 
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Now go get Rosalita and jump a little higher....!!!
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Quote:
Quote:
Before going any further - is there a clothes closet in the room or an adjacent room? If so, open the door, loosely stuff it with hanging clothes, put the back of the mic facing the open door perhaps 10 cm from the hanging clothes and voila, you have your booth. It will have way more absorption than the item in the link.
This works especially well if you are using a mike with a figure-8 pattern (such as they typical ribbon microphone).
An ordinary heavy cardboard box can work too, used in the same manner as the 'portable booth.' It has enough give to it to absorb a certain amount of sound, enough substance to block some sound as well (nesting a couple boxes is even better). I've seen cardboard refrigerator boxes used as full-sized vocal booths in a pinch.
I would think the fridge box has way too much reflection and would have local 'room modes' in the box's parallel wall dimensions. I would think it would give a 'boxy' sound to the recording. Never tried it however.
-Scott
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. >>>...Hell, I'm probably not as pretty as Flatfoot....>>> ...You got that right. 
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This thread has me recalling the young fellow who recorded an entire original album in his bedroom and did a rather fine job of it.
His only mic was the same SM-58 he used to sing through on live gigs.
He very astutely reasoned that his own bed could be used to tame his vox recordings -- and so he would place the mattress upright in the corner of the room, forming an L with the horizontal lower foundation of the bed and hung the mic from there and sang into it.
Instant portable vocal booth.
Sounded good.
Where there is a will, there's a way...
--Mac
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