Thinking outside of the box - mic treatment vs room treatment

[Northward]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Well first off I am by no means an acoustical engineer of trained acoustician. It is an extensive field with a lot physics that are way beyond my knowledge.
I learned a few things from researching it for 14 years now.

What I have learned is there is not really one panel that will address all
problem frequencies. Also note that in many professional studio's there can be any combination of bass trapping, broad band absorption, diffusion, and scattering.

For the home recorder all of these can be useful but I I were to start with just on area to address it would be broad band absorption.

Personally I am not a fan of any kind of shield that enclose the area around the mic but that is just me.

Very generally as far as the more broad band absorption panels
As I and others have noted are often made from either Ownes Corning 703 (or similar) or Rock Wool, usually mounted in a wood or metal frame and covered with cloth.



Absorption panels often either 2 ft X 2 ft by either 2 inches deep or 4 inches deep --- Or more often 2 ft. X 4 ft. and either 2 or 4 inches deep (probably the most used over all are 2 ft X 4 ft. X 4 inches )

These are designed to either go on the wall and hang at the main reflection points OR they can also be designed or home built to be freestanding portable so they be a non permanent movable solution. If I did not want to mount anything on the walls. These free standing absorption panels is what I would use.

If you don't want to DYI Here is a company that makes great products or if you do want to DYI this company has great ideas for it.
http://www.gikacoustics.com/


In the portable free standing they have two solutions

one they make.


Or they also sell a bracket for a mike stand

Great! Thanks for this [emoji4] Think I'll sort out something like it. Things that looks 'so easy' often prove to be no good. In fact I was in professional studio just last weekend with my band (just my second time), and there I sang into a classic radio mic, - an old Electro-Voice RE320 I think. There was a small shield behind it and a pop filter in front. The whole thing was very wobbly and the raw mix was full of bleed from some rather crappy earphones and the picking up on my foot movement (yup daddy, it's punk rock for geriatrics [emoji23])

The whole setup was very unprofessional I thought, but suspected the engineers idea was that we wanted grittiness for the style (wrong)

But he vocals turned out much better than expected in the end. That mic has a nice compression, plus hardware pre and through a big old mixer desk. Grade-A recording gear. But the vocal set up didn't exactly match it.. which was a bit strange I thought.

Maybe there are more solid versions of these mic stand mounted shields around, but I'm more sceptical.

Excuse my ramblings on here.. My next vocal recording though, will be with a sturdier mic stand, a new Beyer dynamic and a much, much, much cheaper recording chain... [emoji28]
Man.. those massive racks of hardware with their blinking lights looked like the control room on the Death Star...


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[perttime]

There's also placement within the room, or you might have the possibility to try different rooms.

Sometimes I wander around the apartment while noodling, and listen to myself in different rooms and the hallway.
(also good for seeing myself play in the big mirror )