Microphone Isolation Box

[Mr. Paul]

At our local radio station we record lots of different announcements, interviews, news spots, etc. The room we have set up is small with windows that let in traffic noise. Not much traffic really, but it seems like half of what's out there are diesel trucks

I was thinking an isolation box for the microphone could be a big help but I have no experience with them.

Any pointers?


Thanks

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Mr. Paul

I was thinking an isolation box for the microphone could be a big help but I have no experience with them.

I'm not sure I understand what you're proposing doing with this box? Are you sticking your head in it to sing? Are you putting it in front of a guitar? Are you building it big enough for the player to be inside?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Mr. Paul

At our local radio station we record lots of different announcements, interviews, news spots, etc. The room we have set up is small with windows that let in traffic noise. Not much traffic really, but it seems like half of what's out there are diesel trucks

I was thinking an isolation box for the microphone could be a big help but I have no experience with them.

Any pointers?


Thanks

I am not certain what you mean by box either
For announcement You might be able to use one of the commercial curved mic shields. But I would not think it will work real well for interviews..

For that seems like you need to treat the entire room or get an oversize Iso Booth , that two people can fit into.. Which I believe are a couple thousand dollars ..

How important are the windows ? That is where 70% of the traffic noise is coming from I would imagine ?

[Mr. Paul]

We have a very small studio so no room for full isolation, here is an example of what I'm thinking might help keep the outside noise levels down on our recordings.
As Kevin suggests, we would need to treat the whole room for interviews so for now, we're considering just single person / single mic recordings. I really don't want to suggest blocking the windows with sound treatment, looking for an alternative.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Mr. Paul

We have a very small studio so no room for full isolation, here is an example of what I'm thinking might help keep the outside noise levels down on our recordings.
As Kevin suggests, we would need to treat the whole room for interviews so for now, we're considering just single person / single mic recordings. I really don't want to suggest blocking the windows with sound treatment, looking for an alternative.

SE makes some from $99 to $229
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...le-vocal-booth

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Mr. Paul

We have a very small studio so no room for full isolation, here is an example of what I'm thinking might help keep the outside noise levels down on our recordings.
As Kevin suggests, we would need to treat the whole room for interviews so for now, we're considering just single person / single mic recordings. I really don't want to suggest blocking the windows with sound treatment, looking for an alternative.

First, let's get our terms correct. Isolation is a very expensive endeavor which usually entails building a room within a room that is decoupled from the surrounding room. For the vast majority of music studios, the goal isn't isolation, and for a studio just doing on-air interviews, it sounds like pricey overkill.

For most studios, the goal is to control problematic frequencies with adequate treatment (bass traps, higher frequency absorbers, diffusors, etc.). You say it's a small studio. Automatically, that means you have a problem with low end frequency build up and because you don't have any kind of room treatment, you have all frequencies bouncing all over the room. But if this is just for spoken voice, have at it. If that box eliminates some of the upper frequency extraneous noise coming in from the street, then it is working for that purpose. After all, no one on the other end is likely doing any critical listening of the sound quality of interviews or commentary.

If the purpose becomes something in the music realm, that box isn't really going to fix much of anything because it does next to nothing to fix the biggest problem every untreated small room has.

[Mr. Paul]

10-4, thanks fellas.

[runamuck]

I've never used or even seen a box like that before but I have used a couple types of "reflection filters" like the one SE makes.

I do not like what they do, which is to produce comb filtering, which sounds like phasing or some such thing. And they won't keep outside noises - like traffic - down much as far as I know.

[Brent Hahn]

You could try a noise-cancelling headset mic. They were developed for military use, but many sportscasters use modern versions. They're really two microphones in close proximity. One hears your voice + the outside world while the other hears only the world. They're wired together in reverse polarity so the world is cancelled out and what's left is just you.

[shufflebeat]

The noise of the trucks will already be filtered on it's way to you by obstacles and walls. What does reach you will be low frequency rumble which won't be attenuated in any way by an inch of light sponge.

Proximity is your friend, as is post production noise reduction.

Enagage any HPF (high pass filter) options you might have on your mic, then get right up close (pop filter?) to harness some extra bass boost with proximity effect.

What DAW do you record to or is it live streaming/broadcasting?

[Mr. Paul]

Originally Posted by shufflebeat

The noise of the trucks will already be filtered on it's way to you by obstacles and walls. What does reach you will be low frequency rumble which won't be attenuated in any way by an inch of light sponge.

Proximity is your friend, as is post production noise reduction.

Enagage any HPF (high pass filter) options you might have on your mic, then get right up close (pop filter?) to harness some extra bass boost with proximity effect.

What DAW do you record to or is it live streaming/broadcasting?

We record to Audacity.


Thanks again everyone

[FrankHudson]

I formerly worked for a large non-profit radio network. I was in computer-based IT, not broadcast engineering, but we worked together all the time.

Obviously, somethings in term of outside noise are harder to deal with than others. We had high quality standards even for the "spoken word" stuff. We had full-fledged music production and live music studios. All highly engineered from scratch and built room-inside-room air gaps, "air lock" style doors into a small foyer then another door. By the way those aren't totally immune. We had issues with light rail built just outside one of our walls for example. Worse than big trucks that.

However, for a lot or mic work and for remote bureaus the most cost-effective thing for us were pre-fab booths made primarily for music practice places at schools. They didn't seem cheap to me, but broadcast engineering would tell us they were cheaper/faster than building our own. You still wouldn't want to put them against a window or outside wall. These are entirely enclosed rooms, double walled and of course inside another building. I'm guessing above your station's budget?

Now I've been out of radio for 6 years. But I do need to record in one of those bedrooms now used as a home office space so many folks have now. I live an urban area. Here's what I do that is effective most of the time: I use an ElectroVoice RE20 mic. I work close. I do have the low end rolloff engaged, and I also keep the stand isolated from the floor. Would I be able to get pristine recordings with a big rig rolling by outside my window? No, but right now as I type this next to that mic I can hear street traffic and other muffled outside noise that I know the mic won't pickup.

What mic are you using? How close do you work?

[Al Acuff]

GIK Acoustics and Realtraps both make portable vocal booths.

http://realtraps.com/p_pvb.htm

https://www.gikacoustics.com/product...olation-booth/

[TBman]

Those little boxes are useless.