Experiences with mic shields?

do you trust your ears or eyes or nose?

with yours the singer would probably want to be at least 12-24" away from the mic.
 
CoolCat said:
do you trust your ears or eyes or nose?

with yours the singer would probably want to be at least 12-24" away from the mic.
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No, no. The only way it could work is with the singers head in the hole. Shouldn't be much of a stretch for the porcelain huggers
 
joey2000 said:
gto's comments have me thinking...I wonder if I took one of those folding panel things people use to get dressed behind and tacked on some foam/sound-proofing stuff and put it behind me, how well that would work. Anyone try this?
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You would have a gobo. Portable acoustic panels that you can place around or near a performer to isolate them a little from another sound source. I don't have any, don't need them, but I've seen pics of gobos being used when recording a full band and the engineer is cutting down on bleed.

For your purposes, I'm thinking it would work decent enough. What is the room you record in like?
 
Gobo's
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(Dual fig-8's, and however.. boo on me- I ought to having some overhead. But 'Band is in the other room just to his right where it's better treated at the time.

The main dif I see when investing in portable treatment like this (vs a two foot' thing') is they are way more versatile, more effective (surface area!), and always aiding in the room in which ever way helps the situation at a given time.
 
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Chili said:
You would have a gobo. Portable acoustic panels that you can place around or near a performer to isolate them a little from another sound source. I don't have any, don't need them, but I've seen pics of gobos being used when recording a full band and the engineer is cutting down on bleed.

For your purposes, I'm thinking it would work decent enough. What is the room you record in like?
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Just a bedroom.

Oddly, I don't see them for sale anywhere and looking up "gobo" on audio sites gives lighting, not insulated panels. Are they know by another name?
 
joey2000 said:
Just a bedroom.

Oddly, I don't see them for sale anywhere and looking up "gobo" on audio sites gives lighting, not insulated panels. Are they know by another name?
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Hmm, try googling "gobo acoustic panel".

Here's somthing that pulled up when I did.
FreeStand Acoustic Panel(C) (gobo)

Click on images from the google results and you'll see plenty. I'm guessing most gobo's are DIY built.

I think they can/maybe be useful in your room. Set them up to cut down reflections and standing waves from a square room.
 
I used the original version with the perforated metal back--but there are multiple layers of different absorbent materials between the backing and the mic and experienced no metallic effect. However, as I said in my original post, positioning of the mic is critical--and I'm talking about to within millimetres. Also, as I said, I had thick curtains behind the speaker and it was a long way from the back of the filter to the first hard, reflective wall.
 
ecc83 said:
since the 'obstacle effect' can add colouration to the sound, as I think someone said of the metal version?
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Interesting.. Also I find it odd that they are simply flat panels vs having some kind of egg shell foam or similarly irregular shapes on the outside. ? I don't see what that buys me vs just having a big ol wooden panel with a heavy blanket tossed over it. PS: once I looked up "duvet" I realized that's what that article was saying :) (good link Dave thx) And I was thinking more of something like this (shape-wise): Oriental Furniture Window Pane 36 Inch Tall Shoji Room Divider - Room Dividers at Hayneedle That way you can bend it so it curves inward towards the singer.
 
Bobbsy said:
I used the original version with the perforated metal back--but there are multiple layers of different absorbent materials between the backing and the mic and experienced no metallic effect. However, as I said in my original post, positioning of the mic is critical--and I'm talking about to within millimetres. Also, as I said, I had thick curtains behind the speaker and it was a long way from the back of the filter to the first hard, reflective wall.
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Yeah thats what I thought at first. I will qualify my earlier post to say that the original metal one I bought was fine for soft voiced singers and spoken word. But when you got a belter under the hood there was a definite metallic overtone to it. Since my main vocal mic at the time was a late 70's Neumann U87, I was pretty sure of the capture and what I heard on the tracks. The exchange to the plastic backed one proved this to be so.

I also find that treatment behind the singer with the reflexion filter to be the correct method for making the most out of this setup.

I had the blankets, the hanging of auralex from a door (actually a pair of old doors from the recycle center...reverse the hinges and hang the Auralex...should be a Gobo right??) I have a 7' drum shield, etc etc....Over 35 years of recording stuff...Now there are 'zones' in my room. Each has its own type of absorption and reflexion and I choose the correct mic, positioning, and pre for the job.

To truly understand how to control sound as in a quality vocal booth you have to understand the properties of the materials first and foremost, and then understand the effect of the physics of an environment you are going to capture in.

The biggest improvement I ever made in my recordings, was to increase the quality of three things. The drums, the bass , and the vocals. Without these you are still operating in the garage.
 
joey2000 said:
Interesting.. Also I find it odd that they are simply flat panels vs having some kind of egg shell foam or similarly irregular shapes on the outside. ? I don't see what that buys me vs just having a big ol wooden panel with a heavy blanket tossed over it. PS: once I looked up "duvet" I realized that's what that article was saying :) (good link Dave thx) And I was thinking more of something like this (shape-wise): Oriental Furniture Window Pane 36 Inch Tall Shoji Room Divider - Room Dividers at Hayneedle That way you can bend it so it curves inward towards the singer.
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Actually I have something like that in a room I use occasionally as a studio--except mine is around 7 feet tall and more solid--it's in a fancy pattern so it's hard to be accurate but I'd say it's about half wood and half "holes". Like you I put soft material over it--an old mover's blanket permanently and (for critical work) a duvet on top of that. The reason for this "treatment" is to cover a large sliding wardrobe door which I can't treat in any "normal" way. I keep it about a foot out from the doors and it works quite well.
 
I love the SE Reflexion filter - a very good investment! I record in a room that is not completely sound proof to the outside and I find It blocks a lot of ambient noise. And I am guessing it absorbs some sound from the vocalist that would otherwise bounce off the surface in back of the vocalist and get picked up at the front of the capsule. I get very clean vocal tracks with a United Audio Apollo and a Neumann TLM 103. My only caveat is that the older Reflexion filters shipped with crappy hardware, which has finally been improved.
 
"Yet you have a closed cell foam mattress pad reflection filter"

Ya'll know that is a dual element ribbon, right ?
 
I have to qualify my previous post in re: though I found that in most cases when recording vocals that a screen behind the mic had little effect, that does not hold true in all situations, for instance doing voice over and especially if recording in front of highly reflective materials(monitors for instance). Ultimately it depends on what and where you are recording, what mic you are recording with(polar pattern,diaphragm type,freq response,preamp color,etc), and the sound you are going for(colored,dry, reverberant, etc). In many cases a filter or screen is a great choice. Just don't expect miracles, know what you're after. I have even successfully split a single square foot acoustic foam tile so that it fit on the body of a dynamic mic to reduce snare bleed into a bass amp mic. Try stuff, if you like it, keep it.
 
Gtoboy said:
I have to qualify my previous post in re: though I found that in most cases when recording vocals that a screen behind the mic had little effect, that does not hold true in all situations,
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Yeah I'm also thinking that if nothing else it will help at least a little in most any situation due to secondary reflections coming from elsewhere. Thinking now that it will be minimal in general singing applications though....be curious to see how it plays out though.
 
I wonder if a foam ball doesnt do the same thing.
Foam balls can reduce plosives, wind background noise and help the single diagphrams back side issues.

Im not knocking the Reflexion thing, it does look professional and would do something to the mic area pickup but is it a huge improvement from just putting on a foam ball or tiewrapping a foam piece on there?

Its like p-poppers you can make a wire clothes hanger with material or buy a real one. Performance wise its the same, cosmetically not the same.
 
Depends on what you are going after, and yet, people will aim the MIC straight at the reflective wall.
 
That's an interesting comparison that I'm surprised hasn't been brought up before.

Those foam balls are meant to act as protection against wind blasts whilst having minimal effect on the capturing of the source,
so why would we expect the same material to have a measurable impact against transmission of sound as reflections?

I don't know how reflection filters fare against other kinds of absorption and treatment, but you can be sure there's something more than lightweight foam in there.
 
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