Microphone Isolation & Acoustic Treatment

[mbouteneff]

I'm looking for ways to reduce room ambiance in recordings. Has anyone ever tried one of these microphone isolation products, or tried building something like them?

Reflexion Filter
http://www.seelectronics.com/rf.html
= a portable device for recording live sound sources with reduced room ambience.

Microphone Isolation Panel
http://www.smproaudio.com/MICTHING.htm
= a portable multi-purpose acoustic treatment panel suitable for minimizing room artifacts and improving separation during microphone recording sessions.

Alternatively, have you tried a home-grown set up like the one in this photo:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul05/articles/qa0705_5.htm
(Btw, is a "duvet" just a "mattress", or is it something more specific? And if anyone know of any recipes for building an mic isolation piece, I'd love to hear it!!)

Thanks,

-Mike

 

[cusebassman]

Ive used mattresses before, but not for sound isolation - I think you were just asking about acoustic 'treatment' anyway, but figured Id point out that you can't get a quiet room in a noisy area without significant building.

Mattresses, though, will in fact absorb a decent portion of the frequency range that vocals and acoustic guitars fall in (at least as far as I and my recordings are concerned), so you can get rid of that trashy room sound that many recordings suffer from, having been recorded in untreated rooms.

Just place two in a corner adjacent to one another, making sure there isn't a crack between the two where they join, and face the behemoth, mic facing out toward the room. It seems counterintuitive perhaps, to have the mic facing the very entity that produces the shitty slapback, but hopefully the mattresses will catch what yer throwin, so those reflections never actually occur.

Bass-level frequencies, and perhaps the lower end of the acoustic guitar's range, will not be phased much by this arrangement, however, so it is a stall at best.

You would do well to poke around the studio building forum for better info about treating a room properly (it just so happpens that over the summers when my roommates aren't here, I have lots of extra mattresses to toy with )

 

[zbert]

Go to the real traps site. Ethan has a portable vocal booth. He also has some tests putting it agains the SE. Same price with much better specs.

 

[bubbagump]

Duvet is the same thing as the word comforter.... a big fluffy warm ass blankie. Or as Webster's says: "a thick bed covering made of two layers of cloth containing a filling (such as down)"

 

[cusebassman]

Duvet is the same thing as the word comforter.... a big fluffy warm ass blankie. Or as Webster's says: "a thick bed covering made of two layers of cloth containing a filling (such as down)"

In other words, it will not help with sound isolation or treatment. Check out the studio building forum.

 

[bubbagump]

In other words, it will not help with sound isolation or treatment. Check out the studio building forum.

I don't know if I would go that far... for some mid and high end flutter echo knock down, they have some value. For bass trapping they won't do a thing. For instance if you have a room that is too reflective, hanging a duvet in front of the mic (usually behind the performer to keep reflections from coming back into a directional mic) can work reasonably. It isn't the same as a full bore acoustically treated room for sure, but not worthless.

 

[ofajen]

I'm looking for ways to reduce room ambiance in recordings.

Expensive, but in a league of its own...

http://www.asc-studio-acoustics.com/qsf.htm

Cheers,

Otto

 

[oretez]

The portable reflection filters are not much use in environments where they are actually needed for music . . . for exerting some control for mobile V/O they might be worth the price

treating a room for recording and treating a room for mixing can demand slightly different strategies and tweaking a room for recording is far easier. Small rooms with parallel surfaces are going to be problematic no matter what you do. This is one of a half dozen primary work process reasons for close mic'ng . . . and design strategies for dealing with proximity is a primary thing that separates mics of similar quality.

Soundproofing is in many ways the least of your problems (after you eliminate florescent lights, ac and other motor & compressor background noise).

strategies are room dependent . . . and in a recording space you are not looking, generally speaking, for dead. Bookcases, full of books are actually fairly useful. Quilted moving blankets, offset 4-6 in from the wall can help some. Two rolls of something like R49 home insulation, stacked one on top of the other (fairly easy to create a cotton bag for them with a sheet), 2, one in each of two linear corners can be effective bass traps. Then when recording individual instruments (or voices) take the time to find some combination of instrument and mic placement that sounds better, on that day, then others. Don't assume that a week later a similar instrument will still 'work' at that spot . . . it will take a while to find limits of the room.

Here's a link that begins to explain some of the issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonant_room_modes

 

[ofajen]

Then when recording individual instruments (or voices) take the time to find some combination of instrument and mic placement that sounds better, on that day, then others. Don't assume that a week later a similar instrument will still 'work' at that spot . . . it will take a while to find limits of the room.

One of the biggest benefits of the Quick Sound Field is precisely its consistency, simplicity and reproducibility. That's big for a lazy person such as myself. Combine that with the ability to quickly reconfigure from high end tracking to LEDE mixing and you make it much easier to manage to do it all in one room to a reasonably high standard of quality.

Cheers,

Otto