Hey guys,

I need some help with acoustic treatment to record mainly vocals. Ideally, I'd prefer to book a recording studio but it's out of my budget at the moment with the amount of recordings I need to do, and I would rather spend it on mixing/mastering. This is gonna be a little long but I'll try to outline everything for readability.

CONTEXT: I've been recording with a RØDE NT1 in a vocal booth, 4 inch wood walls and internally fully-covered with those basic thin foam panels. It's pretty much a foam box, but it has great isolation from outside noise - dogs barking, cars passing by, etc, are not an issue. The booth is around (Length x Width x Height) 4.9ft x 3.3ft x 7.2ft/1.5m x 1.0m x 2.2m so it's pretty small. It's done me well but after my last release, which I recorded in a really nice studio with a mic that suited me then (I think it was a 251 replica), I've chasing and trying to replicate that clarity the best I can in my home studio.

PROBLEM:
I got myself a WA-87, and with that, there's a huge bump in clarity compared to the NT1. However, it's really accentuating the room, particularly the mid-range frequencies. The mic itself is already slightly honky and the room doesn't help its case. I've made some homemade, 4-inch rockwool panels, clothed up, 6 of them. They don't have a frame (because hardware materials are hard to come by here) but they keep their shape. I would either buy/diy more but I'm moving later this year so I can't do a full treatment of my room (no clouds/traps). Booth is isolated from outside noise, while room is not.

Below are some options I thought of that you can advice for or against, better solutions would be much appreciated.

POSSIBLE OPTIONS (I thought of):
1. Add all the (6) panels into the booth, basically stuff it with as much mass and absorption as possible.
OR
2. Put up the panels around my room for first-reflection treatment, and just set up the mic near the studio desk in the room instead of recording in the booth.
OR
3. Set the panels in a V or L shape at the corner of the room, duvets hanging behind singer to capture reflections. This is photo has a similar principle to the idea I had: (https://gikacoustics.co.uk/wp-conte...Portable-Isolation-Booth-recording-guitar.jpg)
OR
4. Purchase this SE reflexion filter (https://seelectronics.com/products/rf-space/) and have some duvets/panels behind the singer. I am NOT getting the Eyeball

Now I could test all this out, but I was hoping someone who has experience with acoustic treatment can weigh in on this so I can save time. Moving the panels, recording, testing etc takes up a lot of time. It took me weeks to optimize just the angle and distance for recording on the WA-87 so I hope it's understandable, and not because I'm lazy hah.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2024

Anyone got experience with the sE Electronics RF space/Aston Halo? I decided to dump all my panels into the booth for now, but yet to do some recording tests.

For the costs of the shields I can get moving blankets/diy acoustic panels (though panels is a lot of work, cuz hardware materials is just a PITA to source here). Anyone got experience with either moving blankets/acoustic panels? Or even a combo of shield+blankets. It's hard to tell on Youtube because their tests aren't controlled most of the time (the ones I've seen at least).