Are those "portable" vocal booths/reflection filters good?

[GuitarBilly]

This kind:




I don't really need total isolation, my room downstairs is pretty quiet, but not a good sounding room for vocals (too many reflections). Would something like this make a difference?

[JerEvil]

This is relevant to my interests

[Telephant]

Just moving baffles around in a live room can have a huge affect on the sound. I'd imagine this would help combat airiness, if only just a little.

That said, I would never buy something like this. I'd rather hit up Home Depot for a piece of foam and try it myself.

[Ostinato Rubato]

I'm probably going to get that soon myself.

[DNW]

Yes and no. Different models (there are a fair few around these days) will perform differently, but basically they'll all attenuate higher frequencies (say 1KHz and above) a bit, but also actually have the opposite effect in the lower frequencies (where for one, the fundamentals of your voice will be). The small, portable design means as one might expect, they just don't have the size and mass to deal with the lower freqs. And given the proximity to the mic and that it's a concave design surrounding the mic, what is reflected back basically goes straight into the mic. So that, combined with these things not being able to stop all high freqs so some o' that's gonna be bouncing straight back (as well as still a bit from around the room), and you end up with a bit of a comb filtering effect. Whether it's enough to noticeably affect the sound I guess depends on the performance of whichever particular model, the room, the mic, the sound source, how much you give a shit to begin with, etc.

That said, combine it with a cardioid pattern mic to help reject what's coming back at the mic from the screen behind and you'll have a better time. That's obviously a bit, "Well, duh," coz why the fuck would you put up a screen to stop reflections and then whack up an omnidirectional or figure 8 mic? Put something up behind you to stop reflections coming from behind into the front side of the mic and you'll have an even better time.

If you need it to be portable, maybe one of these things could work for you. Maybe not. Fuck knows until you try really. And if you're using it in a portable manner, the performance could vary from one place to another, and with different mics and voices, etc. If you don't need it to be portable, you could also think about DIY'ing a more permanent vocal booth. Or maybe something semi-permanent, that's bigger and heftier for better coverage and more broadband freq absorption, but can be torn down and packed away when you need the space or whatever.

[Cirrus]

SOund on Sound did a big article reviewing/ testing a bunch of them last year, the conclusion was that they don't do lots. When I've seen them used in studios, it's mostly been about slightly reducing the spill of the voice into the room during live tracking rather than improving the room acoustics as picked up by the vocal mic.

[GuitarBilly]

Just moving baffles around in a live room can have a huge affect on the sound. I'd imagine this would help combat airiness, if only just a little.

That said, I would never buy something like this. I'd rather hit up Home Depot for a piece of foam and try it myself.

why did I not think of that