A ‘portable vocal booth’ is, at best, a partial solution to the problem of unappealing room acoustics. If you are forced to record in less than ideal circumstances, there are other measures that should be taken too.
The first is to ensure that you are using a microphone with a cardioid pickup pattern. Compared with an omnidirectional microphone used at the same distance, this will be more sensitive to the direct sound from the vocalist or other source, and less sensitive to reflected sound arriving at the sides and rear of the microphone. A large–diaphragm cardioid capacitor microphone is the most common choice for vocal recording, and this was what was used in our tests in Salford’s listening room.The second measure that can be taken is to hang a broadband absorber behind the performer to trap reflections that might otherwise bounce off the rear wall and into the sensitive front side of the microphone. This should be as large as possible — in the absence of specialist acoustic treatment, a thick duvet often works well — and will be more effective if hung away from the wall. The subjective effect of a well-positioned duvet is often more obvious than that of a portable screen, and of course there is nothing to stop you using both.Finally, it should be pointed out that the position of the mic in relation to the screen can make a difference. Our tests positioned the mic at the centre of an imaginary line drawn across the edges of the screen, as recommended in several of the product manuals including that of the SE Reflexion Filter Pro.
However, James Ishmaev–Young of SE Electronics says that moving the mic further into the screen should increase the attenuation of room reflections, and will make differences in coloration between the better and less good screens more audible. We did not test this claim. SE Electronics Reflexion Filter Pro (£175) ($249)The original, iconic ‘portable vocal booth’ remains a best–selling product more than eight years after its launch, and our tests show that it is still one of the most effective. It differs from most other designs in that multiple layers of different materials are used in its construction.SE Electronics RF Space (£299) ($399) SE Electronics RF SpaceThe latest iteration of SE’s Reflexion Filter design is the most highly engineered of the screens on test.
You could use several mattresses—behind and to the sides of the mic—to create an enclosed vocal booth. Be careful of making the sound too dead though. Duvets can also be highly effective. Use a clothes airer, an ironing board or a chair to suspend the duvet and position it. For a quick but sweaty option, get under the duvet in your bed.
Its mounting hardware is improved over that of the Reflexion Filter, but our tests suggest that it achieves similar levels of attenuation of room sound. The coloration it introduces is also similar in level, but shows a different spectral pattern.RoXdon VB1 (£99.05) RoXdon VB1This design features a rigid frame with an internal lining of foam. Unlike many of the others, its shape can be adjusted using hinged ‘wings’. It adds the least coloration to the sound, but is also the least effective at protecting the microphone from external noise and room reflections. This was one of the more difficult screens to position, thanks to a mounting system which tended to droop.Auralex Mudguard (£79) ($109.99) Auralex MudguardAnother design that uses a hard plastic outer shell lined with acoustic foam, the Mudguard provided probably the best price/performance ratio in our room reflection test, offering useful attenuation of reverberation without excessive coloration of the wanted signal. Late arrival meant we were not able to test its ability to attenuate noise.Real Traps Portable Vocal Booth ($299.99 plus import duty and shipping) Real Traps Portable Vocal BoothMuch larger than the other screens, the Real Traps design resembles a conventional acoustic treatment panel which is hinged in the middle. Its size means that it provides the most effective protection against room reflections, but it also imposes the most obvious coloration on the wanted signal of all the screens.
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In particular, the auralisation and graphs both show a noticeable bass boost, though this could perhaps be corrected with EQ.Editors Keys Studio Series Portable Vocal Booth Pro (£169.99 including stand) ($299.99 including stand) Editors Keys Studio Series PortableThis is a fairly generic design consisting of a curved metal shell lined with foam. Unlike most, it is supplied with its own purpose–built stand, which makes mounting easier. However, our tests suggested that it was not particularly effective at attenuating room reflections, and adds significant coloration to the wanted signal.Primacoustic Voxguard (£105.60) ($99.99) Primacoustic VoxguardThis screen employs high–density acoustic foam within a shell made out of hard plastic, with ports which are said to “prevent excess bass buildup and resonance commonly associated with stand–mounted absorbers”.
Its attenuation of room reflections was roughly comparable to that of the SE Reflexion Filter, but coloration of the wanted signal is more obvious.Studiospares RED 100 (£99) Studiospares RED 100This design employs a “complex sandwich construction of five differing materials” within a perforated metal shell. Our tests suggested that it provides reasonably good attenuation of room reflections, but also introduces some coloration of the wanted signal.Vicoustic Flexi Screen Ultra (£147.60) Vicoustic Flexi Screen UltraThis screen looks a little different, thanks to its wooden shell. This, again, is slotted, presumably with some acoustic goal in mind. It was one of the better performers in our tests, offering worthwhile attenuation of reverberation with relatively little coloration.Kaotica Eyeball ($199.99 plus import duty and shipping) Kaotica EyeballA completely different design from the other screens in the test, the Kaotica Eyeball resembles an overgrown microphone windshield.
Unlike all of the other portable vocal booths we examined, the Eyeball is made entirely from foam, with no rigid parts or shell.Because the design almost completely encloses the microphone, the effectiveness of the Eyeball at high frequencies is very good, both for protection from external noise and room reflections. However, as it is intrinsically lightweight, it provides very little protection in the mid-range, and no protection at all at low frequencies.Prices include VAT where applicable. To evaluate the effectiveness of the SE Reflexion Filter Pro and other portable vocal booths, Professor Trevor Cox devised two test protocols. The first is similar to those used for testing the isolation provided by acoustic enclosures placed around noisy machines, and was intended to evaluate these screens’ effectiveness at attenuating external noise. This test was carried out in the small reverberation chamber at the University of Salford. The ability of the ‘portable vocal booths’ to screen external noise was tested in the small reverberation chamber at Salford. A loudspeaker in the corner emitted white noise, and a B&K ‘head and torso simulator’ was used to mimic the presence of a singer.A loudspeaker was placed in the corner of the reverberation chamber emitting noise.
This creates a diffuse field where sound is incident on a microphone in the room from all possible angles. It is important to ensure the sound is arriving from all directions, because this means weak spots are tested.
While someone using a screen in a real–world context will tend to place the booth between the noise source and the microphone to shield the mic, this isn’t going to be possible in all cases, for example when traffic noise is coming through the structure of the building.A half–inch Bruel & Kjaer omnidirectional measurement microphone was placed in the body of the reverberation chamber at least 1m from any surface and at least 2m from the loudspeaker. A B&K HATS (Head And Torso Simulator) was placed in the singer’s location to simulate shielding and reflections from the singer’s head and torso. The sound pressure level (in dB) on the microphone was measured in third–octave bands using an acquisition time of 30 seconds. The measurement of sound pressure level was then repeated with the portable vocal booth in position around the microphone.To confirm that these results were not unduly influenced by the position of the screen and microphone within the room, the original SE Reflexion Filter was also tested in six different positions. While the fact that the soundfield in the room is not completely diffuse means there is some variation in these results (see Figure 2), the overall characteristics are very similar, suggesting that the test protocol is fair. Figure 2: Insertion losses achieved by a single screen at different positions within the reverberation chamber. There are some differences, owing to the fact that diffusion of sound within the chamber is not complete, but the broad pattern is the same in each case.Professor Cox’s second test was designed to measure how well the screens achieve their main design goal: to prevent room reflections from the source being picked up by the microphone.
This test also allowed us to measure the amount of unwanted coloration each screen introduced. To test the effectiveness of the screens at cutting down room reflections, they were set up in the listening room at Salford, and a Tannoy monitor speaker was positioned where a vocalist or other source would usually be placed.These tests took place in the listening room at the University of Salford. This is a noise–free environment with a controlled reverberation time of about 0.3 seconds in the mid-range. To make the room configuration more like a typical home studio, an area of acoustic treatment was removed, giving a clear specular reflection from the wall behind the microphone. A Rode NT2A cardioid capacitor microphone was set up on a stand 2m in front of this wall, and a Tannoy System 6 dual–concentric monitor speaker was positioned 22.5cm in front of the microphone — a typical distance for close vocal recording. (A dual–concentric design was chosen to ensure that the high- and low-frequency components of the sound arrived at the mic at the same time and from the same direction.) Some of the listening room’s acoustic treatment was removed to create an area of clear wall, similar to what might be found in a domestic room.
A Rode NT2A in cardioid was used to capture the impulse responses.The general principle is to measure the impulse response between the signal driving the loudspeaker and the electrical signal picked up by the microphone. This was done with and without the screen in place, allowing its effect to be seen. For each test, the room configuration, the microphone and loudspeaker positions, and settings on the acquisition system were identical. For each product the impulse response with and without the screen present was measured. Where possible, the microphone and loudspeaker were not moved between the two measurements (this wasn’t possible for the Kaotica Eyeball).Most of the screens on test permit a range of possible positions in relation to the microphone. Where a particular position was recommended by the manufacturer, that position was used in the tests; otherwise, the screen was positioned such that the microphone was in the middle of an imaginary straight line drawn across the edges of the screen’s arc.
Positioning was complicated by the mounting systems supplied with the screens, many of which did not work very well!The impulse response was measured between the loudspeaker and the microphone using a swept sine wave with sufficient duration to capture both the early reflections and room reverberance. A one-second signal was used. The sampling frequency was 48kHz. The loudspeaker was driven at a typical listening volume level to minimise any distortion artifacts created by the loudspeaker.In addition to the above measurement, a calibration was undertaken in the Acoustic Laboratory’s anechoic chamber, where the impulse response between the loudspeaker and microphone was measured using the same spacing as used in the listening room tests. These measurements were used to equalise the frequency response of the loudspeaker, where necessary, during analysis. In addition, a piece of vocal was recorded in the anechoic chamber for auralisation. The large reverberation room at Salford.The Acoustics Laboratories at the University of Salford include anechoic chambers, a listening room and reverberation chambers, all of which were used in testing the portable vocal booths for this article.
Acoustic research has been carried out at the university for nearly 50 years. The first Acoustics Laboratories were established in 1965, and in 1975 the first degree (Electroacoustics) was taught. Current courses include the BEng (Hons) Audio Acoustics and MSc Acoustics, which are aimed at budding engineers who might go on to develop new audio technologies or scientists who might carry out research in acoustics. Other courses, such as the BSc (Hons) Professional Sound & Video Technology and MSc Audio Production, attract students looking to work as sound engineers producing high–quality audio content. The Acoustics Research Centre is the primary partner for acoustics research in the BBC Audio Research Partnership.Current major projects in audio include examining the future of spatial audio in the home, assessing the audio quality of user–generated content, and new mathematical models for simulating room acoustics.
Swgemu stuck on connecting to galaxy. In recent years, the establishment of MediaCityUK at Salford Quays has led to an expansion of the University’s commercial work with the audio industries, including testing many of the acoustic products used in the fit–out of the new studios at MediaCityUK. All contents copyright © SOS Publications Group and/or its licensors, 1985-2019.
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