One way to do it for low $ is to buy office cubicle panels at places that sell used office furniture. They're lightweight, easy to move around and easy to cover with more padding or whatever. I've found them for as little as $5 apiece in good shape. Beats the old egg carton look by a mile.

Tio Ed
Austin, TX
Land O' The Tip Jar Gig

I'd thought of that(Plenty of used office stuff around here), but had never tried it. I will now. As you say, for the price, got to be better than many other options, even "as is" -- and if you don't like them for "gobos", you could always set up a telemarketing firm - ? - .

Thankx,

TG

That's funny Teddy! If you can't sing, talk in the telephone! seriously though, I don't know how those office cubicles gonna help much- I personally don't care much for vocal booths, I find they opress the sound too much. I gave up the vocal booth for the control room myself- If you want to set up a cheap vocal booth , though, try one of those square canopies set ups, like the ones you see in swap meets, and cover them all the way around with blankets- that should do it- if you are into that kind of thing.

Last year I was having sleepless nights trying to design a good cheap vocal booth for my home office studio. Trying to work out framework, curtains, something that can be taken down easily (cause I rent) etc, etc....

In the end, I decided to turn the whole room into a vocal booth. I bought a few sheets of rigid glasswool (compressed batts), a few metres of calico to cover the batts, and just placed them up againts the walls (on tables and desks). I also placed one along the window.

So basically, all four walls have a 2.4x1.2 metre batt longways. I made a couple of 1.2x1.2 batts as well, and suspended them from the ceiling on hooks, just above where the recording takes place.

When I close the office door, the room is nice and dry - perfect for recording vocals with no room sound (if that's what you're after). Plus, there's no vocal booth imposing space restrictions on you or your home studio area.

The batts have excellent sound properties - they absorb most sound frequencies (they actually convert soundwaves to heat!).

The batts cost me $50AUS (about $35-40US), plus the material to cover them - all up about $350AUS , for a sound that's as good as most vocal booths I've heard in the studios I've been in.

Note - the batts only absorb low mid to high frequencies - if you're having trouble with resonant bass frequencies in the room, you need to look at buying or building a couple of bass traps to place in the corners.

Hope this helps!!

Shaun

I love my ART Pro Channel...... tube pre-amp, compressor, eq.....lovely sound. Im also hip hop/ rap producer. But as always, try before you buy when possible. Check out my post here: {old-link-removed} for my vocal booth suggestions.

Peace,
BEN

I don't know how your music (i'm not familar with hip hop, with the beats and the so on.) but once you have music you can (similar to gilberts proposition) simply set up a mic in a room, run some noisegate and compressor/limiter to make it work and some reverb and so on. Don't know how it would work for hip hop but I say experiment bcause you can sound better.

tim....

I'm not buying anymore Blue gear until they and Violet quit acting like five year olds and settle their little mess like men (with dueling pistols at ten paces).

At this point, I don't trust either of them.

God knows who built your Bluebird or where it came from at this point.

Isn't that the one Digi and Focusrite were pawning off in their studio packages? The pro reviews I've read say it's kind of the stinker of Blue mics and it really overcolors everything that passes through it. Bad midrange sound... which is death for a vocal mic.

But I have never used one personally. I do like the Baby Bottle though and I think it has a better reputation.