Need some opinions from the pros. Just starting out and trying to decide where to put my mic. Have not tested my room yet to determine where to place. Very low budget so need a area that would work the cheapest. So should I use my small closet (smallest wall surface area to treat)? Or would I place in middle of room (fairly large room)? Or do I place mic in corner of room? Or would one of those reflection filter shield thingamajigs work fine?
If the reflection filter would work fine, which design would you suggest would work best?
I may actually make my own, if it can be done for a lot cheaper. Should the absorber, be 180* semi-circle around the backside of the mic? Perfectly round? Or can it be "octagonal"? Make a "box" around the mic? Top or no top? What acoustic foam would you recommend best?
Mainly using a dynamic cardioid mic, but will probably use a condenser mic (not sure what polar pattern; for acoustic guitar).
Can you give a link for a website that you think Best/Professionally how to effectively treat a room for vocal recording and for monitor speakers?
Is it okay for your recording "booth" be in the same open room as your monitor/work station? With how you have treatment set up for the mic and you have the monitors having their own setup. If they can be, do they need a certain amount of space apart?
These "portable booths" that are glamorized laundry baskets with
These "portable booths" that are glamorized laundry baskets with some studio foam in them are a joke. A closet is not much better, either. Any time you place a microphone - no matter how great it is - into a tight space like a small booth or closet,
you end up with a very "boxy" sound due to reflections within that space. Treatment helps, but does not alleviate this. The better approach would be to place the mic in the middle of the room and surround it with a "wall" of heavy moving blankets. You would suspend these blankets on something like a couple of boomstands, but I've seen people string clotheslines to perform this task.
This should afford you with much more effective control over reflections hitting the mic, while giving you some space and "air" that will keep the sound from being too midrange-heavy. I have used the Reflexion, and it is useful in a limited way.
I used it on my U87 with it, and ended up with a larger version of that, from Realtraps. It was much more effective, aout the same price, but a good bit larger and more cumbersome to use (but worth it!). Frankly, I think most of them are over-priced for what they deliver.
And as for polar patterns, I would stick to a good cardioid or hypercardioid in your situation.