The Harlan Hogan Porta Booth which currently retails on Amazon.com for $149 is basically 3 pieces of Auralex in a laundry cloth box.
Here’s Harlan promoting it:
And here is a Do It Yourself version inspired by the Porta Booth made by Jake Ludington. I think his cost around $50
here’s Jake explaining it
So what does that mean for you the Voice Over Talent / Artist / Noob / Veteran?
Simply it means that you can record Dry takes without having to dish out the moola at a studio. It means you can take this God Forsaken ugly thing on the road with you (and it is collapsible) and record decent quality recordings regardless of the acoustic conditions in your surroundings (read… hotels).
I’ve spent many hours planning and building elements to use during my recording sessions to give me that amazing DRY sound…. So far the best I could come up with is a PVC wireframe structure that is covered with a good sturdy duvet or blanket (or several). Honestly its clostrophobic but damn does it give you a straight forward dry sound.
here are plans for one kind of PVC voice booth by Tim O’Brian:
http://www.palmcitystudios.com/timobrien/music/soundbooth/simplesoundbooth.html
that there is pure ghetto genius (the kind that appeals to me)
Pros…. save alot of money… record on the go… put it away when you want your space back.
Cons… (porta-booth) where do you put your script? Harlan mentions in his post :
http://digitalprosound.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=89503
that he uses his iphone to read script… honestly for a long script that is just not very practical ( I know I tried it already… several times)
Also you have to record sitting down… unless someone can come up with a way to hold up the porta booth in place on a mic stand.
That’s it for now… If this was at all helpful to you … please drop me a comment.
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$149 is insane! Spend an extra hundred and you can get the SE Reflexion. So this shouldn’t be more than $50.
The improvised version — collapsible clothes hamper with 3 Auralex tiles — sounds like the way to go. A good idea for holidays. Light, compact, no extra baggage or excess luggage fees at the airport and you can actually do those big jobs you always miss out whenever you take a holiday… which is why you never do. :\
I’m REALLY happy to find this page! I made a porta-booth for about $50 ($10 collapsible cube from Target, and around $40 for the auralex foam) but, I have the same problems of holding the copy, and wanting to stand. I really like the idea of a PVC frame – that is so simple. I am also trying to think of ways to use foam to make a small globe/cube that would surround the mic on a stand, and then maybe a sound wall behind me. As far as I know there are no limits on how small the mic surround needs to be, it simply needs to shield the mic from hard surface reflection. Right?
Ideas appreciated
Hi Brian, glad you liked the post… I gotta tell you I thought of pretty much all those little things you are talking about… I actually went ahead and built myself a PVC booth… right now I wrap it up with mover’s blankets and it gives me a nice non reflective surface behind my condenser mic. … actually all around it.. its a booth.
If you want to isolate your mic even more you can go to http://www.foambymail.com/ and order some sound isolation foam and shape it yourself around the mic but you’ll still have that same script problem… I saw one guy stick a second monitor in his booth area so he can read his text from the screen.. it looked kinda cool but I am guessing the flat monitor screen will act as a reflective surface. So your best bet is to either make a quick pvc booth (I made a 2meter tall by 1 meter wide cubish looking booth… and its pretty sturdy… I have a bulb stuck in it and my mic stand and a chair for long reads… short reads I stand up for. the computer is outside the booth around 1 meter or so away.)
if you need to contact me just go to http://www.mahmoudtaji.com and send me a message from the contact page or just reply to this comment and I’ll get it.
taji