Morning Folks… You probably don’t know this but I am a big Do It Yourself kinda guy… And I love it when I stumble on a pair of industrious folk like Erik Sheppard and LindZ Reiss of The Voice Talent Production Blog and find them using their brains and a little financial smarts (plus practical knowledge of carpentry and a cutter is always nice) to build themselves a cost effective upgrade to LindZ’s booth setup.
My booth at home is actually a 2 meter by 1 meter rectangular cube monstrosity that I can sit it and narrate to my heart’s content… It’s currently covered with moving blankets held by clamps but I will be making a custom cover with a zipper and possibly some clear plastic so I can see the world outside…. oh and i have a bulb in it… thats how big the sucker is… but the sweet thing about it is that its pvc and I can disassemble it in 5 mintues (8 tops).
Any way here is Erik & LindZ doing their Thang!
Craft Corner: Building A Mini Mic Booth with Erik And LindZ
Voice talent LindZ Reiss is in the process of upgrading her studio and we wanted to put together something similar to the Mic Thing for her to provide a cleaner sound and perhaps a little soundproofing while using a desktop mic stand. I assure you, it was quite romantic. Just to turn the geek level up to 100, we took some pictures to share with you ingrates. We took other pictures too, but I digress.
We picked up a 2 by 4 foot piece of Auralex at Guitar Center for about 27 bucks that seemed to suit our needs and we bought the rest of the supplies (aside from the foam adhesive) at Home Depot. Pictured below is a 2 by 4 foot, half inch thick piece of MDF, carpeting, some hinges, L brackets, screws and paint:
We measured the panels out so they were 2 by 1 foot with an extra little piece for the top:
I cut em up with a jigsaw in the manliest fashion possible:
Since with this design the edges will be exposed, we sanded them down:
The carpeting we selected was on one of those big 12 foot rolls so we may have ticked off the guys there when we asked for them to cut off just one foot but it worked out perfectly and eliminated the need for extra trimming. In our defense, they didn’t look particularly busy anyway:
Again, because of the exposed edges, we painted them up gray:
We wanted to rig up something for the top but didn’t want to completely box in the mic and deaden it too much so I bent up these little brackets at almost a 45 degree angle:1
We hinged the panels so that they can be adjusted to allow for more openness as needed. You may want to be a bit more patient than us and allow time for the paint to dry:
All three panels hinged together:
The top baffle thingy was attached thusly:2
We used a tube of Liquid Nail to attach carpeting on the back to cut down on any echoes back there and hopefully to soundproof a tad more:
The back view, which looks pretty darn good in my humble opinion:
The Auralex was just cut up with a pair of scissors after we discovered that trying to use a razor blade resulted in near tragedy. I would have chosen a nice gray color myself but LindZ insisted that the burgundy matched her studio better. Women.3
The finished product in all its glory with her new NT1-A. Try not to look directly at it without suitable eye protection. We had to get the special foam adhesive stuff from Musician’s Friend as run-of-the-mill adhesive stuff will cause some type of weird chemical reaction and eat away at the foam:
The whole thing with the foam and the wood and the carpeting only cost about 60 bucks and the build took up only a few hours of an otherwise lazy afternoon. The sound is greatly improved and it looks pretty awesome to boot.
If any other ladies out there need my help, I’m listed.
Not sure that this is true:), but thanks for a post.
Thanks
Pett