Foam For A Vocal Thingy

Nomad

Been trawling Thomann for various things and found that acoustic foam is pretty cheap...

http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_takustik_hilon40.htm

A lot cheaper than those curved vocal things that are mounted on a mic stand, given that I probably have the materials and means to work out the support and fixings. Would something like the above work for this? Could I use thinner stuff? Should I use thicker?

Cirrus

The curved shields you can buy I am quite dubious about. I wasn't surprised by a recent Sound on Sound article that showed they actually reflect some frequencies back into the mic and do little to help the real problem area in typical untreated rooms, which is in the low end. The foam you linked to is likely a good solution to stop high frequencies. It's not going to do much to low and midrange frequencies. I guess it depends on what problem you're trying to solve.

guitarfishbay

The biggest issue is that a cardioid mic (as typically used for vocals) picks up what it is pointed at, so unless you're able to stop sound being able to reflect off the rear and side walls having a shield behind the mic won't do loads. You can use foam to tame high frequency reflection but as Cirrus has said you will not do much for lower frequencies. If all you want is a drier sounding vocal then foam would probably be ok, but panels made from rock wool are going to be better overall.

PolarityMan

Cirrus said:

The curved shields you can buy I am quite dubious about. I wasn't surprised by a recent Sound on Sound article that showed they actually reflect some frequencies back into the mic and do little to help the real problem area in typical untreated rooms, which is in the low end. The foam you linked to is likely a good solution to stop high frequencies. It's not going to do much to low and midrange frequencies. I guess it depends on what problem you're trying to solve.

We experimented with one in a good treated room, what it does is basically kill a lot of early reflections. We wer recording in a quite dry room anyway but with the shield it removed even more of the room sound. Your prob right about low end but I think using one in a home environmetn would still result in improvement.