This is a tutorial for anyone who records vocals in their home studio.
I have supplied step by step instructions with photographs to building your own vocal booth and pop shield using everyday household items.
So, here it is....
The first thing that I did was use a 1mm drill to prebore holes around my loft (attic) hatch and then screw in some hooks. Preboring with a drill helps prevent the wood from splitting.
Next step was to use some washers and a needle and thread to sew the washers onto a couple of old duvets (comforters) using the hooks already up as a guide to the required spacing.
When I had finished that, I hung the duvets from the hooks.
Which left me with a small, insulted space. I used two duvets and doubled it over at the door which leads into the room I have my recording equipment. I tried a photo of this, but it looked like a doorway with a duvet in it, which is easy enough to imagine.
My obvious next move was to put the microphone onto the stand and place it into the "booth".
I then began work on the pop shield, or popper stopper as it is more commonly known.
I used an old wire coat hanger, a cable tie, the foot off the wife's best tights (stockings), some gaffer tape, snips and pliers.
First off, I used the pliers to bend the hooked part of the hanger into the shape that I required to fit my mic stand.
I cut a piece of the hanger out using the snips. I removed most of the large straight part at the bottom, but not all of it. I used the two bends at the corners to twist over each other and stuck it with gaffer tape. I then bent the wire hanger into a circular shape by hand (although if you wear gloves you can sit it on the radiator for half an hour to heat it up and make it easier to manipulate into shape)
Then on got the tights and held in place with a cable tie at the bottom.
I covered all of the other bare metal up with gaffer tape (duct tape) for safety reasons.
Next up, the big test, does it fit the mic stand?
And lo and behold, it looked all pretty.
And the job was, in fact, a good 'un.
Hope that helps out anyone who records vocals. It made a massive difference to the sound I was getting and makes working with vocals much easier without any background interference.
T-Bone