Mic Placement - Small Closet Or Open Room?

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binary_10essee

New member
I have a decent size room that I recently put my studio in at home (just got it all back after ~6 months). And one of the drawbacks is the fact that there is a large bay window in this room. Also, I'm getting quite a lot of room noise, as I don't have any acoustic treatment whatsoever.

My first question, when it comes to recording vocals, is should the mic be placed in the open room or in the closet? The closet is big enough to place the mic in. It's also big enough to stand in and maneuver while recording. Should I treat the closet and record vocals in there? Or should I use the open room where everything else is? Currently, recording in the open room, I get a lot of room noise in the recording, although I can usually clean the signal quite a bit with EQ and such. And it's not really noticeable when mixing the entire track. But I say that because I don't know what it would sound like if I had a cleaner signal. So what should I do here?

Also, how can I cover the large bay window? Should I just get thick curtains or what? Currently I just have standard blinds over the window.
 
binary_10essee said:
I have a decent size room that I recently put my studio in at home (just got it all back after ~6 months). And one of the drawbacks is the fact that there is a large bay window in this room. Also, I'm getting quite a lot of room noise, as I don't have any acoustic treatment whatsoever.

My first question, when it comes to recording vocals, is should the mic be placed in the open room or in the closet? The closet is big enough to place the mic in. It's also big enough to stand in and maneuver while recording. Should I treat the closet and record vocals in there? Or should I use the open room where everything else is? Currently, recording in the open room, I get a lot of room noise in the recording, although I can usually clean the signal quite a bit with EQ and such. And it's not really noticeable when mixing the entire track. But I say that because I don't know what it would sound like if I had a cleaner signal. So what should I do here?

Also, how can I cover the large bay window? Should I just get thick curtains or what? Currently I just have standard blinds over the window.
Click to expand...

Try to avoid background noise as much as possible.
I have figured out a way to maybe get at least less background noise, but I haven't tried this.
This way is for those who don't have any other way to get silence when recording.
Prepare yourself, this might sound silly.

Take a mattress (one that you put on the floor when you have friends over) and roll it and put it to a standing wall like we all used to do as a kid.
Put it somewhere where it can't unfold.
Take a thick cover from your bed and put it on top like a roof or something (maybe more than 1 if necessary).

Now you have a small area you can sit inside with your mic and sing while the sound is absorbed by the mattress and the cover.

I know, this sound hilarious, but it might be a great way for the time being.

However, I would place this "small area" in a smaller room where the risk of still getting some echo or whatever is minimal.
 
steffeeh said:
Take a mattress (one that you put on the floor when you have friends over) and roll it and put it to a standing wall like we all used to do as a kid.
Put it somewhere where it can't unfold.
Take a thick cover from your bed and put it on top like a roof or something (maybe more than 1 if necessary).

Now you have a small area you can sit inside with your mic and sing while the sound is absorbed by the mattress and the cover.

I know, this sound hilarious, but it might be a great way for the time being.

However, I would place this "small area" in a smaller room where the risk of still getting some echo or whatever is minimal.
Click to expand...

The mattress idea is actually a pretty good idea. The smaller room isn't though. You want to record in the biggest room possible. The smaller the recording space, the more treatment is needed. If you want to record in a closet, it has to be 100% acoustically treated. If you record in the closet, you only need to treat one corner or do something like making a mattress wall. Following that idea, what I'd do is: put the mattress standing up in a corner, put the mic facing INTO the corner, and sing OUT of the corner. So your back would be facing the mattress.

The reason for this is that the pickup pattern for most mics is cardoid, so they pick up what's in front of them more than what's behind them (especially dynamic mics). So if the acoustically treated part of the room is in front of the mic and the echoey part of the room is behind the mic, the mic won't pic up as much room reflection.

As for the room noise, you should try to identify the source (computer, vent, window) and isolate it from the rest of the room.
 
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Mattress and heavy blankets on the walls to help keep the reflections down to a minimum. I would place the mic dead center and have the vocalists back to the mattress and blankets.
 
Dear God don't put it in the closet. Trust me I tried it before and all I got from it were thin, boxy, hollow recordings
 
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