Isolating your recordings with the best microphone isolation shield can eventually enhance the quality of your recorded sound by filtering and blocking those unwanted noises and echoes been picked the mic. While a fully acoustic treated room is very difficult to be attained, thus, the portable vocal booths could become an easy way to add an additional layer of protection and filter for your sound recording projects.
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Benefits of Using Sound Isolation Shield / Portable Vocal Booth
The recording studio is usually designed by an audio engineer or acoustician to achieve the essential acoustic properties such as acoustic isolation, absorption of echoes or reflected sounds and diffusion of sound. Yet, not all who want to have home recording studio have the benefits of the expertise of an audio engineer. For this reason, those who would like to build their own home recording studios usually avail of some portable equipment like that of the portable vocal booth, which is usually on a stand that surrounds most of the microphones within. This is necessary to prevent echo or reverberation from reaching the microphones.
The use of portable mic isolation shield allows you to dampen sound by preventing frequencies from sounding as if they were wrought inside an echo chamber. For this reason, portable vocal booths are aptly called “isolation shields.” They are designed to isolate a microphone by shielding it from the surrounding area of the room. They are sometimes also called and marketed as “reflection filters” or “reflection shields.”
Without it, for example, thinking that the sound of your home studio is quite good enough for the actual recording, you may find it hard later to remove or isolate sounds caused by echoes. Moreover, you may lose control of your recording because of this initial blunder of not using the sound isolation shield. Hence, it is important, at the onset, to isolate the vocals and filter echoes than regret it later. If you were able to isolate sound, you could still add vocal effects like that of reverbs later.
Best Microphone Isolation Shields
1) Aston Microphones Halo Portable Microphone Reflection Filter
The Aston Halo vocal booth shield can be considered as one of the best vocal shields in the market right now as it provides fuller sound filtering coverage. Unlike most of the vocal booth shields in the market that only cover the horizontal plane, The Halo does cover both horizontal (wall) and vertical planes (floor & ceiling) that most models neglected.
One of the best benefits of using this halo shield is that it will provide you more isolated and fuller tonality audio quality, which is constituted by its larger covering surface. However, the only downside of this Halo shield is that it is unfordable and it’s quite big that will need bigger space to use and even store it.
2) Monoprice 602650 Microphone Isolation Shield
This shield is very popular among recording artists for it provides awesome features and it is basically affordable. Its inside part features high-density foam with vented metal external. It is hard to ignore the positive reviews of those who have availed of this product, and gauging the reviews; it is easy to see how this brand is a highly recommended brand. It definitely does the job of isolating unwanted noise and echoes, and for this reason, it gets lots of affirmative reviews from its users.
3) LyxPro VRI-20-Foldable and Affordable Isolation Shielding Vocal Recording Panel
4) Pyle PSIB27 Sound Recording Booth Box
Last update on 2019-12-11 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Functions of Isolation Shield & How It Works
Sounds come from everywhere, and even if you think that your studio is already totally isolated, chances are, some unwanted sounds will still find their way to the microphone. These unwanted sounds may be forgivable if you are performing live, but in recording a musical piece, for example, the inclusion of these unwanted sounds is unforgivable. The use of isolation shields could greatly help performers deliver awesome and studio-quality sound even if they are away or outside of the recording studio’s highly controlled environment. The isolation shield is usually placed just behind the microphone with a mic stand. It readily blocks and shields the mic from unnecessary sounds to produce crispier and sharper vocals.
The makeup of the shield is designed to block noise. It is intrinsically padded and stacked with acoustic foam that assuages the impact of sound. The foam readily absorbs the unwanted noise preventing it from reaching highly sensitive microphones. Many of these isolation shields have outer shells that are hard enough to enable the one who is recording to capture sound while precluding the unwanted echoes and sounds from being captured by the microphone.
The shields are usually fashioned in such a way that it could diminish sound reflections. It is a bit vented which permits the microphone some space for breathing. The shield is slightly vented to ensure that the sound would be good to listen to. Moreover, shields usually have features that permit them to be adjusted according to the necessary angle. Performers can likewise shift the angle of the shields to move them away from the source of the sound.
The sources of ambient noise may be unpredictable, and more often, there is a need for the vent to shift from one angle to another to preclude noise from being captured by the microphone. Lastly, shields usually consist of panels, like a miniature room to ensure that the performer is isolated.
What about the Isobox and the Vocal Booth To Go VOMO? They are not reflection filters but are 360 degree surround portable vocal booths. Do you have an opinion on those?