UA Sphere Microphones - do they remove room reflections?

Jonathanthomas83

I'm in a shite space and this could be really helpful for me, but I'm curious, do they really remove room reflections and make a shit space sound half decent?

Many thanks

Stuckfast

Not really, no. They are very cool and do some clever stuff such as optimising off-axis response to make spill and room sound less obnoxious, but ultimately if your space is shite there's no mic that will make it sound good.

Jonathanthomas83

@Stuckfast Many thanks. Disappointed. Aside from shoving a duvet over my head and sweating buckets while I do my 72 takes, what's a good option for me, mate? Preferably quick, easy, efficient with space and economical!

Whistler

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Preferably quick, easy, efficient with space and economical!

Set up two boom mic stands, with the height as high as possible and the boom horizontal, set half way along its length, so you basically end up with two tall T-shaped stands. Place them together in a 90 degree V shape in one corner of your room. Now pull the stands out from against the wall by at least half a metre, more if you have the room. Pulling them out from the wall with help a bit with reducing reflections from lower notes.

Drape a duvet over each stand, as if putting wet duvets out to dry. If you have a third duvet, drape it over the V shape to make a roof above the mic, ideally as far as half way between your mouth and the mic (to help minimise reflection off the ceiling).

That will absorb some but not all of the higher and mid frequencies that will bounce off your room's hard surfaces. It is not ideal but will give you a discernable, temporary improvement over a completely untreated room.

The ideal next step, in the future, is to make some acoustic traps to use. These will be at least 20cm thick and cover between 20 and 50% of the surface area of your room's 6 surfaces (4 walls, floor and ceiling). As you cannot realistically cover a floor with acoustic traps, prepare to have the floor's share also overhead.

Last tip, check that neither the mic nor your mouth are positioned at exactly half the height of the room otherwise and problem frequencies will be double-trouble for you.

Winny_Pooh

Use dynamic mics more often (a nice senn 441 or 421 really do sound great) & consider putting 5-10cm panels "rockwool" panels on your walls. 

Edit: cm not mm

Macca_25387

https://www.astonmics.com/EN/product/halo/halo

These are excellent, pop on straight mic stand and away you go. 

octatonic

Jonathanthomas83 said:

I'm in a shite space and this could be really helpful for me, but I'm curious, do they really remove room reflections and make a shit space sound half decent?

Many thanks

Buy or build some acoustic treatment.
It isn't hugely expensive to do an OK treatment of your room.

Also, stick to dynamic mics as much as possible- it won't fix the problem but it can mitigate some of the issues.

Winny_Pooh said:

Use dynamic mics more often (a nice senn 441 or 421 really do sound great) & consider putting 5-10mm panels "rockwool" panels on your walls. 

Yes. This.

Stuckfast

Macca_25387 said:

https://www.astonmics.com/EN/product/halo/halo

These are excellent, pop on straight mic stand and away you go. 

I'm not really a fan of these things, the duvet option that @Whistler suggests is more effective and cheaper and doesn't have the same side-effects. 

Re the "dynamic mics pick up less of the room than condenser mics" thing, it's more the case that mics with a tight polar pattern that are designed to be worked up close pick up less of the room than conventional studio mics. That does cover many dynamic mics but there are also condenser mics you can work up close eg. the Earthworks ETHOS.