Make a great sounding recording booth on the cheap [video tutorial]

If you make music at home or you want to put a voiceover onto your Youtube video you’ll know that recording the human voice in a normal room can sound really REALLY rubbish.

You could hide yourself and your microphone under a duvet for some hot sweaty bedroom action. Or you can try some of the various gadgets that claim to improve things by doing a bit of “sound treatment” around the microphone itself.

Great sound in a limited space

I do a lot of voiceovers for videos and TV documentaries so for me it was eventually worth building a whole sound treated room within a room at home.

I was lucky and picked up a second hand Esmono booth (http://www.esmono.co.uk/). I think they are the best – I often cannot tell the difference between voiceovers I’ve done in my studio and ones I’ve done in an expensive recording studio in London (of course a great microphone and preamp combination is essential too).

Porta Booth for the win

But I still needed a solution for when I’m away from home. I have tried endless combinations and right now I believe the best mix of portability and cheapness is using the best microphone you can afford inside a Porta Booth.

And the very best thing of all is that the inventor gives away free instructions on how to build your own here: www.harlanhogan.com/portaboothArticle.shtml.

Here’s my video walk-through, showing how easy the studio is to set up and the great sound it can produce:

Let’s hear your tips!

If anyone has found a better solution please tell us in the comments.

[Words and video feature by the smooth-talking Piers Gibbon – check out his website here]