Build a Microphone Isolation Box For Two Bucks!
by Dan Hughes
A portable microphone ministudio in a box is a great idea. Instead of spending hundreds (or thousands) of dollars building a recording studio booth or acousticizing the room where you record, you simply build a small box in which to place your microphone. Instant recording studio! Harlan Hogan sells one for $199.
Now this won't work when you're recording a band, of course, but for a one-person voice-only show, it performs marvelously.
I didn't want to spend that much money on a box, so I built my own. Let me first emphasize that Harlan's box is portable and mine is not, and Harlan's box looks great and mine does not. So if you're recording on the road, or you have visitors to your studio, Harlan's box is the way to go.
But if, like me, you record exclusively in your spare bedroom and nobody will ever see your setup, mine works perfectly fine.
That's a Heil PR40 in the first photo, and a Rode N1000 in the second shot.
The box is a plastic crate that cost me a dollar at a yard sale (new, they are under $10), and the foam is cut from an old foam camping mattress that I also got for a dollar at a yard sale.
How to Record a Two-Person, On-Location Podcast with Two Microphones, a Digital Recorder, and a Y-Connector