Easy mixing... how?

Can you make a vocal booth somewhere in your apartment? I was thinking about it. but I am not good in DIY.

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yes… but… I would be killed by my wife, and above all by the nagger that owns the building
LOL

joking aside, I was thinking to a micro vocal box done by myself or acquired, but not the super expensive Isovox Mobile Vocal Booth V2 :astonished:

for example this cheap box


with a quilt that enclose the back part of your head and body
maybe one can sing by night without bothering relatives with it?

as an alternative, I will raise from the dead an old Dell notebook and a Soundblaster USB audio card to serve as a mixer to sing on the musical base I recorded in my main PC, away from the office room during the daylight: I think this is the esaier, cheaper and efficient way

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Buying anything ready made is a big investment and always not worth the money. You just need some broadband absorption which will stop reflections and give you some attenuation. You can buy acoustic foam in any size, house it in a simple MDF frame and buy. any material that you can breath through. Here’s a great document from a friend of mine of how to make bass traps and broadband absorbers, we have used this method throughout our studios to great success. Please do not share outside of here.Studio Acoustics Construction_0.pdf (696.5 KB)

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thanks Davide but I cannot do that, because I cannot modify the walls, furnishing, aesthetics of the house I live in :smiley:

so I’ll adopt my Plan B that is easy, inexpensive and practical: I have a Dell notebook that is still working and has Windows 7 Pro onbard

I’ll only install Reaper or Ableton Lite so I can listen the audio exported from Ableton Standard , and record my vocal, being in a suitable room distant enough to not bother my wife and the nagger

when we’ll have our own home, I’ll consider you solution

Well, I used a folding foam cat playbox with a hanging bell for a while. Flipped it upside down and removed the bell.

But, one of the best places is a good car. Most of them are sound-proofed fairly well to shield from road noise so you can hear your stereo.

I had a portable studio set up in our camper for the longest time until I slowly ran out of space. :wink:

ymmv

what’s that?
:thinking:

Something similar to this, but without the holes in the sides… but you can line it with egg cartons foam, etc.

Anyway, I used one years ago and it worked well.

https://amazon.com/dp/B0746Q17PS

LOL, my cats will immediately steal it
:joy:

interesting idea, but now is winter and our cars are in a very cold garage
moreover I would have to contact the nagger to go there: no way
:joy:

Yes, well… :lion: :cat: :tiger:

Perhaps you can toy with the idea and come up with
something that will work for you, specifically.

“You can lead a horse to water…”

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Some great ideas on here.

One other thing. Maybe consider how your mix sounds when played back by different means.
E.g., if you’ve mixed using monitors, it’s always worth checking with some headphones afterwards to see if it sounds the same :slight_smile:

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you are certainly right, and thanks for advices
but consider that I’m an amateur with no ambitions to be a pro

so, while I am certainly willing to improve a bit, I don’t want push it ahead too much

Of course, go at the speed you are comfortable with.
Good luck with the mix. :grinning:

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thanks Mike

I have to say that using Neutron then Ozone makes “amateur mixing” a trifle
and it is useful anyway to understand the basic of mixing & mastering, even for people like me that aren’t willing to spent so much time to study

apart the time, another problem is that I have too much hobbies (musical composition, photography, cartoon drawing) so I have to share my spare time between all them

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And can’t forget cats, and avoiding the nagger. And then the hobby of trying to be a church mouse as to avoid attracting attention to one’s self.

I have a lot of hobbies, too. :joy:

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this jargon is terrific :joy:

One thing about mixing that I can’t stress enough is that you need to use your ears. Plugins are a crutch thinking they will do the magic - first get the mix as close to great as you can without any additions. THEN listen and think about what is missing or what you want it to sound like. Then try cutting EQ on certain tracks, compressing something that you just can’t get loud enough, etc. I’ve been doing it since the nineties and still learning.

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If you join plugin boutique www.pluginboutique.com you will find many mixing effects. As a hobbyist I like Ozone 9 Elements which I think is on sale at the moment.

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yes, you are right Jamieh
I can say that after a few days using Neutron (Ozone i still on hold because I want to reach my limits in easy-mixing first :grinning:) I realized that I cannot rely on Neutron alone, and that Neutron fails sometimes, worsening the sound

nevertheless, I am quite sure my ear are unable to do the trick, and the time I have to learn such complex things is limited as well, so I’ll certainly use an hybrid workflow with my ears assisted by Neutron (and Ozone after)

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