Spent 4 hours fighting flutter on a $30 mic, the fix was a blanket on the floor

Set up my home office podcast corner last Tuesday and every vocal take had this weird hollow echo. Tried moving the mic closer, turned off the ceiling fan, even stuffed a pillow behind the condenser. Realized after watching a YouTube vid that my hardwood floor was bouncing sound straight back into the diaphragm. Threw a $12 thrift store rug under the desk and the problem vanished in like 5 minutes. Anyone else overlooked the floor when treating a room and wasted a whole evening on it?

1 comments

1 Comment

troy_sanchez82d ago

That blanket trick reminds me of the time I built a vocal booth out of moving boxes and a duvet, only to find out the real issue was my desk reflecting sound from underneath. What got me was checking the ceiling and walls first, but never looking down at the surface right under the mic stand. Have you measured the room’s reflections with a mirror test, like sliding a mirror across the floor to see exactly where the sound is bouncing from? Because that’s the thing, the floor is basically a giant untreated surface people just ignore until they hear that hollow slap back. Also, standing vs sitting changes the angle of that bounce, so if you ever switch positions, you might need a thicker rug or a couple of cheap foam panels under the desk.