Can you create a recording room at home without permanently changing the space?

I did, and here's how.

My recording room is probably the worst shape it could be - it's a small l-shaped room which bounces the sound around really badly, really unfriendly for recording anything. In fact, when I first started recording audiobooks I constructed what I called "the tent of doom", a 4ft x 4ft x 4ft cube, with cymbal stands (I play drums) providing the shape, and several duvets were the top and sides. I would sit in my tiny, dark, claustrophobic space recording books, and would emerge boiling hot and slightly dizzy. As much as I secretly enjoyed reliving my childhood squatting in my acoustic den, it wasn't a long term solution for my needs. 

So I had a loooong think about what I wanted to do with the room. I knew I wanted to use acoustic tiles but the thought of gluing anything to the walls was not something I could entertain, I needed something that I could put up and take down as needed. And budget was important too, I needed to keep it sensible. 

At one end I installed a desk for my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, AKA a windows pc) and some chunky wall hooks to hang cables and such. Then I devised a cunning plan to acoustically treat the walls. After much though I settled on a plan. I would use 2ft x 4ft hardboard panels, glue 8 x acoustic foam tiles to each one (30x30cm each) and then hang them on the walls using picture hooks. So off I went. I made 10 panels and carefully glued the foam panels on, using PVa woodglue. I put an absurd amount of effort into ensuring the tiles were all perfectly aligned and symmetrical, and once my OCD was satisfied, I hung them in a very pleasingly symmetrical (there's a theme here) layout on the walls.

The trickiest bit of the whole enterprise was getting them all horizontal and evenly spaced. I truly would not have been been able to tolerate any deviations, my inner Asperger's would not allow this to happen. Quite some time later they were all on the walls. Time to test the room! Initial results were pleasing, there is a significant reduction in reverb, that said, the awkward shape of the room still bounces back some noise, but it is greatly reduced. I made creative use of my cymbal stands, a digeridoo and a blanket, placed them so that the corner with the mic booth was separated from the rest, I call this my acoustic blanket.

The room is now sounding great, and with my RODE Procaster and Podtrack P4 recorder, I am getting some fantastic results. 

Acoustic foam panels hang on the walls

 I've recorded two books using the RODE and eight books in the room so far, hoping to do many more!

 My new favorite microphone.

I've been using the Rode Procaster for a while now, I've recorded a couple of audiobooks and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Initially I had issues with the sound being quite woolly and lacking sparkle. This is partly an inherent quality of the microphone; it's a dynamic mic which the internet tells me will tend to produce a sound with less sparkly top end than say a condenser, due the the mechanism by which the sound sensitive capsule is powered and responds to sound waves. It is this very quality, however, that makes it a winner for recording at home - even in my relatively well padded recording room (acoustic foam panels abound) I struggle with condenser microphones. The reason being that condensers are tooooo sensitive for anything less than a bona-fide studio. I was picking up noise from outside, I could hear the ventilation system in the roof, and of course I could hear every acoustic nuance and bit of reverb the room itself was contributing. 

A dynamic microphone, on the other hand, will pick up less of those elements, again due to the mechanism inherent in the technology. It will tend to listen in a very human way, it's good at focusing on the sound close at hand and rejecting stuff further away. The Rode Procaster does this in a very heightened way. The mic has a very narrow area of sensitivity - basically directly in front of the capsule and a couple of inches of distance. Move much to the sides or up and down, and your voice quickly drops away. 

Now, I mentioned the lack of sparkle - the trick to improving the sonic performance of the mic is to use it with an audio interface which is capable of 'driving' it with enough gain. I plugged it into my Podtrak P4 and the sound was transformed. The Podtrak has an exceptional amount of gain available via four VERY clean preamps for the XLR channels. Turns out the Procaster needs at least 35db of gain to get the best performance. I'm not nerdy enough to know exactly why, but it's common among broadcast quality dynamic mics to require a lot of power. The Shure SM7B is the same. When properly powered, the mic sounds much better, and has a super signal to noise ratio, such that you can mess around with the EQ to your hearts content and not induce any noise into the very clean signal. 

Read this article from Music Radar:

A broadcast quality dynamic microphone for the masses?

By Chris Corfield October 01, 2020

OUR VERDICT

The Rode Procaster impressed us. For podcasting, voice-over work, or any other speech-driven medium, this is a microphone we’re happy to recommend.

PROS

Solidly built

Great upgrade from USB-based setups

Free 10-year warranty (on registration) is welcome

CONS

An XLR mic is only as good as the preamps it feeds!

WHAT IS IT?

Rode has pretty much got the prosumer market for microphones sewn up. From its USB-powered entry-level models like the Rode NT-USB, through to its mid-range NT1-A large diaphragm condenser, the Australian brand delivers great value gear for a range of uses. Perhaps more than any other mic brand, however, it has set its stall out as being the go-to company for broadcast systems. This is particularly evidenced by its growing range of equipment geared towards the podcasting and streaming markets. 

Today’s mic, the Rode Procaster, is a perfect example. Where other mics will market themselves as being suited to anything, Rode is quite clear that the Procaster is designed specifically with speech in mind.

It’s actually part of a wider family of mics from Rode, all aimed at podcast and broadcast creators. The Rode Procaster itself is a dynamic mic, with a cardioid pickup pattern making it ideal for solo speech. The Rode Podcaster, on the other hand, shares many of the same characteristics, only it opts for a USB connection instead of the Procaster’s XLR connection. It’s clever of Rode; you essentially get the same microphone and make it fit your workflow, not the other way around.

The key difference is in the name. The Procaster is aimed more at a broadcast audience, who are more likely to have the required extras – audio interface or mixer – you’ll need to connect it. There are clear benefits to this, which we’ll address later. The Podcaster, on the other hand, is much more plug-and-play and so therefore doesn’t require extra equipment or technical knowledge. Let’s take a look at how it performs.

PERFORMANCE AND VERDICT

The first thing to note with the Rode Procaster is that, unlike many mics you see aimed at speech, it’s actually a dynamic mic rather than a condenser. Being dynamic, it doesn’t require phantom power, plus it does a great job at rejecting unwanted noise thanks to the switchable high-pass filter and cardioid polar pattern. Naturally, you lose a tiny bit of the nuance you would get from a condenser but overall, as a microphone for speech, this doesn’t pose the same problem as it would recording acoustic instruments or vocals, where every harmonic counts.

That said, it’s not a total rejection of sound coming from off-axis; indeed, we actually found recording outdoors delivered superb clarity from our subject and a nice gentle hum of ambient noise from the sides. Your own applications and workflow will vary of course, and there’s no substitute for recording in a well-treated studio, which is where the Procaster really comes into its own.

ALSO CONSIDER

Best vocal mics: Shure SM7B

Electro-Voice RE20

Rode Podcaster

The cardioid pickup pattern offers 180 degrees of rejection, so it’s best suited to directional use, specifically in front of one voice rather than many at a time. You also talk directly into the top of the mic, rather than the side, despite how it may appear at first. Performance here is aided by an internal pop-shield, however we’d always advise on the use of an external pop filter just to be safe.

To hold, the Procaster has a pleasing heft to it thanks to its all-metal construction. It’s not a mic we’d want to be hand-holding for any length of time though, so a desk mount or boom arm would be wise purchases. Rode also offers a shock mount, available separately, which will further help when seeking isolation from wobbly desks or mic stands.

The inclusion of an XLR input is what sets it apart here. By forcing you to go through a mixer or audio interface, as opposed direct to your computer via USB, you actually gain significantly more control over the recorded sound. We did notice it can be fairly gain-hungry, requiring a reasonable boost from the preamps on our audio interface. For some users, this may push it into fairly noisy territory, however in our experience that was largely negated by the high-pass filter. All told it didn’t impact hugely, and was certainly no worse than any of the Procaster’s competitors, but it is worth considering.

Overall, we were very impressed with the Rode Procaster. For any application involving speech – be that podcasts, voiceovers or video – the Procaster delivers pleasing results that don’t require masses of post-production to polish. As with any broadcast mic, the setting in which you record will have an impact on the sound you achieve, but in the Procaster we found a microphone we’d happily rely on.

RODE Procaster mic on stand