New toy . . . .

I decided a week ago to upgrade my home studio and order the Harlan Hogan Porta-Booth. At this point in my life I don't have the wherewithal to afford sound treating an entire room (besides being a renter), so I wanted an option that was both low impact on my living space and effective. Plus there are times when I travel, so having a portable recording option available is useful. I've only been using it a short time, but my reaction so far is WOW!

Here's the new home of KraussVO! I left up the old fruit box dividers I used 

before to mitigate sound bouncing, but I don't think I need them anymore. 

My MXL 990 microphone looks quite cozy.

The Booth does take some getting used to. For years I've been used to the ambient sound of my recording studio, which is located in a cabin separate from our house. At first the "deadness" of the recordings I was doing (as opposed to the "live" sound I have been used to) was . . . well, weird. I couldn't really tell if it was better or not. I finally went to the woman who produced and engineered the audio book I recently finished, Beth Richmond of Giving Voice Studio, and asked her for an honest appraisal. She has done production and post-production work for some years now on numerous projects, and built her own home studio some years ago. She said the sound was "great", which, given the primitive nature of the structure I use, is saying a lot.

I'm learning to do things a little differently, positioning the mic and my mouth differently, putting the scripts in the Booth for reading, but it seems to be working out better. As time goes on, I will report on how it feels once I settle into it a little more. For now, it seems to be a definite improvement.