As stated above, there is a good reason for using SM58s in a live setting. It's the same reason putting an SE filter behind them is useless. One thing folks forget is that it's not the walls that are the nearest reflecting surface - it's the ceiling. If there is no absorption above you, and your ceiling is less than 12-15 feet high, you're going to have issues with your vocals. Issues the SE filter does not address. Good point about expensive microphones being potentially more prone than a cheap 58 to room problems. But that's mostly a matter of polar pattern. An LDC is more sensitive, true, but all you have to do is turn down the gain and get closer to the mic. You then have to deal with the proximity effect, which is not impossible. Of course, if you had a great-sounding room you could put your expensive mic in omni and avoid the proximity effect. But if your room sounded great, you wouldn't need an SE filter, either. (Sorry about the lack of formatting. I'm not used to using Firefox, but it's what I have on my laptop.)

I think I was first to reply to this thread..............so have given it a re think after the views here....
 
Danny, I've read so many of your posts and you have just a great way of communicating and supporting so many people with your knowledge. I just watched your transient shaper videos. Great. I learned  things and your presentation technique is so personable. Because of this I went back a re asked my self the question first asked re re reflection filters.
 
All I can say is than I can give an unequivocal statement. The vocal recordings I make in my room are very much more usable within a mix if I have used a reflection filter. It happens to be one of my best purchases. I've fooled myself many times that kit that I've bought, mainly plugins or audio interfaces or even amps, sound great or better than what I had before,  I wanted to justify to myself the money I spent on the damn things. However, when I first used a reflection filter with and added duvet behind, the improvement made the biggest +++ impact on the quality of my recordings. I also use it for brass, acoustic guitar (mono is my go to for acoustic) and harmonica. 
 
There was a certain No 1 UK album (girl singer) 2 years ago where a Rode NT1a and a reflection filter were used on all the vocals in a room with little treatment. Add to that talent,  a beautiful voice and great songs, then thats all you need for a vocal set up. At least I've got the first two !!!!
 
Now where is my talent booster...........

JS: Right, I'm with ya on the good mic stuff. My point in that post was, I was ruling out the crappy mic being involved, I have no room treatment and didn't even strategically place it anywhere. I can do the same thing with other mics and I get the exact same results. Ok, maybe we can chalk it up as me having a decent room by default. However, I'm still having a problem understanding how a close mic recording would have enough room reflection in it to cause a problem. I know for a fact that if I used the 2 ft away mic sound that I could still make it work in a mix. It wouldn't be the ideal vocal print for something that was up close and personal, but we could make it work. :)

pagec: Thanks for checking in here and thanks for the kind words. If this thing works enough for you and others, that's perfectly acceptable to me. I have no problems with that and think it's great. However, I'm still begging to know how much this thing is making a difference. See that's the thing, it's perfectly acceptable to me to hear it's made a difference (which I'm happy to hear from you and others) but I'm highly curious as to what you and others consider reflections as opposed to non-reflections at close range.

This is where I'm also curious to know how much pre you use to get the mic up to the correct signal level as well as what that signal level IS for you? I'm hearing how this thing makes a difference for a few guys. I'd like to hear the differences if anyone has a spare moment to share their experiences with me by sharing a file or two. :)

-Danny

I'd make a test recording for you but I gave my SE reflector to someone who thought it looked cool.


That seemed like the easiest way to get rid of it.


best regards,
mike

Mike, did you really notice enough of a difference? I would think you didn't or you wouldn't have given it away, right? I don't mean to sound thick....I know it can make a bit of a difference. I've used it. I stopped using it because I didn't think it made THAT much of a difference. I actually never bought the ones we have. I mean, I bought INTO them because I bought into the studio with the gear that was in it, but I would have never purchased those things myself. They came with the place.

I know you've worked in some strange places...have you ever done a close mic track and had too much room reflection get involved? I'm like on a mission with this thing now. LOL! I've got my mic locker opened up over here ready to start recording all of them in different places just to see which may put out reflections that would bother me. LOL! I think maybe I need to just go back to bed and chalk it up that some will have this problem and others like me are just either too deaf to notice the room playing a role, or I'm just lucky to have not ever run into this issue. LOL! :)

-Danny

I think it can change things, rarely for the better, but it can certainly make changes you can hear. 

I liken it to the types of frequency response modification that happens when a mic capsule is installed in a different windscreen. There are a examples of mics that use the same capsule but sound different, I think this extends that idea a bit.

I've tried it at the place where it ended up... I didn't use it at my place. I already have 2' x 4' x 12" thick gobos so it seemed like an ineffectual size compared to anything I can do with them.


If and when I use the gobos I use them as absorbers rather than reflectors.



I think if you are hearing a difference that you like with one of the smaller reflectors that you could probably just put any old 18" x 24" board back there to create the reflection induced comb filtering.


best regards,
mike

I already have 2' x 4' x 12" thick gobos so it seemed like an ineffectual size compared to anything I can do with them. 
If and when I use the gobos I use them as absorbers rather than reflectors. 

I do something similar.  I built my own "absorbtion wall" so to speak.  I have not done any test on this for years and it is something that I should really look into again, now that I have more experience.  Before I built this absorbtion filter, it would sound like I was singing in a tin box.  Adding reverbs and delays would just make it sound more "tin-like" on my final product.  So, I tried to get more of a "dead" sound or no room added sound in my recordings.  

The situation seemed worse if you were doing a lot of acoustic guitar recordings as well because the build up of this "tin-like" room noise would accumulate.

I however, have changed rooms in which I record. I did this several years ago, but stayed with the absorbtion wall because it had formerly worked for me.  I need to do a test with and with out when I have time and see if it still gives me any real results or if it is just a myth in my head these days.

It will have to wait for a few weeks however.  At noon, we head for the Ozarks to get away from city life for a few days.

bitflipper


As stated above, there is a good reason for using SM58s in a live setting. It's the same reason putting an SE filter behind them is useless. One thing folks forget is that it's not the walls that are the nearest reflecting surface - it's the ceiling. If there is no absorption above you, and your ceiling is less than 12-15 feet high, you're going to have issues with your vocals. Issues the SE filter does not address. Good point about expensive microphones being potentially more prone than a cheap 58 to room problems. But that's mostly a matter of polar pattern. An LDC is more sensitive, true, but all you have to do is turn down the gain and get closer to the mic. You then have to deal with the proximity effect, which is not impossible. Of course, if you had a great-sounding room you could put your expensive mic in omni and avoid the proximity effect. But if your room sounded great, you wouldn't need an SE filter, either. (Sorry about the lack of formatting. I'm not used to using Firefox, but it's what I have on my laptop.)

bit, I think you nailed it. I just went through a few rooms in my house with various mics. One thing I didn't mention because it didn't dawn on me until I actually read your post was...all my rooms down stairs have a drop ceiling with tiles. Some are plain weak foam-like, but most are those heavy duty things that are nearly like little pieces of sheet-rock and weigh like 3 lbs or so.
 
I happened to go up stairs in my house where I have regular ceilings. Of course my main living room has a pop-corn ceiling type thing going on, so nothing happened there. Room is pretty big too. I noticed a slight reflection in one room I have that is pretty empty, but there is a catch to that. It's a guest room with nothing in it but a bed and a dresser. The reflection was nothing that would bother me nor would it be something that would force me to perform surgery on a vocal track.
 
The weird thing is...this only happened on my good mic's while switching through the different patterns like figure 8 and omni. This happened with every good mic I tried, but hyper cardioid and regular cardioid totally eliminated the problem. So for me, I'm still back to square one and can't see a neeed for this filter thing. My Shure 57/58, EV PL 60, 357, 457, 757 all showed 0 room reflections at close range.
 
-Danny

Thanks for all the replies.

I also was considering buying some of the sound absorption blankets here.
They're cheaper and 3 of them will cover the mirror covered wall I am mostly concerned about.


It's not so much of an 'I can hear the room in my recordings' thing as it is a 'can I make my vocal recordings sound better' with something like this.


I wish I could afford to treat my room but funds are a little tight right now. I will be moving within this year and will finally have a dedicated space for my home studio that I will properly treat.


Danny, I'm going to PM you my cell #. I'm only about 40 min from you so I'm going to take you up on this (finally ).
Thursday's through Sunday's work best for me. So give me a call, let me know what works for you and we'll go from there.


Mike
   

I guess I should have added that I don't ever use any type of reflection filter if I am close micing a SM57 or 58 either; only when using a vocal mic and recording 8"-12" off the mic.

Danny you mentioned that your ceilings have thick, drop ceiling type treatments in the rooms you record in.  I think that is a great observation.  I suspect that building materials and the way structures are built in different parts of the country can contribute to the way a room sounds or reflects.

In my area, homes are built on concrete slabs and exterior walls are often made of brick. We usually have lots of very large windows in these homes.  The room that gave me the most issues was a small bedroom that was almost completely cubical, 10'-6" x 11' x 9'h (ceiling), concrete floor (carpeted) 2 exterior walls brick, with a large window on one wall, and a large double French door entrance.  Just a lot of reflective materials.

So yes, it seems to work well for me to cut down on some of the reflections for vocal and acoustical type recordings.