Acoustic Helmet Ultra Challenge

[sethastian]

Before we start, let me make clear that this challenge is in no way endorsed by anyone other than me.

The ultra challenge:

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT A FOLDABLE ACOUSTIC ULTRA HELMET

This helmet would provide the ultimate in storable acoustic vocal needs. The helmet wouldn't necessarily look stylistically superb (very round and open on the bottom for microphone purposes), but upon placing it on your head, there would be complete immersion in acoustic soundproofing.

Stick the microphone within the confines of the helmet, and begin recording. Take the helmet off and hang it on a helmet stand. Bonus if the helmet can be made to fold.

The helmet would be lined with some killer insulation, of the same variety as RealTraps vocal booth.


ISSUES:
Obviously, weight. Don't want it to hurt the neck.
Would the helmet need to rely too heavily on balance?
Money -- who would pay to fund this? Me? Probably not, because i still am gunning down college loans (thanks college. Thanks for following me to my grave)

[SAC]

?

Mechanical balance? How about proximity effects?

And how do you imagine a helmet offering any convenience, performance, or cost savings over a simple set of gobos or surface panels allowing for the proper positioning of a microphone?

And open at the bottom for the mic??? How about the neck and torso?

I am very confused.

But hey, Good luck!

[sethastian]

I thought it was an idiotic idea, I just wanted to have my suspicions confirmed.

I'm throwing a lot of ideas on the wall (for new products) and seeing what sticks. Always good to get some free feedback. Thanks!

[doncaparker]

I don't want to hinder your creativity, but as you move forward and think of other possibilities, you might want to make sure you follow a two step process for brainstorming:

Step 1: Think up a cool idea
Step 2: Aggressively challenge the feasibility of the cool idea

Both are essential to productive brainstorming.

For instance, this idea you just came up with has some virtues, but it is not feasible for several reasons:

How is the singer supposed to breathe?

How is the singer supposed to read the sheet music?

How does the singer avoid looking silly to everyone else in the studio?

If you had applied the same creativity to Step 2 that you applied to Step 1 in coming up with this idea, you would have either moved on to something else, or figured out ways of solving these glaring problems with the idea.

Anyway, good luck. Keep thinking up cool ideas, and then try to shoot them down. The ideas that survive that process might be worth pursuing.

[RbShffr]

The IsoHelmet. It's awesome to hear someone else think of these things.

I (well me and some buddies) had this idea in college when tracking a jazz vocalist live with a band in an overly reverby room. Other great uses would be perfect isolation for scratch vocals with keeper acoustic guitar or piano tracks.

I do a lot of tracking with a singer/songwriter playing and singing in an iso booth while a band of session musicians is cutting in the adjacent live room. We almost always have to redo both the guitar and vocal because of bleed.

It could be like a motorcycle type helmet with a glass front.

Headphones would have to be built-in but isolated from the mic picking up the voice.

I don't think you could get usable vocal tracks from it, but I can think of dozens of times this would have been useful in live tracking situations.

[PaulP]

More great ideas : Here

Paul P

[synthdude]

I remember some band did this and they wrote a thing about it in tape op or EM I was looking through old magazines this week and remember seeing it. I think it might have been with the band and tracking info for nerve generator I remember they made a helmet with a mic in it so they could track vocals live in the same room as drums and they didn't have any bleed somehow by this method. I am 50 percent sure this is the right band but I know for sure that they did use this technique in the studio.

[johndykstra]

step one:

collect underpants

step two:





step three:

profit