 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rossell bringing another video here from my home office Recently, I've been putting a little bit of work into my YouTube channel Particularly revolving the production and the sound of it So I used to do most of my videos using a pretty Inexpensive USB lav mic that was nice because I didn't really have to worry about You know having a big mic on a stand, but definitely the sound quality wasn't there So I decided to upgrade to a podcasting microphone. I firstly bought a USB podcasting mic and it sounds decent from this is from my own. Oh, no, I'd use it for a few videos but the microphone I ended up picking was when I was in the US last month was the Audio Technica AT 2020 this is an XLR microphone And so I have to use it in conjunction with an audio interface when I'm using the Beringer Euphoria UM2 Which is kind of seems to be the most popular Single microphone budget friendly USB interface out there I bought this many years ago and the combination seems to be working pretty well I've listened back to a couple of my YouTube videos and I think the audio is improved I do need to start using a pop filter because the P's and B's and plosives plosives plosives Definitely do come through but the next step that I was looking at doing for this For improving the audio aspect of my production and that's only of course one aspect I'm working on the lighting a lot of stuff has to come together to make what to build YouTube content And I'm working hard towards that goal But the next step in the audio department would probably have been putting down Acoustic foam to try and get rid of the reverberation that is going to be pretty much inevitable in a room Like the one I'm sitting in which is basically probably not as big as it looks on video It's about three by five big tall ceilings But pretty much just bare concrete walls with with not much to blanket the sound so The thing about this place is it's a rental and I don't really have any immediate plans or Ability for that matter to purchase property So I didn't want to invest in putting down a bunch of decent acoustic foam Firstly would have been I think Pretty inconvenient to have to take it down when we're moving you want to get to size It seemed like a more of a homeowner project for me, but it was something I wanted to get right I posted on reddit On I think maybe the new tuba subreddit or somewhere like that and I said there must be some product That is just that that can sort of help out here that you know It's going to be something you can maybe travel with or just a little thing that falls around A microphone and lo and behold I found out about these products called Isolation shields so the one I ended up going for it was I have it open here on my Amazon It's by a company called Aku extra now I ordered this to Israel because it's a pretty heavy item So the product selection versus in the US is a little bit different This was actually a small but more expensive than some of the other Isolation shields I got this was $55 and there's a lot of $30 products on the market But what I liked about this besides the fact that it was it would ship to Israel for free because they have a $49 free shipping deal I like the fact that it looked really really solid So I've just gone ahead and built it came in the post today Aku extra Mike shield. I'll put a little Screen up of it now just to point out that I'm not doing affiliate Amazon affiliate stuff on this YouTube channel. So please trust it. These are real Product recommendations. So let me let me go ahead now and show you guys the product. It's pretty chunky Aku extra and this is me and you know, just to give you guys an idea about scale here So it's got a nice little desk stand and what I liked about this was that you have various options If you just want to leave this and set it have it set up on your desk You can use the desk stand the problem there, of course, is that you don't have Telescopic height. I like the fact that it had a little pop filter Built into it. So you can just see from the side. There's a little pop filter and check out the the paneling here It's pretty nice. It's metal and it feels really really solid as they hold it here It does, you know, I might need to tighten a few screws or maybe that's intentional It swings around a little bit, but I wanted to Show you guys the before and after so I'm recording this with the as I mentioned the Audio Technica at 2020 and now I'm gonna go ahead and take this microphone down out of this microphone stand. I'm going to put it into the Reverb or isolation booth. It's basically a mini audio booth when you think about it And let's see if you guys and I can notice any improvement in the audio quality. So let's go now and swap Okay, so I've gone ahead and set up the Accu extra on my desk and it's probably gonna start wiggling I'm just gonna move it in a small bit now This is a very strange feeling because I do kind of feel like I'm in a miniature room on my desk So I just listen back to a test recording I made and I have to say I was pretty pleased by the change in sound quality That I perceived But you know you be the judge. So I'm gonna try saying some plosives Hopefully the pop pop pop pop pop pop pop filter will be good I can't even remember what I usually test for Plosive Consonance with the pig ate breakfast and then brunch the pig ate breakfast and brunch the pig ate breakfast and brunch So you guys can firstly but a pop filter You don't need to have a little portable isolation booth just to get a pop filter So more importantly how is the reverb reduction you guys tell me now what I'm gonna do? I'm experimenting here. Firstly the build quality on this is really really good I like the fact it's metal. It's screwed in another cool thing I read about the company Accu extra excuse me is that they apparently are big into sustainability Which is something I've recently started working for a sustainability Non-profit so I'm getting into that area myself and therefore that is really awesome It does give a nice wide area now I'm gonna be curious to see what's going to happen as I move the foam in so I'm gonna do that The second thing is that this is the Audio Technica AT 2020 of course same microphone The pop filter does accommodate this microphone if you are looking perhaps getting this exact combination of Pop filter and microphone, but it was really really tight So the pop filter could be a little bit bigger Perhaps to accommodate even larger podcasting microphones in this one thing I didn't notice about this is that it does tend to lean I don't know if this is gonna come from the video it does lean towards me a little bit So there's actually a little weight. There's a little Switch here that you can kind of change the tilt of this part of the setup One tiny criticism and I do I do like this product so far. It did not come with any instructions But there was a instruction video on the Amazon listing So I always appreciate even a one page of printed instruction So I was a bit worried that it didn't come with it. So yeah, this is it You know in terms of doing a YouTube video You guys can see that the truth finally comes out about why I positioned my camera in this home office as I do because it's It's so full of electronics back there But yeah doing a YouTube video would look ridiculous with this so it's not for that This is for if you are doing podcasting or Audio work, you know, perhaps you're an audiobook narrator and like me you rent So therefore you or you or it's I'm sure I don't know how much it costs to Soundproof a room. I'd have to ask my friend Ben who's a awesome audio engineer But I assume it's a lot more expensive than 50 dollars, which is all this thing cost So I can see two reasons why people might want to get this one my situation You're a renter and you're you don't want to invest a ton in soundproofing a space You don't own reason to probably it's cheaper now the one thing I will say is this is pretty heavy It's but it's I mean I like that it feels sturdy was the thing but this was the reason I didn't buy this Product in the US and I brought it back here To Israel because it would just have added too much weight to my luggage. I wanted finally do one thing I love to hear by the way if you before and after let me know what you thought about the reverb performance I'm very interested to see if I kind of cloak myself all the way now It's really really narrow here, and I'm just gonna kind of One thing that would be awesome in this product I know I look completely ridiculous would be if this thing telescope because what I had to do was Reduce the height of my office chair all the way down and I'm kind of sitting now Uncomfortably low to my desk in order to get this at a height roughly the same as my as my mouth You don't need to use a desktop stand and I'm opening the boot the booth a little bit You can put this on something like a scissor arm that might be better. I'm gonna probably try that next This is the newer scissor arm. I'm using usually with this microphone, but anyway, I won't go on for much longer I'd really be interested and now I'm just holding this Wrapping it around and it does feel quite satisfying. I'm in a little kind of audio cocoon Please tell me what you think about the sound performance before and after has this reduced the reverb performance Significantly rewind back through the video if you're really interested Just hear me using this microphone in the open air So that was the sound performance of the reverb panel as you guys can see I'm back to using my microphone as I usually do on a simple scissor switch Pop filter does fit better now one one detail. I didn't want to finish without adding is regarding storage because if you are Like me a renter of storage might be a big concern Just want to show you guys how far this compacts what I did was just fold it The acoustic panels kind of around and into themselves as far as it could go I'm going to step back from the mic so I can show you this on camera side view this view and kind of a 360 Uh audio extra. So yeah, I am really really for $50. I think this was a Uh great purchase if I'm doing stuff like voiceover narration for my videos If I ever get into audiobook narration or something of that nature I can imagine this would be great negatives from my perspective for this product is that With a fixed desktop stand you can't choose your height Which is negative and secondly regarding portability and travel. It's a big Chunky thing of of good metal, which does mean it's got good quality construction But also that it's much less portable I definitely wouldn't bring that in my suitcase. It would just take up way too much weight that they couldn't justify So I'm sure there might be probably more light weight Um acoustic booth systems out there on the market nevertheless really happy to buy this Hope this video was interesting if you do want to get more videos for me regarding tech audio video marketing linux I could go on. It's a very mixed youtube channel. Hit the subscribe button. Thank you guys for watching. Have a great day