Building a vocal booth?

I'm looking for tips from people that have built their own small, cheap but effective vocal booths for a home studio. My studio doesn't have too many problems with 'outgoing' noise, but suffers from 'incoming' noise picked up by the microphone and as such, I would like to try and build a contained vocal booth that helps protect the vocals from outside noise. Tips please! Thanks

You could start by getting a reflexion filter. And/or combine that with sound absorbing panels in front and behind the mic. Also if you can put something absorbant on the ceiling, would be pretty great. Good thing about panels is that they're (re)movable, and it would probably cost you less than outright building a vocal booth.

Lots of advice if you google 

This article for instance:

Are you at least semi handy ? Are you good at scrounging up old moving blankets, or very heavy drapes ? About the cheapest way I've come up with is this: Build 3 simple frames out of any stock handy, 1" x 3" fir/spruce/whatever works well. Make the frames about a foot shorter than ceiling height and about 3 - 3.5 feet wide. After the frames are built, put hinges on them such that you can make a "U" shape, and be careful to make sure you hinge it so that you can fold it up if desired. Now hang moving blankets on the interior of the "U" shaped frame and also hang one over the top of the whole thing -- that's why you built them a foot shorter than the ceiling. Voila -- a very inexpensive, easy to store, very effective, portable vocal booth. Just set up a mic, step inside the "U" and commence to vocalizin' :)

Just a thought 

This is not at all the answer you want, but I'm just going to throw it out there given the cost of some of the solutions you're considering. I used a Blue bluebird (decent starter condenser in the $2-300 range) for vocals for years. Of course, I was always fighting any noise. Dogs barking outside, somebody walking in the next room, etc. I decided to switch to a Shure SM7B as it's a fantastic sounding dynamic mic. To be fair, it will still pick things up, but it makes a huge difference. If I'm tracking vocals these days, I just set up the SM7B on a mic stand in the middle of the room, turn off the AC, and start tracking. With the blue bird, I'd be throwing up blankets in closets etc. I'm extremely pleased with the way it sounds. Just wanted to throw that out there and possibly spare you some space and effort!

have look here My son built his own first but then had to move to another state he built a 4ft by 6ft 2by4 frame, covered with sheet rock and then glued on sound isolation foam panels that he had gotten for free... inside the room is totally silent... his need was to play his tenor sax and not have the sound out in the rest of the house... but it works for recording also when he moved he got a small whisper room on craigslist for a song... later he got another one much larger for about half the retail cost...

Just don't waste your money on any of the vocal isolation shields out there. I bought one and I think it was a waste of money.

Floating Floors ____________________ Built a 4ft X 4ft X 6ft vocal booth Create a lattice of 2 X 4's Nail pipe foam insulation to top of these Fill in spaces with sound insulation Add wood floor - carpet - wood floor - carpet - wood floor Floor will "Float" when singer inside tilts their weight Great at having them concentrate on standing / enjoying the experience takes away fear Create doublepaned windows with plexiglass - line space around inside with felt Deadens sound Drill small holes in wood door to let fresh air in Seems it might defeat the purpose of soundproofing the room Summertime it gets very hot inside Enough sound is deadened that this is not a big pblm