Vocal Dampener for Singers, Actors, Performers, Stress Relief. A Portable Warm-Up Room.

All my life I wanted to be a singer, but I have a serious psychological mental block about making noise. I genuinely don't know where it came from, but for literally my entire life, I've hated the idea of being loud which, unfortunately, extends to singing. I made some headway against it when I picked up the saxophone, which there's just no way to play quietly, but I still was absolutely struggling to put any power behind my voice.Before I got my Beltbox, I would struggle to hit notes in my chest voice range because I just wasn't giving myself enough breath support, so the note would get choked off before it could come out, and my head voice range extended to a strained A5 and a passable F 4.Almost immediately after I started practicing with the beltbox, because I could no longer hear myself as clearly (and the psychological notion that, neither could anyone else), I was literally instantly able to hit E5. I have never sung that high in my life, and could not believe my tuner. I had to go to my piano, play the note, and sing it to confirm.Some caveats: yes, it is difficult to breathe while wearing this thing. You may want to either hold it in your hand, or keep a hand free to move it when you breathe in otherwise, you'll start to open your mouth horizontally really wide to break the seal and inhale that way which could become a bad habit if you're not conscious of it.If you correct yourself during non beltbox practice this shouldn't be too much of an issue though.One of the criticisms I've seen online, especially on Reddit, is that it's "just a $50 pillow". Two problems with that argument though. One, a pillow ain't portable. You're not going to shove a pillow in your purse or day bag. Two, you can't strap a pillow to your face, if you want to actually see where you're going anyway. This is excellent for quiet practice while multitasking, and it honestly just looks like a very unique face mask in the post-pandemic world we live in.I'd rather someone think I'm just wearing a unique face mask while I strengthen my voice and breath control, than to hear the awful noises I'm going to be making into this thing (from the next room/next door, anyway. If someone's in the same room they are goiing to hear you. That's just how physics works).Now if you'll excuse me, I have some singing practice to get back to!

Okay, so I've had beltbox for about 2 months now. The main reason I decided to get one, is because I like to practice for hours and hours and neighbours weren't too happy about it. I haven't received a single complaint since I've been using Beltbox, so it's deffinitely doing what I needed it to do.Now some positives and negatives about it:- Negatives: firstly, if you get it and start using it, there is a very high chance you will be oversinging because you won't be able to hear your voice like you're used to. I am relatively experienced singer and I thought I'm aware enough to not oversing but the first few times I was indeed feeling tired and oversung in it even only doing warmup excercises. Nothing to worry about however, since only after few uses I adjusted my singing levels and got used to it, so I never oversung again. Second negative, it is very hard to breathe with it on. If you're just singing warmup excercises you'll probably be fine as you can just take slightly more time between scales to take breath, but if you're singing songs you'll probably have to be taking it off and putting it on again everytime you wanna breathe in.Positives: Well it does exactly what it says it does and it does it extremely well for me! It significantly lowers the volume of your voice, so if you for example have neighbours who are unhappy with your singing volume, chances are they won't be anymore, if you're using beltbox. Another positive is if you like many others, are shy to sing and you know you're holding back because of it, this introduces tension in various places in your body. Using beltbox helps you get over that shyness, and release your voice freely.I see a lot of people talking about cleaning it and such, well I gotta say I haven't cleaned it so far, so I can't say for sure exactly how water resistant it is, but I haven't had the need to clean it anyway. 2 months of use and it's in perfect shape just like I first got it.Final comments: Yes, I'm very happy with the product, there are certain downsides, but nothing you can't work your way around!

The Beltbox is pretty straightforwards; it's a 'box' you put over your mouth and nose that lets you breathe, but muffles any sound you make with your mouth/nose.It's a very simple construction, but that's not to say it's poorly made. It's made of a soft inner lining of polyurethane foam, has a harder but flexible plastic layer on the outside, and comes with a simple cord that can support it, though I wouldn't wear it walking around outside unless you want to get some odd looks.This arrived with a small tear in the inside. It wasn't enough to make me return it, and the foam doesn't absorb any water through the crack so it's still washable, but it does bear mentioning that if you're rough on this, it IS foam so you can easily rip or tear it.This is a difficult product to review since it certainly does what it's designed to, but it ultimately feels like it's about twice as expensive as it should be given the materials and construction. Whether it's worth it to you or not, will come down to how much you need to be able to sing (or shout, scream, act, or whatever else you have planned with your voice) without being asked to quiet down.

I wish I got the newer one, I heard it’s better. I don’t hear a lot of dampening so I don’t think it’s worth the price.