Any Trick to reduce wind noise in iso booth?

vbass

Member
I have two iso rooms. One is about 10 feet by 10 feet and the other is about 8 feet by 8 feet. Whenever the door is opened or closed in either room there is wind noise in my more sensitive condensers. This, of course, is very annoying. The wind, I guess, is caused by the vacuum/pressure effect when the air-tight room door is opened or closed. Has anyone else successfully dealt with this kind of problem?
 
I'm pretty sure that most people will give the "don't do that" knee jerk thing, but stop me if I'm wrong. The problem only exists when opening or closing the door. The problem exists because the rooms are air tight. Like the sound a large freezer door makes when it opens and the differential in air pressure/temp whistles through insulation gap (soft material against hard and/or soft letting the pressure push past). Kind of sounds like the lift doors on the Enterprise, yes?

There are two viable options. Change the way the doors open/what is contacting when they open, or vent the rooms.

Because the door is sealed tight, opening the door by moving it in or out of the room will vary the pressure in the room, raising or lowering the pressure makes the air rush in or out of the room. If you can modify the door to slide from side to side, you would do away with the air pressure differential. However, finding quiet rollers and pocket (or pressure) seals for a sliding door may be excessive on the pocket.

Venting the room may be as simple as drilling some holes (say at the top back of the room on the inside and on the bottom back of the outside, just as an example) so the room is no longer air tight, but maintains 99.8% of it's isolation.

Best I can come up with with my limited knowledge...
 
Set up a red light outside the door for when you are recording.

That should stop people going in when you are recording and messing up the take with a woosh.

The noise doesn't matter when you are not recording.
 
Broken almost stopped me from saying the obvious. But I still have the need to say it...

Don't open the door when the mics are on man!

:)
 
If the room is that airtight, how do people breath in there? Usually there is some kind of air circulation system and then there would not be the problem with opening and closing doors.

Alan
 
Well, the official (but almost certainly too expensive for a home studio) solution is to install a specialist ventilation system. Air conditioning and ventilation in studios is always designed to be a very large duct size with very slow speed air movement. There also tends to be extensive baffling in the system (but far enough away from the studio itself that you don't hear the air hitting the baffles.

Probably the more practical solution (and one which I used when we had to do a temporary installation for short recordings) is to open the door and use an extractor fan to air out the room between takes, then shut the door and turn off the fan when recording.
 
It is not that hard to make a duct box and install a small silent fan to move some air? Even easier if they just want a duck box so the excess air can get in and out when opening and closing the door?

Link to John Sayers page.

Alan.
 
Hello, sorry I'm new to the forum - could someone help an absolute beginner to learn how to remove a wind sound from a voice recording?

Thank you!
 
It's very easy actually. It's called money and lots of it.

If you are going to record in situations like that where any wind at all even the slightest breeze will make noises on your microphone. You must first find out how to proceed and get the correct equipment.

You will need a high quality Blimp with a furry dead cat/wombat which will set you back a minimum of $250.00. Then you need a half decent microphone probably costing the same at least.

So for starters you will need $500.00 and more. In reality........at least double that.

You will not remove it afterwards from the recording. You may slightly lessen it, but the more you do, the more you will distort your sound ruining the whole project.
 
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Ayayay! Thank you so much for your prompt and helping answer! Tho it's not the answer I was hoping for 😅 it's good to know! Could you recommend any good starter blimp and microphone brands that would be available/popular in Europe? I will start hunting for second-hand bargains🤞😬
 
Ayayay! Thank you so much for your prompt and helping answer! Tho it's not the answer I was hoping for 😅 it's good to know! Could you recommend any good starter blimp and microphone brands that would be available/popular in Europe? I will start hunting for second-hand bargains🤞😬
Sorry for the bad news but I have been down a very similar road.

To get you started. Well the truth is if you want to produce quality recordings you need quality gear. You preferably want to record that in stereo so you need a stereo mic and stereo recorder...........equals biggish money.

You can just get a mono shotgun mic and put that in a blimp. Then you could use a £99.00 mono recorder.

With mono it depends on what your market is you intend to sell to because there are lots out there doing recordings like that and the best and popular ones have upped their game and invested in quality gear.

Mono.......... Maybe something like these.

Microphone......... https://www.thomann.de/ie/rode_ntg_2.htm

Blimp..................... https://www.thomann.de/ie/rode_blimp_mkii.htm

Recorder............... https://www.thomann.de/ie/zoom_h4n_pro_black.htm

You can get a cheaper recorder. But that is just the start and there are other bits to buy like headphones, leads and stuff.

What exactly are you planning to do?
 
That's all really helpful - thank you very much indeed! 💐👏
What exactly am I planning to do? That's actually also a very helpful question! 🙈 Well, I'm based in the Algarve by the ocean and a woodland nature reserve that is inhabited by many different bird species. I go on daily walks and capture a lot of video and audio footage with my phone and I'd really like to improve their quality, especially get rid of the wind interference. Professionally I'm as far removed from being a sound/film artist as it possibly gets, so I didn't think of anything past a hobby/ better documenting it all for myself. For example, I would like to do time-lapse videos as the landscape and soundscape change a lot with every month, season. Thank you again for your insights! 🙏 PS. If by a wild chance you happen to know a good online course for a complete beginner like me interested in recording nature sounds / filming, please do let me know 🤞🌷
 
I don't know of any course. But what I can gather is that those kind of people just get out there with the best they can afford and experiment and record. Some sell their recordings directly or turn them into meditation stuff.

I have recorded some myself in the summer and plan to do more. I want it for stock recordings for audio books/stories etc.
 
The red light outside the door is a good suggestion and if the problem is people randomly opening the door you could interlock the light with a magnetic door lock. Also, arrange the door handle such that it can only be opened from inside the booth?

BTW Rycote wind gags ARE a bit pricey but not THAT bad!

Dave.
 
I'm working in a room at the moment where the aircon drives new air into the room very effectively, creating over pressure in the room that means opening the door creates a whoosh as you open it and the air rushes out. Turning off the aircon cure it but you can last maybe ten minutes before it starts to go hot and stuffy. We have the red light and it works. The mics in the room don't hear anything with the door closed but the wind escape noise as the door opens is crazy!
 
The red light outside the door is a good suggestion and if the problem is people randomly opening the door you could interlock the light with a magnetic door lock. Also, arrange the door handle such that it can only be opened from inside the booth?

BTW Rycote wind gags ARE a bit pricey but not THAT bad!

Dave.
I only have the Rode ones Dave. They are ok, but strong gusts of wind can still be heard. The Rycote are supposed to be better, but I think there is a limit.
 
Unless it is not feasible for noise reasons you could always build a "catflap" or similar device which would allow the pressure differential to be transferred in and out.Maybe something like a 6 x6 inch piece of 1/4 thick neoprene with and "x" or a star cut placed in double sided wooden frame secured in a hole in the best area. Just spit balling.
 
Hmm. Some people are answering the current hijack, and some are answering the 6-year-old original question...
 
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