Sound absorbing material - for a song booth frame??

incinerate

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What sound absorbing material (to reduce room reflections) should I go for, for a song booth frame, that also isn't crazy expensive? It can't be very heavy either, as the frame is made of plastic (pvc-pipes).

Is velvet fabric a good choice, or thick duvets? Or a combination?
I've heard "moving blankets" can do a good job too.

Source for the "blanket song booth":
Can't post links, just google DIY vocal booth on a budget (YouTube)
 
A lot of people I know use a couple layers of blankets. Like a Quilt and a felt winter blanket. Safety pinned together, and hung on screw in wall hooks(by the safety pins). The last layer can be for the green screen chroma blanket for podcast backgrounds.

The frame? if its home built I use PVC tubes.
 
What exactly are you trying to achieve with the "booth"...?

For taming early reflections off the walls in a room...you can just drape some heavier blankets over your booth frame.
If your looking to create a soundproof booth...it will take much more than that...MUCH more.
 
What exactly are you trying to achieve with the "booth"...?

For taming early reflections off the walls in a room...you can just drape some heavier blankets over your booth frame.
If your looking to create a soundproof booth...it will take much more than that...MUCH more.
I just want to create a good singing environment for recording vocals. I need blankets as "walls" and also as a roof. I'll have a really thick carpet as a "bottom". I'm going to add sound absorbers + bass traps on the walls in my room too.

I don't aim for a soundproof booth. I tried singing into some velvet fabrics today and they seemed to not let in/out much sound at all. Maybe a combo of thick duvets and velvet fabric will be just fine?
 
If you just search on youtube for "The BEST DIY Vocal Booth On A Budget (FREE BLUEPRINTS)" you will probably better see what I'm trying to do. But I can't motivate buying really expensive "producer acoustic blankets".
 
'Foam' and blankets can absorb the mids to highs, which is ok because you typically don't have a ton of low-mids and lows with vocals only. So if you are just trying to take the room out of the equation, they can be a solution. Most of today's homerecordists are in a room with sheetrock walls/ceiling, so there is a fair amount of quick reverb (not good) and depending on the room size and what else is in the room, some quick slap-back echo, too. The problem with too much foam/blanketing is 'deadness'. Unless you are doing voice-over work, you will end up EQing to add 'air' to the vocal tracks, and will have to play around wiht reverb and delay plug-ins to get some life back into the sound.
When I first started tracking vocals I experimented a lt, and found the best I had at the time was doing the vocals in my largest room (living room), facing out across the longest dimension of the room, with a wall behind me at a slight angle and moving blanket/duvet behind me on that wall.
When I built some bass traps (4" rockwool), I no longer had to do this, I could face into a rockwool corner from 3-4 feet away (walls/corners behind with traps, too) and no longer worry about the room's reverb.
 
'Foam' and blankets can absorb the mids to highs, which is ok because you typically don't have a ton of low-mids and lows with vocals only. So if you are just trying to take the room out of the equation, they can be a solution. Most of today's homerecordists are in a room with sheetrock walls/ceiling, so there is a fair amount of quick reverb (not good) and depending on the room size and what else is in the room, some quick slap-back echo, too. The problem with too much foam/blanketing is 'deadness'. Unless you are doing voice-over work, you will end up EQing to add 'air' to the vocal tracks, and will have to play around wiht reverb and delay plug-ins to get some life back into the sound.
When I first started tracking vocals I experimented a lt, and found the best I had at the time was doing the vocals in my largest room (living room), facing out across the longest dimension of the room, with a wall behind me at a slight angle and moving blanket/duvet behind me on that wall.
When I built some bass traps (4" rockwool), I no longer had to do this, I could face into a rockwool corner from 3-4 feet away (walls/corners behind with traps, too) and no longer worry about the room's reverb.

so once you had rockwool in all the corners, you found you didn't need the blankets anymore, is that correct?
 

When I first started tracking vocals I experimented a lt, and found the best I had at the time was doing the vocals in my largest room (living room), facing out across the longest dimension of the room, with a wall behind me at a slight angle and moving blanket/duvet behind me on that wall.
… .

Can this be a good method, but inside my vocal booth with the front open and duvets + moving blankets/other blankets on the back, sides and on the roof of the vocal booth? Sound absorbers might be good on the walls, especially behind you and in front of you too? I'm thinking of installing a couple of small bass traps too, in top corners of my living room.
 
When I first started recording vocals, I would set up in the master bedroom. A double wide closet filled with clothes provided good damping. I stood in front of the closet with the mic pointing at me and the clothes. I had no flutter or echo problems. Vocals generally have no serious low frequency issues, but building the bass traps out of Roxul would absorb mid and high reflections as well as low ones.

If you want to hear your flutter issues, set up your mic and do some good handclaps. You'll both hear and see the flutter that you ignore when you're just standing in a room talking or singing. It will also tell you if the blanket/duvet treatment is working.
 
I'm thinking of getting some duvets and moving blankets. I don't think the velvet fabric will be very good..

The idea is to reduce high frequency reflections/"flutter" echoes, esp off ceiling and close walls so just about anything winter blanket/packing blanket density will work
 
The idea is to reduce high frequency reflections/"flutter" echoes, esp off ceiling and close walls so just about anything winter blanket/packing blanket density will work

But there's more to it than density, right? I've heard that fluffy and thick materials can be good too - so that the sound supposedly enters but then barely escapes the material. I've also heard that "glossy" and very even materials should be avoided.

It might be one of those things though where there's a lot of "good ways" to do this.
But I think I'll try first with duvets+thick blankets+eventually moving blankets, and see how it sounds like in the vocal booth.
 
But there's more to it than density, right? I've heard that fluffy and thick materials can be good too - so that the sound supposedly enters but then barely escapes the material. I've also heard that "glossy" and very even materials should be avoided.

It might be one of those things though where there's a lot of "good ways" to do this.
But I think I'll try first with duvets+thick blankets+eventually moving blankets, and see how it sounds like in the vocal booth.

What escapes doesn't matter as much as what enters, which was my point. The upper register frequency components have to leave the "booth" through blankets, bounce of the ceiling/walls and return through the blanket again to enter the microphone. Heavy blanket density is enough to reduce the energy both ways to the point where it's inconsequential to the mic input compared to the performer and keeps the comb filtering that causes sonic issues by essentially getting rid of the reflections
 
I also had traps on front, side and rear walls and a 2" cloud above me.

What escapes doesn't matter as much as what enters, which was my point. The upper register frequency components have to leave the "booth" through blankets, bounce of the ceiling/walls and return through the blanket again to enter the microphone. ...

Will the setup with a booth be a good recording environment for recording acoustic guitar too? That is: I'm sitting inside the booth(with the front open/clear) playing guitar, whilst recording this?
 
Will the setup with a booth be a good recording environment for recording acoustic guitar too? That is: I'm sitting inside the booth(with the front open/clear) playing guitar, whilst recording this?

Sure, why not? Although sitting down the mic placement is usually far enough from the ceiling to not pick up much anyway.
 
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