Acoustic Problems

[track pusha]

Hey everybody, I have a couple questions about acoustucs.
In a couple of months i'm going be movin, and seting up my studio. I want to record vocals, and was wondering would it be a good idea to cover my walls in acoustic foam. I was going to just build a 5 by 8 booth and put foam in it, but I heard that, That the vocals would come out muffled because the space would be to small.(is this true) If I just covered the whole room i'm tracking in with foam, and use a noise gate. Would this be better for the vocals.

 

[track pusha]

nobody knows

 

[Mind Riot]

nobody knows

5' by 8' isn't very big. Is vocals strictly going to be the only thing you do in this room?

If you're actually going to be building this small room just for vocals, may I ask why you're doing that? Is it for isolation, or what? Because if you're going to be using a room in your house for mixing and recording other things it would probably be cheaper and more effective to just acoustically treat your music room instead of building a whole other tiny room just for vocals. But acoustically treating a room involves more than just foam on the walls. Specifically, bass trapping is a chief concern.

But to strictly answer your question, covering the whole room in Auralex foam will knock down standing waves but won't do anything for lower frequencies. I'm not sure how much lower frequencies you'd be dealing with with vocals, but I need some more info before I go further.

 

[track pusha]

Mind riot, I just want to stop all the reflections and echos i'm getting. That's a big problem for me in the house i'm in now. I don't really need it to be sound proof because i doubt that noise from the other room will be picked up, and it's super quiet where i'm moving. I just want to get a nice flat clear vocal when i record. Also I recently heard that recording vocals in a small area with foam, will absorb all the highs and mids and you'll just get a muddy bassy sound is this true?

 

[Mind Riot]

Mind riot, I just want to stop all the reflections and echos i'm getting. That's a big problem for me in the house i'm in now. I don't really need it to be sound proof because i doubt that noise from the other room will be picked up, and it's super quiet where i'm moving. I just want to get a nice flat clear vocal when i record. Also I recently heard that recording vocals in a small area with foam, will absorb all the highs and mids and you'll just get a muddy bassy sound is this true?

Yeah that's true, although there's only so much bass in a voice. But yeah, if you just use foam with no bass traps then your bass frequencies will still be bouncing around the space and it'll give you a muddy, boomy sound.

The good news is that acoustically treating your room will probably be cheaper than building a vocal booth.

First off, bass trapping is key. I know the flutter echoes can be more obvious at first but bass trapping is really important.

Of course, if all you're doing is recording vocals (and I mean that's ALL you're doing, meaning no mixing or monitoring or ANYTHING), then you could probably just get or make some acoustic absorption panels and surround your self with them, thus making a sort of vocal booth. But if you're going to be mixing or recording anything else in the room, then you should acoustically treat it.

 

[track pusha]

So what should i do or buy to prevent the muddy bassy sound, but stop the echos and reflections. Btw I'm recording rap vocals.

 

[crankz1]

So what should i do or buy to prevent the muddy bassy sound, but stop the echos and reflections. Btw I'm recording rap vocals.

Treat your space with some rigid fiberglass. Specially the corners.

 

[Mind Riot]

Ethan Winer wrote an excellent article on acoustics, he's been a real help to a lot of people including me. Check it out, it has tons of information you need.

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

 

[track pusha]

Ok thanks guys

 

[track pusha]

Treat your space with some rigid fiberglass. Specially the corners.

So I should just buy rigid fiber glass and apply them to the walls in my space. Sorry for the lack of knowledge, I'm really new to this.

 

[Mind Riot]

So I should just buy rigid fiber glass and apply them to the walls in my space. Sorry for the lack of knowledge, I'm really new to this.

What you want to do with the rigid fiberglass is place it so it spans the corners of the room. The fiberglass panels should be touching both the walls, so there's a triangular air space behind them. Even though I can't space this correctly, you get the idea. |_\

 

[track pusha]

What you want to do with the rigid fiberglass is place it so it spans the corners of the room. The fiberglass panels should be touching both the walls, so there's a triangular air space behind them. Even though I can't space this correctly, you get the idea. |_\

like this
http://www.auralex.com/gallery/images/sofl_2.jpg

 

[Mind Riot]

No, like this. The one on the top. Mine are covered in plastic, but fabric would be better. Actually, I believe it would be better to turn them on end and have them cover more corner. See what I mean now?

 

[track pusha]

Ok I did some more reading, and I think I'm starting to understand more. I should have bass traps in the coner of my booth, Difussers on the ceiling and acoustic foam in the middle of the walls.

 

[hookiefree]

I'm not the expert here but...

You might as well use rigid fiberglass (4lb dens) instead of foam TP. Just make sure you have a couple inches of space behind them. I'm curious MR as to why you didn't just layer those two panels closest to the floor together and sit them in the corner? You might get better trapping with airspace behind the panel.

 

[Mind Riot]

You might as well use rigid fiberglass (4lb dens) instead of foam TP. Just make sure you have a couple inches of space behind them. I'm curious MR as to why you didn't just layer those two panels closest to the floor together and sit them in the corner? You might get better trapping with airspace behind the panel.

This guy's right, rigid fiberglass is the best bang for the buck by far for acoustic absorption. Just get some 2" fiberglass, wrap it in fabric, and hang it on the walls, it'll perform better than foam.

It's hard to see by the picture, but my electronic drum set uses a 14" snare in a stand that I built for the bass drum. The trick is that it'll walk across the floor as I play, so I face the set into the corner which also maximizes the space in the room. But the stand is in the corner with some books buttressing it, so I can't put anything on the floor right there. I have bass traps in three of the ceiling corners and two of the floor corners, which is all I can fit in the room.