How much foam in a vocal booth?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Diffusion
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Diffusion

Future Astrophysicist
Im building a vocal booth in my room, and i need to know how much foam or fiberglass to put up on the walls and roof. The booth will be 4' long on each side (a perimeter of 16 ft) and will be 8' high. Im not sure if I should cover the entire walls with foam and the roof or just two walls or each wall with a checkered pattern or what... I want to absorb sound, not completely muffle it... also, will this work as an alternative for auralex or rigid fiberglass?
http://www.foambymail.com/Pyramid.html
 
Foam absorbs higher frequencies much more effectively than low frequencies, so your vocal booth is going to sound a little bassier than you'd desire for recording anything but tubas.

Going to be recording tuba players? No, didn't think so.

In that case, spending a little bit of money to do it correctly by building a basic broadband absorber (rigid fiberglass, enclosed in fabric) would be a much better investment of your time and money. You want to dampen reflections fairly equally across the acoustical spectrum, and foam's not going to do it.
 
Good advice above.

You want the vocal booth pretty dead. Also, you'd be surprised how far down the voice can go.

Use a combination of 2-3" rigid 3lb board and some thicker, less dense fiberglass for a good broadband absorbant space.
 
Guys what's that rigid fibre glass you always refer to. Is it the same thing they use for building insulation or what?
 
no its not the same...

so in a vocal booth should I cover the entire walls and roof in fiberglass or just a portion of it?
 
Usually, rigid fiberglass is a reference to Owens Corning 703 or 705 fiberglass. There's a Johns Manville series (815 or 817?), too. Then there's rockwool and mineral wool, which essentially perform the same function of sound absorbing.

You may want to consider the dimensions. Here's a link to Ethan Winers room calculator called modecalc. Check out the section called Room Ratios, too.

http://www.realtraps.com/modecalc.htm
 
In a vocal booth, you really want it pretty dead. I'd do basically the whole thing but use a mix of materials.
 
Diffusion said:
also, will this work as an alternative for auralex or rigid fiberglass?
http://www.foambymail.com/Pyramid.html
Click to expand...
I would be wary of any company calling this 'sound proofing foam'. Foam is not the way to soundproof anything. If the company selling the stuff doesn't know the difference between acoustic treatment and soundproofing, you can't believe anything else they tell you.
 
I'm using a combination of foam and rigid fiberglass and like it much better than when I had all foam.
 
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