iS A VOCAL BOOTH WORTH IT??

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the dude

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I recently moved and have an extra walk in closet. Dimensions are 3.5 ft wide by 7-8ft. long. I was thinkin of putting some foam (egg crates are what they are called, I believe) all over the place and creating a vocal booth. My question is: is this really worth it? We, my bandmates and I, have always just recorded vox in an open room. I DO notice though, in one song in particular, there is kind of a pickup into a huge chorus where the main vox say 2 words and they are ALL ALONE. There is an air about them that I think is directly linked to the fact that they were recorded in an open room and not a smaller, somewhat soundproofed room. Let me know what y;all think. I would appreciate it! If anyone has done the same thing (turned a closet into a vocal booth) gimme som tips! thanks all!!! peace out! the dude.
 
Those egg crate foam bed pads won't be worth using, they are not made for deadening sound.

If you used real studio foam insulation, it'd probably be worth setting it up as a vocal booth.
 
cool, thanks man, I have seen people using them and thought they'd work okay, just to insulate the sound and keep it from bouncing all around. any idea how much real studio stuff costs? thanks again.
 
randyfromde said:
Those egg crate foam bed pads won't be worth using, they are not made for deadening sound.

If you used real studio foam insulation, it'd probably be worth setting it up as a vocal booth.
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True.

The Dude,

Try going to U-Haul, or Ryder, or someplace similar, and see if you can buy some moving blankets. They are heavy, and very dense, which is the key here. The egg crates stuff for your bed is just too lightweight and porus.

Vocal booth in a closet is a great way to go, IMO, if you've got an extra one, I'm sure many have done it. I do it in my main closet, much to my wife's dismay. ;)

Also, check out the home studio forum here, too, they have a lot of great ideas for stuff there.

-Speedy
 
I was thinking of thick blankets, like comforters. Thanks Speedy! My girl doesnt like it too much, but it is an extra closet and it is better than a huge box sitting in the bedroom! thanks man!
 
Vocal reflections are pretty easy to tame. If you want to do it on the cheap and have it work well then a few OC703 rigid fiberglass panels are the way to go. You can get them from commercial insulation places for about $8 each and they will completely absorb the vocal range.

I've been using them for the last few months and a semi circle of them in front of the vocalist about a foot away will give you a completely dead vocal sound. Check out the studio construction forum and search on 'panel' for some ideas on cool ways to mount them.
 
Speedy VonTrapp said:
True.

The Dude,

Try going to U-Haul, or Ryder, or someplace similar, and see if you can buy some moving blankets. They are heavy, and very dense, which is the key here. The egg crates stuff for your bed is just too lightweight and porus.


-Speedy
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Look on http://markertek.com/ They have something called the Markertek Jumbo Sound Absorption Blankets. They go for $19.99 each. However, I wouldn't totally "kill" (as in make completely dead) the vocal booth

You may also want to check out http://johnlsayers.com/ John's site is very very very cool. You will find everything you ever wanted to know regarding studio construction their.
 
Simman said:
Look on http://markertek.com/ They have something called the Markertek Jumbo Sound Absorption Blankets. They go for $19.99 each. However, I wouldn't totally "kill" (as in make completely dead) the vocal booth

You may also want to check out http://johnlsayers.com/ John's site is very very very cool. You will find everything you ever wanted to know regarding studio construction their.
Click to expand...


Yes definitely check out John's forum... he's A-OK!! If you send him all the dimentions you have he would probably even be willing to post a schematic of what you should do... the guy is awsome!


- Tanlith -
 
side street vendor tapestries

one of the best sounding vocal booths i helped make was on where we basically wrapped a 8x10' rug around the walls from some side street vender he picked up down at the beach. the only problem is that if you stay in there long enough the room will hold in heat and it starts to get stuffy....if you do decide to go with blankets, vacuum them fools when you vacuum the house too!
 
i guess i'm just playing devil's advocate here, but putting ONLY blankets or "acoustic" foam up on all walls would do nothing but absorb high frequencies, causing your sound to get either too midrangy (is that a real word?) or boomy, depending on your exact application. What i would suggest is to get yourself some foam, key word here SOME and put it up to help with reflections, then get yourself some diffusors and bass traps. This would allow you to have a much more smooth, open, and tame sound. You can find all this stuff on musicians friend...or try checking out john sayers' site www.johnlsayers.com
God Bless,
Bryan
 
Bryaxis said:
i guess i'm just playing devil's advocate here, but putting ONLY blankets or "acoustic" foam up on all walls would do nothing but absorb high frequencies, causing your sound to get either too midrangy (is that a real word?) or boomy, depending on your exact application. What i would suggest is to get yourself some foam, key word here SOME and put it up to help with reflections, then get yourself some diffusors and bass traps. This would allow you to have a much more smooth, open, and tame sound. You can find all this stuff on musicians friend...or try checking out john sayers' site www.johnlsayers.com
God Bless,
Bryan
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Yep... exactly right... why do something half assed?

I guess the best answer to the question "Is a vocal booth worth it?" would be "Yes! IF you're going to take the time & effort to do it right.

Visit John Sayers' site and ask him... and if you want to venture out on your own and try some ideas, why not just visit some professional studio web sides and look at the pictures of their ISO booths? The pics alone will give you a general idea of proper acoustical treatment. And is I'm not mistaken proper foam isn't really all that expensive.

As for the old "egg carton" myth: here's a simple test you can do yourself... spend $35.00 and buy a 4x8 sheet of proper foam (key-word... "proper" - not the "bumpy" foam you buy at Wallmart...) Hold it up between you and a friend... have him talk in a normal voice... now hold up a bunch of egg cartons taped together and have him talk in a normal voice... try it again with a piece of carpet and again with blankets .... then switch back to the foam and you'll hear WHY the pro's use it.

You can usually treat an ISO booth for just under $100.00 ... you'll spend WAY more than that on eggs before you get enough cartons to make any effective change in the room's sound.

- Tanlith -
 
why do you need bass traps for a vocal booth. do vocals actually produce frequency response that low that you should worry about bass traps?

i know about proximity effect regarding closeness to the microphone but i thought that was due to the microphones pattern and not to the room.

i'll be building a vocal booth once my house is done.
 
that's true, i guess i was just going over the "Motions" of building a regular "dead room". I wouldn't worry so much about a bass trap in a vocal booth..IF that's the ONLY thing you'll be using it for. Okay okay..you could get by doing acoustic guitar in there without one as well..but if you're gonna do any kind of percussion, bass, guitar amps..i'd put one in. Good luck with your studio!
God Bless,
Bryan
 
I'm believe, and I may be wrong, that the design should be somewhat modular and include bass traps etc...

Lemme explain a bit. Some people have more bass in their voice than others and some people naturally project much stronger. See where I'm going? If you're designing the booth for one person, then design it for their voice... otherwise, try to design the acoustic treatments in such a way that you can change it to suit the current person and or project...

Instead of mounting the foam and traps permanently, why not use velcro or something else that will allow for a quick change? This would allow for a much more versitile acoutic environment to work in.

- Tanlith -
 
yup, i use moving pads, odd pieces of foam, blankets etc, looks like hell at times, gets the job done, and saves a few bucks...

placement and arrangement are the key/trick ;)
 
This will seem like a dumb question, but what is the reason for a vocal booth? Can someone post clips to show how vocals tracks were improved with the use of such a booth? My latest idea was the opposite - to do some experiments recording different instruments in a nice performance hall and see if I get an improvement in recordings. I haven't done any yet, but hopefully soon. However, if my thinking is flawed, maybe you can save me the trouble moving all that equipment. Thanks.
 
I just got finished creating a recording studio in my basement and put up a small vocal booth 4' x 4' with an exterior 9-light door. I was at the end of my budget, so I went on the cheap, but saw this as a must-have. The construction was merely framing, w/ 3/4" subflooring as the interior walls and drywall for the exterior. I used an acoustic adhesive (much better than the sheeting you can buy, IMHO, and easier to work with) to contain the sound between the booth and the larger room. The interior of the booth was deadened with my last panel of 2" fiberboard insulation cut & friction-fitted between the framing, though it may require some acoustic shaping after that (which is why I save every piece of the dense, egg-crate foam that computer equipment, etc comes packaged with). The foamboard is pink, but I'm covering it with fabric soon to keep looking as nice as the rest of the new construction. I also drilled a 1-3/4" hole in the bottom of the wall and lined it with foam pipe insulation. Now I can run instrument cables, headphone cable and mic cables into the room with little-to-no loss of isolation.

Anyway, to your point, I don't really have before and after samples of the sound quality, but I'll give you the reason it was a must-have for me. I do computer-based recording and have some high-quality condenser and cardiod mics. They constantly picked-up the computer fan sounds, etc. I also had a few great takes ruined when I moved in the chair and a loud squeak came over the mics. That has yet to be duplicated with the new iso-booth. Plus, it wasn't spending tons o'money to build it. It took about 2 hours to construct it (not including drywall finishing and painting).

I hope that adds something worthwhile to this thread.

Craig
 
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