Iso booth - No good. A warning to all building vocal booths.

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pure.fusion

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Hi all.

I seemed pretty excited about by booth pictured here...

https://homerecording.com/bbs/gener...g-display/new-iso-booth-no-more-noise-310324/

... and I guess I can't complain 'cause it did stop a heap of noise and the material was free.

But only now, in this late hour, do I realise that it really isn't much use :(

I've had some time with the booth, amp and guitar now. Until recently I've been using a single SM57 in a close-mic arrangement for recording my amp. Sounds ok.

Then i followed up on some advice by using a room mic; a condenser mic thrown in the room a few meters away. I tested in my "control room" first (which has been treated) and got really good results :D The guitar sound was a bit fuller with a really nice natural acoustic to it; not like adding reverb or echo. Having heard this, I just can't go back.

The same in the ISO booth just gives shit sound :( It gives a really tight echo that makes it sound like it's being recorded in vacuum hose.

...I can hear all the experienced people her - "we told you so" :rolleyes: I beleive Miroslav was right on the money here suspecting not-so-great results. Ahhh well, at least I've heard it first hand for myself.

So, unless there is more hidden acoustic magic somewhere, I can't imagine recording vocals in a vocal booth like the size and shape of my iso booth. It would sound shocking for sure with those dimensions.

My experiment only cost me labour and time but I would have been a bit angry if i'd paid for this. MAKE SURE that you've done your homework before you build a vocal booth!

.. i guess I can crank it up and practice at volume with the amp in the iso booth. I'll just bring it out for recording the final tracks.

Hope this helps someone.

Cheers,
FM
 
Yeah, yeah. I know.

On the lighter side of the news, I just made my cleanest recording to date. So it can't be all too bad!

I wonder how it stacks up to a "real" studio.....

FM
 
I think that's flutter echo, keep going mate, treat that room and I'd bet it becomes very usable.
 
Isn't that an open backed amp? If so, you have as much sound coming out of the back and bouncing directly off of the bricks as you have coming out the front. An interesting experiment would be turning it around and putting the back of it close to one of the insulated walls.
 
Try treating the room, if the original pics are the way it still is, its seems like you'd have a ton of reflection, Id also. The 4 inch traps will probably make the room tiny, Id try some 2" traps and definitely get some traps in the corners
 
Hmmmm. The big gamble.... :confused:

It has been suggested in this forum that treating such a small room will *still* only give you a boxy sound, even though you might have a flatter response 'cause you put bass traps in and no flutter 'cause you treated the reflections.

More money invested in that hidiously expensive acoustic insulation may only mean the difference between a echo-ey boxy sound and a well treated boxy sound :(

Oh, I dunno :drunk:

FM
 
In fact (he says, refreshing his memory by reading throught the previous thread) Sky Blue Lou suggested not treating the box, but instead to place gobo around the mic/amp to stop reflections.

But If I use the close-mic and room-mic technique with the gobo in that iso box, I have doubts that it will sound as sweet as it does in my "blue room"...

:drunk::o:drunk:

FM
 
pure.fusion said:
In fact (he says, refreshing his memory by reading throught the previous thread) Sky Blue Lou suggested not treating the box, but instead to place gobo around the mic/amp to stop reflections.
Click to expand...
Hey wait a minute, Bub. Just 'cause I said it doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about.

But it's worth a try and you can always use a gobo somewhere else.


lou
 
Understood. I appreciate the input anyway. It get the mind thinking about the problem.

I have Gobo that I can move in there. it's actually the easiest thing to try at this stage.

FM
 
For God's sake, lose the little dancing robot. VERY distracting.
 
Oooooh. I thought he was cute. Besides, he dances like me!

I'll see what I can do.....

FM
 
Some samples. A rush job unfortunately, but you get the idea.

Dual mic box test by Fusionman on SoundCloud

Two sets of four samples, each of the four having the following description:
1-Source mic only in iso booth
2.Source mic and room mic in iso booth
3-Source mic only in treated room
4.Source mic and room mic in treated room

Source mic is an SM57, room mic is a Rode NT1A (Yes, i know it's not the one pictured)

If I had any brains I would have played the same thing on each test :eek:
But for same amp settings and source mic settings (Exactly the same) the samples sound way different not even counting the room mic.

I think the box is cooked....

The two scenarios pictured below.
Mic_Box.webp

Mic_Studio.webp

FM
 
Actually, you should ignore the above. One sample was taken with 30ft leads, the other 5ft leads so it's not exactly an even test.

Do you think the leads could make that much difference in the sound?

FM
 
The quality might, don't think the length will do too much.
 
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