Hart
New member
Some of you have been curious how my attempt at a VO booth build has been going. I'm very happy to say it's finally nearing completion and in workable order.
My goals were to create a very dead space for my voice over work and achieve a decent degree of isolation. Enough so that the standard household sounds wouldn't be an issue.
There are still some tweaks that need to be done to the booth so I'm still playing with my mix of reflective and absorbative (is that a word?) surfaces. At the moment I've placed Auralex on all the walls and the ceiling but the floor is reflective.
As you will see in the pictures the booth is diamond shaped. The back walls are 4 feet each, the two short walls are approximately 2 feet and the front wall with the door is approximately 4 feet. It's a bit small I know, but it's all the space I could take up.
Here's a few pics of the build:
The outline for the walls.
Framing, gypsum board on the inside and MDF on the outside all added.
Now with Auralex goodness
The isolation of the walls is amazing. The door still needs some work. Too much sound coming in around the edges. It's not bad, but nowhere near as good as the walls. Nevertheless, my wife can now type on her computer in the same room without disturbing my recordings.
I still have to install the ventilation. It's a work in progress in my garage at the moment.
I also need to add a real floor as some point. Lowe's has some parquet floor at a very good price that I might use and then add a rug. Or I may just carpet it. I haven't decided yet, I want to play with the sound some more first. I'd rather have the look of the wood floor but we'll see.
I'll pretty up the outside too. My wife wants me to put beadboard on it. I'm not really keen on the stuff but I may give in on this one.
Also, I need better lighting. I have a floor lamp I'm going to try first. If that doesn't work then I'll add some low wattage track lighting and maybe a light attached to the copy stand I'm building.
And finally, I plan on adding an LCD monitor, mouse and keyboard so I can control my DAW from the booth and read copy without having to print it out. Plus that will help the lighting situation some.
The work continues but I am so glad I've finally got it almost done.
Was it worth it? Hmmm. I haven't added up the exact costs in a while but I've spent around $1300.00 to date. I budgeted $1800 and still have a few things to add (like the lcd monitor) but I got lucky and shaved a bunch off my budget by buying used Auralex. And that doesn't account for who knows how many manhours put into it.
My wife says that when we move (I hope it's a good long time away) she wants me to buy a prebuilt and save the headaches and cussing for other projects. We'll see. I know this, the next house we buy had better have room to do something bigger. I'd love this to be around the lines of 5 x 8 or so. Plus a four walled enclosure would be much easier to build.
Why did I go with Auralex instead of rigid fiberglass or mineral wool? Honestly it's because I like the look. It helps get my creative juices flowing. I've got a lot of left over foam as noted in another post. I've tacked some of it up around my work area for now but I'll be replacing that with bass traps, and panels etc. made from ridgid fiberglass or mineral wool at some point. Need some more work to come in before I start on that project though.
I'm sure there are things I did "wrong" and things I did "right" on this build. I think I got enough "right" though since overall I'm very pleased with the outcome.
My goals were to create a very dead space for my voice over work and achieve a decent degree of isolation. Enough so that the standard household sounds wouldn't be an issue.
There are still some tweaks that need to be done to the booth so I'm still playing with my mix of reflective and absorbative (is that a word?) surfaces. At the moment I've placed Auralex on all the walls and the ceiling but the floor is reflective.
As you will see in the pictures the booth is diamond shaped. The back walls are 4 feet each, the two short walls are approximately 2 feet and the front wall with the door is approximately 4 feet. It's a bit small I know, but it's all the space I could take up.
Here's a few pics of the build:
The outline for the walls.
Framing, gypsum board on the inside and MDF on the outside all added.
Now with Auralex goodness
The isolation of the walls is amazing. The door still needs some work. Too much sound coming in around the edges. It's not bad, but nowhere near as good as the walls. Nevertheless, my wife can now type on her computer in the same room without disturbing my recordings.
I still have to install the ventilation. It's a work in progress in my garage at the moment.
I also need to add a real floor as some point. Lowe's has some parquet floor at a very good price that I might use and then add a rug. Or I may just carpet it. I haven't decided yet, I want to play with the sound some more first. I'd rather have the look of the wood floor but we'll see.
I'll pretty up the outside too. My wife wants me to put beadboard on it. I'm not really keen on the stuff but I may give in on this one.
Also, I need better lighting. I have a floor lamp I'm going to try first. If that doesn't work then I'll add some low wattage track lighting and maybe a light attached to the copy stand I'm building.
And finally, I plan on adding an LCD monitor, mouse and keyboard so I can control my DAW from the booth and read copy without having to print it out. Plus that will help the lighting situation some.
The work continues but I am so glad I've finally got it almost done.
Was it worth it? Hmmm. I haven't added up the exact costs in a while but I've spent around $1300.00 to date. I budgeted $1800 and still have a few things to add (like the lcd monitor) but I got lucky and shaved a bunch off my budget by buying used Auralex. And that doesn't account for who knows how many manhours put into it.
My wife says that when we move (I hope it's a good long time away) she wants me to buy a prebuilt and save the headaches and cussing for other projects. We'll see. I know this, the next house we buy had better have room to do something bigger. I'd love this to be around the lines of 5 x 8 or so. Plus a four walled enclosure would be much easier to build.
Why did I go with Auralex instead of rigid fiberglass or mineral wool? Honestly it's because I like the look. It helps get my creative juices flowing. I've got a lot of left over foam as noted in another post. I've tacked some of it up around my work area for now but I'll be replacing that with bass traps, and panels etc. made from ridgid fiberglass or mineral wool at some point. Need some more work to come in before I start on that project though.
I'm sure there are things I did "wrong" and things I did "right" on this build. I think I got enough "right" though since overall I'm very pleased with the outcome.
