Plans for a small Isolation booth??

[Fmmahoganyrush]

I'm probably going to be building a small isolation booth that I want suitable for vox and for micing guitars. Not too big, and it will be constructed in the corner of the room (most likely). I'm looking for specs on walls. floors, ceiling, window, door, hardware, the whole deal and I'm looking to make it around ~5'w x ~6'l and probably around 6.5'h exterior dimensions. Due to where it's going, It'll most likely be a stand0alone unit not necessarily connected to the walls, floors, or ceiling of the structure (possibly on retractable casters/wheels in case I want to move it around the room for whatever reason (don't ask.. I'm just silly like that). Any links to a "how to" page somewhere on the net? I did a search and didn't come up with much. Frame construction can be either wood or metal as I have a welder (if that helps) Any help would be greatly appreciated!

...and no, I'm not planning on dumping a V-8 into it and a 4:10 Dana on the rear casters to take to the track on weekends


Tom.

 

[alien]

As far as the walls, I have done two things in the past:

#1) Super compress two layers of R11 in the walls. Line the ceiling with a layer of burlap and then "egg crate" foam.

#2) Surprisingly, this one worked out like an absolute charm! Layers as many of the acoustic tiles the (type used in dropped ceilings) as you can inside the walls. The guy who built this one, fired a 22 blank inside the isoltaed room. Niether did we nor the mics we had placed at the outside of the walls hear it. I was amazed!
It was the idea of a guy who had never seen a studio much less an isolation room, but I'll be darned if it doesn't work.

The biggest problem with isolation areas is temperature control inside. A fan is a no no because of the sound. One out of the two I mentioned above had this done:

They took the register off of the ceiling nearest the booth. The attatched flex ducting. above every 24" they cut and installed two air fitlers back to back inverting the air flow of each. I think they had three filters points before entry into the room which was covered by a good layer of cheese cloth.

You couldn't feelor hear the air, but there was just enough to keep it at a comfortable temp.

 

[PsyCoNo]

Walls - It all depends on how much you are concerned about isolating the inside of the room from the outside. Stud spacing should be staggered (use wood). Apply 5/8" gypsum board in layers, the more mass there is on the wall the better it is for increasing transmission loss. However, apply a different amount/thickness of gypsum board to each side to allow both to resonate at different frequencies. You don't want them to both resonate at the same frequency because, if they do, that resonant frequency will be magnified. Use a strip of rubber material between the gypsum boards and studs, this will also help to prevent resonance. In between the two layers of drywall use thermofiber, or normal building insulation. Seal all edges with an acoustical sealant (non hardening). When installing the gypsum board, leave a 1/4" from the floor and another 1/4" from the ceiling. Fill these in with acoustical sealant. You can put acoustic treatment on the inside such as either Auralex (expensive) or moving blankets (cheap). However, this only takes care of high frequency transmission and something in terms of bass traps will be necessary as well.

Doors- do NOT use hollow-core household doors or even solid-core household doors. These are VERY leaky in terms of sound escaping and entering. Of both however, the solid-core with weather stripping would be best. Metal doors are made for this type of thing and would provide alot less leak. Get one with a high surface density.

Floor- a simple floating floor would probably work well. Place a layer of compressed glass fiber down first. Lay the strapping over this. Follow this with two layers of gypsum board and then finally your finish floor. The floor should be separated from the walls by glass fiber. If you are using trim around the bottom mount it up from the floor and caulk underneath.

Ceiling- look into resilient hangers. glass fiber and then two layers of 5/8" gypsum board.

Observation Window- two sheets of glass work best. Isolate them from the frame by rubber strips. Two different sizes of glass work best. Try 1/4" and 1/2" float glass.

I hope this helps.

 

[c7sus]

Tom, I got your PM yesterday.

I've been trying to formulate some kind of intelligent answer.

I don't have any really useable drawings. Everything I did I got from Sayers sites.

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

There's a lot of good material under the "Acoustics" and "Absorbers" links.

http://johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

I scaled these out to fit my needs, and built them to be somewhat "pretty" since they're in my living room.

Look into the slot resonators too because if you treat entirely with 703 it will suck all the highs out. The key is to find a balance of absorbtion and reflection that gets you down to less than a half-second of decay across the entire audio spectrum.

I wish you had mentioned this stuff while I was back there because I could have done some quick drawings and I had some pics with me too of my stuff being built.

Because my floors are carpeted I got away without casters. WATCO wax is slippery stuff.

I've got a partial roll of film here from the Jamfest so I'll finish it off with pics of the gobos as soon as I get the worktable out of here, hopefully today.

 

[TexRoadkill]

Why do you need a full iso booth? Is ambient noise the issue? If you are just looking for a more dead sound you can make a few simple gobos and play into them with the mic between the gobo's and performer.

I've just been using some 2'x4' 703 panels with simple 1"x frames and they work great for controlling room relfections on vox and guits.

 

[Fmmahoganyrush]

Why do you need a full iso booth? Is ambient noise the issue? If you are just looking for a more dead sound you can make a few simple gobos and play into them with the mic between the gobo's and performer.

Since I do all my stuff on a PC, the biggest problem I run into is the cooling fans on the towers getting picked by the condensor mic. I figure, considering I got the "OK" from the wife to do an iso-booth out in the soon-to-be studio space, I better jump on it. I'll probably be building it in a corner of the room, but I would like to be able to move it if needed so I'm gonna go with a "stand-alone" unit that can be rolled or slid around to accomodate if needed. Moveable panels aren't out of the question, but they HAVE to be able to handle the damn tower fan noise. Other ambient noise isn't really a problem out there.

I've just been using some 2'x4' 703 panels with simple 1"x frames and they work great for controlling room relfections on vox and guits.

Do you do PC based stuff and does this set-up get rid of the pesky fan noise? There will probably be a couple of PC's running out there once I get the place up and running.

 

[LAZI]

I still think some you studio construction guys should put your heads together and work out a solid plan for a homerecording.com DYI iso booth. Make one long tread covering all the basic crap so anybody interested could take a look and come up with a plan to suite thier needs. Just something anybody could build... Something that will actually work with materials that make sense but sn't cost alot... It's always somebody who wants to build one so it's definitly not a waste of time. Hell if I knew anything about this stuff i'd get it started.

What happend the the guy who sadi he would post the plans to his box?

Anyway...

 

[ausrock]

Tom,

Virtually all the information you need is amongst the John Sayer's Tutorials on the SAE site...........it is just a matter of culling out what will apply to your specific situation and needs.

Chances are that I will be doing a similar thing in the near future. It too will be built in an existing corner, consequently, the first thing I will be doing is increasing the mass of the existing walls adjacent to the proposed booth location. Also do the same to the ceiling area above. Firstly I have to build the floor section, then I will then build and position the two wall frames which run parallel to the existing walls......these should only need 3" or 4" wide plates and studs (I'll refer to these as the back walls).

The front walls will house the doors and window and will have to be constructed as either two seperate wall sections (inner and outer) OR as a staggered stud frame using a 6" X 2" as the top and bottom plates. The seperate frame is preferable for me as I can attach the front outer frames to the existing wall (back section) and have the inner walls and ceiling almost completely isolated. Basically, a room within a room.

Final lining/sheeting has yet to be decided upon.

Hope that made some sense

ChrisO

 

[TexRoadkill]

Do you do PC based stuff and does this set-up get rid of the pesky fan noise? There will probably be a couple of PC's running out there once I get the place up and running.

No but my Radar is built in a PC chassis and the fan noise is on the quiet PC side. It's rack mounted face up and I cover the top to reduce the noise. You could consider building an isolation box for the PC. There are also fans that are quieter than others.

I'm not trying to discourage you from building an iso booth if you want one. They can be cool for vocals but sometimes other stuff can be too dead sounding.