Room Acoustics Question

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JonPaulP

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OK, so I've been trying to decide if I should keep my little studio in a spare room or in the living room.

When I clap my hands in the spare room, the sound that comes out is a little stale, I suppose. The reverb doesn't sound very nice.

When I clap my hands in the living room, the reverb is slightly longer, but there isn't a harsh feeling as in the other room.

I thought the smallest room would've been the best since it simulates a vocal booth the most, but I'm not so sure.

What do you think?
 
The largest space is almost always the best. "Simulating a vocal booth" isn't what you (anyone) should strive for...

If you want a tight, controlled space, using a tight, controlled large room is almost universally superior to using a small room.

A typical vocal booth in a studio (which you'll notice, is constructed in a fashion absolutely nothing like a room in a home) is a "this is the best we can do in this situation" thing. I don't think I've ever been in a studio where they said "Okay, we're going to cut vocals now - Go jump in that tiny little closet over there" -- Unless the booth was a "BOOTH" (12x15 with a 10' ceiling or what not). But the "vocal closets" (for lack of a better term) are used for scratch vocals and shooting video.

And in any case, a room that's not reasonably treated for the purpose is going to run you sideways. Broadband trapping, lots of it, can't really go wrong. Better to pull the drywall off in a room and fill the studs with OC703 than to throw foam all over the walls (which actually makes matters worse in many cases).
 
Ethan Winer posted this nice link over in the Studio Construction forum (which is probably where this thread should move to - and I just might do that soon).

http://www.realtraps.com/art_booth.htm

It changed my thoughts for what I'm doing in my room.

peace.
 
Thank you both for the responses! Out of curiousity, I took a small recorder to compare the sounds from the living room and the room and my suspicions were correct - the small room gave a slight muffled/nasally sounding resonance to vocals. I wonder if this was the problem all along.

Massive Master, thanks for the insight. With all the talk about singing in closets and what not, it's certainly good to find out that the largest space is almost always the best.

Chili, thanks for that link. After seeing that picture of the orchestra in that ordinary-looking, seemingly untreated room, it gives me hope that my living room would produce the sound I'm looking for.
 
Massive Master said:
A typical vocal booth in a studio (which you'll notice, is constructed in a fashion absolutely nothing like a room in a home) is a "this is the best we can do in this situation" thing. I don't think I've ever been in a studio where they said "Okay, we're going to cut vocals now - Go jump in that tiny little closet over there" -- Unless the booth was a "BOOTH" (12x15 with a 10' ceiling or what not). But the "vocal closets" (for lack of a better term) are used for scratch vocals and shooting video.
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The rare exception being those Big Box studios that have large, excellent-sounding plate rooms or reverb chambers to which they feed the signal from the vocal booth and in which they actually place the recording microphone. But in those cases, it's not the sound of the vocal booth actually being recorded.

And even then, yeah, the "booth" is usually more of an oversized walk-in closet than a telephone booth (hmmm...do half of the readers these days even know what a telephone booth is any more?)

G.
 
There was a cool movie a few years ago with - uh... I can't remember his name. But he was being "held hostage" by a lunatic (K. Sutherland) in a phone booth...

That had a phone booth in it.

(EDIT)

Heh - It was called "Phone Booth" --
 
Massive Master said:
There was a cool movie a few years ago with - uh... I can't remember his name. But he was being "held hostage" by a lunatic (K. Sutherland) in a phone booth...

That had a phone booth in it.
Click to expand...
I never saw the movie but I know which one you're talking about. The only way they could make that movie today would be to make it a period piece :).

G.
 
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