Treating a singing isolation room

[gtrplyrguy]

I have a question about the isolation room I am building. The dimensions will be 7ft by 7 ft and one side of the ceiling is 9ft tall while the other side will be around 4 ft so I have a serious pitch in the ceiling. I had originally budgeted enough acoustic panels (1 inch or 2 inch pyramid designed specifically for sound rooms) to cover the entire 4 walls as well as the ceiling and also installing bass traps in the corners and where needed.

My thought now is do I want to cover the entire room and have a very "dry" room and add in reverbs after recording? I know that this small of a room will not make very good reverb which is why I planned to cover everything.

Also, I plan on aiming the singer towards the low end (the end with the 4 ft ceiling) to reduce bounceback sound because of the greater than 90 degree corner where the wall meets the ceiling. Would that be best or would aiming them towards the 9 ft wall be better? I liked the 4 ft side specifically because the height of the singers would make most sound hitting the ceiling vs the walls which would deflect the majority to the floor (whatever returned off the acoustic panels).

Lastly, a bit of info to help in the responses. The room will be built as a "room within a room" with the isolation pads under the floor joists, the rest freestanding and nothing touching the existing structure. The insulation will be 4 inch batt on existing structure, 3 inch air gap, 4 inch batt on isolation room, layer of mass vinyl, 2 layers of sheetrock hung on iso channels and clips. And lastly, the room will be carpeted with a thick pad underneath and floor will have mass vinyl and 8 inch batt.

Im going to this expense because my neighbors are close, our living area is on the floor below, and their is traffic and dogs close by so I needed to build fairly soundproof.

Any ideas or recomendations are, as always, very welcome.

Edit to add: This room will be for vocals and acoustic guitar as well as occasional saxophone or cabinet micing only.

 

[tmix]

I have a question about the isolation room I am building. The dimensions will be 7ft by 7 ft and one side of the ceiling is 9ft tall while the other side will be around 4 ft so I have a serious pitch in the ceiling. I had originally budgeted enough acoustic panels (1 inch or 2 inch pyramid designed specifically for sound rooms) to cover the entire 4 walls as well as the ceiling and also installing bass traps in the corners and where needed.

My thought now is do I want to cover the entire room and have a very "dry" room and add in reverbs after recording? I know that this small of a room will not make very good reverb which is why I planned to cover everything..

I have built several smaller rooms for vocals (For my own home studios over the years) and I have never heard one that had "good reverb" so I concurr that making it as non-reflective as possible would be better.
Normally square rooms suck horribly because if there is a dominant frequency reinforced by a fixed room dimension having a square really reinforces that. Now the fact that so much of the one wall will be mostly ceiling might help, but I would be very hesitant to make it square.
Another thing... I have never been too thrilled with the acoustic foam stuff....
It works on spoken voice frequencies particularly at lower volumes where it is not having to really soak up a lot of sound at higher volume, but as your volume increases, it becomes messy particularly in the lower mids and low frequencies... kind of like trying to soak up a flooded floor with a paper napkin.
The compressed fibreglass / mineral wool panels work better.
Again...I am no studio designer by any means nor do have have wonderful expanations for my experience..but it is just that... my experience.

Also, I plan on aiming the singer towards the low end (the end with the 4 ft ceiling) to reduce bounceback sound because of the greater than 90 degree corner where the wall meets the ceiling. Would that be best or would aiming them towards the 9 ft wall be better? I liked the 4 ft side specifically because the height of the singers would make most sound hitting the ceiling vs the walls which would deflect the majority to the floor (whatever returned off the acoustic panels)...

I think it is reasonable to assume singing toward the angled wall will work well.

Lastly, a bit of info to help in the responses. The room will be built as a "room within a room" with the isolation pads under the floor joists, the rest freestanding and nothing touching the existing structure. The insulation will be 4 inch batt on existing structure, 3 inch air gap, 4 inch batt on isolation room, layer of mass vinyl, 2 layers of sheetrock hung on iso channels and clips. And lastly, the room will be carpeted with a thick pad underneath and floor will have mass vinyl and 8 inch batt.

Im going to this expense because my neighbors are close, our living area is on the floor below, and their is traffic and dogs close by so I needed to build fairly soundproof.

I cant picture exactly what you are saying, it appears the existing structure is unfinished on the walls at the area you are building the room in a room?

But, again...from my experience and study...the extra cost of messing with the mass loaded vinyl and the resilient channel is a waste of time and expense for what you are doing, the double sheetrock should be adequate for anything you say you will use it for. Chances are , unless you have a killer door system or window system it will be the weak link in your scheme of sound proofing.

a word of caution...be sure your floor will support the weight of what you are adding...you are talking serious weight in a small area...

 

[Massive Master]

Double drywall on the outside, NO drywall on the inside - Fill the studs with OC703 and cover with tight-weave cotton duck.

Foam isn't really going to help in a space that size...

 

[gtrplyrguy]

Just the type of replies I was hoping for. I was figuring what I was doing was probably overkill. The beauty is, I am building in an area that the existing walls are unfinished so I have the ability to "redesign" my whole thought process.

I was also reading in a different thread about recording vocals in "the big room" and was wondering if that would help my situation. Everything we will record will be single tracks layered so I dont have to worry about bleed over. I have about 8 by 16 of area to record in not counting my control area but I liked the single isolation point as anything that is not DI recorded will be recorded with condensers in the isolation so I wanted a good clean area for recordings that could be built upon.

One thing that was brought up was the weight I would be adding with my plans. That is one thing I need to look into.

Thanks for the replies and keep em coming

 

[tmix]

Massive has a great idea.
I will go one further.
If you have a 8 x 16 room and enough outer wall mass to contain the occasional saxaphone type instrument I would build the iso as a iso box of sorts just for amps.

You make it relatively small...it solves the issue of venting fresh air into the vocal...no glass...you can make it multi chambered and put your Computer in one to reduce noise of course it will need at least some passive air flow..it will be a whole lot less weight......

but you could record everything in the one big room and you will be much happier.