Vocal & Acoustic Room?

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ShaneSelby

New member
Okay here is my problem: The noise around my house is bad. I live about a mile from an airport so every few minutes a plane comes right over me. Next, my studio is cramped into a 12x15 room. So I am monitoring and tracking in the same room. What I have done is built a 3x5x7 frame out of PVC pipe and draped it in moving blankets. I can’t hear a thing inside there! It is dead silent and therefore solves my noise problems. But will this cause me problems in the long run? Do I want the room I am recording my vocals and acoustic guitars in to be totally dead? Am I taking away from the acoustic guitars or vocals doing this? What I have been doing is recording in this dead air and then applying effects to the track to liven it. Any opinions?
 
Sounds like a good idea to me. Haven't thought of moving blankets. Not a bad idea.

As a general rule, it is ideal to record in a large, non-symetrical space with high-ceilings and varying, complex surfaces, etc. etc. If your space doesn't sound really good as is (ie - planes flying around, bad accoustics with early reflections, etc.) . . .

. . . then the next best thing is to record in an accoustically dead space and add reverbs (or re-amp for embience) after the fact.
 
I almost wished I lived where you did if it weren't for recording.

One mile from the threshold? I'd almost kill to live that close to an airport.

What you are doing is putting total control of every instrument and vocal in you hands.

In other words, you provide as much room and the kind of room that you want the instruments and vocal to be in using your outboards. No it's not natural, but you have the final say as far as how the imaginary room sounds.

Unless you're booking the London Symphony, don't sweat it.
 
The moving blankets work great. A buddy of mine has them all over his studio and swears by them. You can pick up a dozen for about $100 from any moving supply store. They are 72x80 and real think and heavy. A dozen goes a long way. I used several layers over my booth and it is dead silent. The frame of the booth is pretty cool as well. Just PVC pipe with fittings. I can put in up and take it apart in a matter of a few minutes. Portable sound booth!
 
ShaneSelby said:
The moving blankets work great. A buddy of mine has them all over his studio and swears by them. You can pick up a dozen for about $100 from any moving supply store.
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No kidding. Looks like I know what I'll be trying to look up in the Yellow Pages tomorrow. Thanks for the tip. Now that you mention it, considering the texture, thickness, and weight, it kinda' seems like a no brainer.
 
Yeah, markertek has been selling moving blankets as sound deadening devices for years.

I have them hanging over all my windows to help cut down outside noise. I got one of those grommet kits, and attached three rings along the top edge of each blanket. Then put three cup hooks on the top surface of the window frame. I can put the blankets up or take them down in a couple of minutes.
 
ShaneSelby said:
Let me know how they work for you.
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I called a local moving supplies supplier the other day. They sold me some used ones for $12 / piece (they're about 6' by mabye 4') -- free delivery, though, which was nice. You can tell they're used, though. I picked up 10 of them.

I haven't gotten a chance to try them out yet, but I can tell they're going to work. Just try holding one up in the air in front of your face and yell in to it, and it's like the sound almost stops in front of you. Plus everything you put it in front of instantly gets quieter.

I'm thinking of using them to drape around drum sets, or maybe pile some up in front of (or around) guitar amps. I can see draping some of these around the gobos for a little extra isolation. And if I run out of space and have to do some recording in my "control" room ( :D ), then I figure I could throw two or three of these on top of my hard drive to quiet it down a bit.

I could get like 20 more of these things and pile them up in the corner and they'd probably even make a decent low-mid / bass trap.

I can't believe I'm this pleased over my purchase of a pile of dirty moving blankets. :D My girlfriend must think I'm nuts.
 
I called a local moving supplies supplier the other day. They sold me some used ones for $12 / piece (they're about 6' by mabye 4') -- free delivery, though, which was nice. You can tell they're used, though. I picked up 10 of them.
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Good deal! Let us know how they work out.
 
Son of Mixerman said:
you don't want your clients to think their recording in a U-haul! :p
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Hey, that's not a bad idea, either, come to think of it. I might have a tough time fitting a drummer (+ mics) in there, but think of what a great ISO booth it would make for a loud guitar amp ! ! :D :D :D
 
chessrock said:


II could get like 20 more of these things and pile them up in the corner and they'd probably even make a decent low-mid / bass trap.
.
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I've been experimenting with down pillows in the corners ... I swear they change the sound; I just haven't decided if it's good or bad change.
 
Hey, that's not a bad idea, either, come to think of it. I might have a tough time fitting a drummer (+ mics) in there, but think of what a great ISO booth it would make for a loud guitar amp ! !
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I don't think you've seen some of the larger U-Hauls.

I moved to OP, Kansas two years ago and back in a 26' truck.

You could get a whole band in there with room left over for a control room!

Not a very good sound though. Make a hell of a Mobile Recording truck for live sound.
 
I've been experimenting with down pillows in the corners ...

Pillows duck taped to the corners... the poor man's bass trap. Pure genius!

I'll try these in my walk in closet, but it already has surprisingly little bass reflection from all the clothes absorbing the sound. The more clothes, the better.

Might try hanging some comforters from the ceiling to cut down on the residual mids and highs, and with the pillows, I might have myself one hell of a vocal booth.

Well worth the extra long mic cables in my opinion.
 
Re: I've been experimenting with down pillows in the corners ...

Bergen said:
I'll try these in my walk in closet, but it already has surprisingly little bass reflection from all the clothes absorbing the sound. The more clothes, the better.
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Using the jam-packed clothes closet for a vocal booth goes back at least as far as Craig Anderton's first Home Recording for Musician's edition. It still works, though!:)

Here's the skinny on mover's quilts: If you have a Harbor Freight outlet by you, they have these great, inexpensive ones for around $6 apiece (that was what I paid for mine, anyway) that are made with nonwoven cloth. Now, that makes for a more easily damaged pad when you're hauling pianos, but it makes for a better acoustic surface than the hard-sized cloth on the more expensive pads pro movers and U-Haul use. These Harbor Freight Chinese cheapies are better for sound damping and cost a whole lot less.

I had never heard of people using mover' quilts for sound deadening in the home studio, but I thought about what would be the cheapest and most uniform way to hang something and I came up with the idea on my own as a logical approach. I finally got around to hanging some of them the other night on two of the four walls in my small bedroom studio and I am amazed at how much difference it made even before I got it done. I walk into the room from the hall and it's like I went deaf.

I'm still thinking of doing the ceiling in the fiber egg flats I've been hoarding for the past thirty years, but for the walls the Harbor Freight mover's quilts are the ticket for me.
 
Why not use a quilt or two on the ceiling instead. You don't want your room too dead, though, do you?

Here's some things I did:

I have two of my walls completely lined with bookcases full of books. I have some of the books pulled out farther than others. This really cuts down on direct reflections without deadening the sound too much. It also absorbes sound from the outside. A nice heavily padded love seat with xtra pillows placed on the opposite wall of the monitors acts as a very effective bass trap. A large thin rug on the tile floor adds some dampening but still allows for some reflections.

The room 10' x 12' room has a high angled ceiling, and with the treatments above it sounds amazingly good for both recording and monitoring. Only problem: computer noise. Maybe some of these movers blankets will help that.
 
If you don't have good studio acoustics, one theory says to have as little acoustics as possible and add them in the mix with room reverb or other ambience software. I've got all the plugins for this sort of thing I can imagine, so I'd just as soon have the freedom to artificially treat as pure and uncolored a track as I can achieve. My closet vocal booth is almost entirely, stone dead.

Even if you have good acoustics in your studio - which I sure don't - recording clean and adding a treatment afterward gives you infinitely (literally) more sound flexibility.

Many years ago when I was working for a major sound design company in NYC, I used to lock myself inside their industrial anechoic chamber every day to eat my lunch. The silence was deafening. :D

My studio doesn't have that freedom from reflected sound, but it'd be interesting if it did!
 
The main problem with only using fabric is that it doesn't absorb the mids or lows. When you only absorb the highs you can end up with a very dead but boomy room. A better choice is usually to use some type of broadband absorption and diffusion. Stuff like Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass can absorb down to 200 hz where cloth and quilts might only absorb to about 2-10Khz.

You might be okay with vocals but guitar and especially drums can start to sound way too boomy with only highend absorption. It also makes it really difficult to mix.

There are a lot of good threads in the Studio Building forum that go into greater detail on effective and cheap room treatments.
 
Milk crates filled with old newspapers also makes cheap bass traps.

I've never played around with moving blankets, but I'd assume they'd work equally, and perhaps better, with another substance on the outside or inside as long as the additional substance is fairly non-resonant.

I'm thinking that some reflective surfaces could be hung or affixed inside to get rid of a totally dead sound (judiciously used to avoid creating new problems). You could play around with placement, amount, and material (e.g., tile, wood).

And a layer of a more attractive fabrics inside and/or outside for aesthetics if that matters for your purposes.
 
One of the most important elements in restricting noise from entering a room is mass. If you are ambitious enough adding another layer or two of 5/8" or 1/2" drywall can do wonders (remember to caulk).
 
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