Vocal booths

JRE Productions · Post by **JRE Productions** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 2:13 am

Great Site! First Post!

My vocal booth is 8' x 10' with a 7.5' drop ceiling covering some duck work, but the actual ceiling hight is over 9 foot to the bottom of the rafters, and around 10 foot to the top of the rafters or the underside of the floor above.

On one of the long walls there is a 32" door and a window (32 x42) double pain glass.

Question is diffusion or absorbtion for good sound control? Not worried about isolation.

Also where is the best place for Mic placement to best utilize this size room? (in the middle, toward a corner, pointed away from the corner?)

thanks,

JRE Productions · Post by **JRE Productions** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 4:45 am

oh yea... the floor is pergo. The walls are drywall with a concrete wall behind them.

Thanks

Post by **John Sayers** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 8:47 am

A vocal booth need to be quite dead with no apparent roomsound if you want a tight vocal sound. When I say dead I mean right across the frequency spectrum which requires various absorbers aimed at different frequency ranges.
Have you been to the SAE site? check out absorbers.
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

cheers
john

JRE Productions · Post by **JRE Productions** » Sat Mar 15, 2003 5:10 am

Thanks John,

If I decide to use the room for other things...well......

I was thinking I could do a sort of (but not really) live end-dead-end treatment even though the room is very small. Meaning if I completely deaden one half the room with absorbers, and the other half use a curved wall defusser, traps and with some absorbers, I could then ......

Well I could face a vocalist toward the dead side of the little room for a tight sounding track, but when recording maybe a accoustic guitar face them toward the more reflective but defused side of the room.

This may not work at all, and I may end up just using absorbers, but Whats your thoughts, on a multi task room.

Right now with the limited treatments, I get a real midrange build up with vocalist and verly little lows or highs.

Thanks for your comments,

Joe

Post by **John Sayers** » Sat Mar 15, 2003 8:13 am

In a room that small the live end dead end treatment would amount to much, incidently to get a tight vocal as you described it you would face the singer to the live wall so the MIC is facing the dead wall

It's what the mic hears that's relative.

That mid range buildup is typical in a room that size and without treatment.I assume you have carpet on the floor which is absorbing the highs but not the rest which is what you are hearing as mid range buildup. The drywall is also acting as a bass panel absorber.

Low-mid (200 - 800hz) absobers is what you need as they are also high end diffusive as well.

cheers
John

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 6:03 am

Thanks John,'

Actually the floor is pergo floating over a foam like material on top of concrete. Currently the only treatment in the room is (4) egg crate style panels 2 foot by 2 foot each in thier own wood frame and covered in cloth. All on one big wall hung in a diamond pattern.

The frames are 1"x3" pine cut to length, glued and screwed into a box shape. Then covered with cloth. THe absortion material was then put in from the back. Then hung on the wall. With the foam inside the frame there is a 1/2" or so gap between the foam and the back wall.

I also have this same design on the back wall of the control room and it seems to work pretty well. I'm just having some standing waves in the low freqs. I only hear them if I walk to the very corners of the room. (11dX13wX9h) So I'll need to look into bass traps I guess.

Thanks agian

Joe

Post by **John Sayers** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 8:02 am

Anonymous wrote:
The frames are 1"x3" pine cut to length, glued and screwed into a box shape. Then covered with cloth. THe absortion material was then put in from the back. Then hung on the wall. With the foam inside the frame there is a 1/2" or so gap between the foam and the back wall.

I also have this same design on the back wall of the control room and it seems to work pretty well. I'm just having some standing waves in the low freqs. I only hear them if I walk to the very corners of the room. (11dX13wX9h) So I'll need to look into bass traps I guess.

Thanks agian

Joe

Those panels, depending on the insulation in them, will only absorb down to around 500hz. You need something that will go lower to take out that low-mid woof. A set of slots would do that.

What you are hearing in the corners is low end build up in the corners so traps would be a good idea.

cheers
john