Small Vocal Booth Advice

[NickH]

Hi Folks,

I am looking to build a small vocal booth for recording vocals only, I want to put it in my home studio which I currently use for mixing and mastering.

The vocals that I will be mostly recording will be very loud shouting (harddcore/screemo/metal etc)

I have spent the day reading through things on this excellent forum & have come up with the following design. Any comments/criticism are gratefully received.

My budget is under £300

I am thinking of using the following in construction

“Staggered stud wall construction with 2 layers of 16mm(5/8") Plasterboard on studs of 95x35mm (4 x 11/2") on a 120mm (4 3/4")common base.” (I will also stuff air space with rockwool. & add a RC to the outside leaf)

Which I got from the STC Chart linked from this site & the above drawing is scaled on those material dimensions.

This booth will be freestanding in quite a small room, hence the size… & freestanding because we will be selling the house & moving in the next two years & having a vocal booth in an upstairs bedroom will not be a great selling point to most… I would like to tear the booth down carefully as possible when we move and hopefully reuse it at the new house by replacing any damaged materials.

The house is semi detached & it is important that the neighbours aren’t disturbed.

Here are some of my questions:-

With this being in an upstairs room am I right in thinking floating the floor on u-boats would be pointless?

The STC chart mentions a ‘120 common base’ does this mean I should mount the whole lot in this case on one big sheet of ply or similar, that just sits on the carpet of the room?

If not, with this overlapping design how do add the ceiling/floor without connecting the two leaves?

Are the two doors (shown n blue) overdoing it in this case? And if so how do I deal with the two leaves with just one door.

Once I have caulked & sealed etc How will the singers breath?

Many Thanks



Nick

[kendale]

Aloha and welcome to the forum, Nick

I was recently cautioned against building a square shaped vocal booth:

Be careful, a dead square booth will have low end issues (you'll hear the issues on your mic.) Bryan Giles

Yeah, 4x5x7 feet inside dim's is about the best modal compromise for a small booth - Steve (Knightfly)

Also, somewhere around here is the thought that for a small sized room, "dead is better" in regard to acoustic treatment.

Are the two doors (shown n blue) overdoing it in this case? And if so how do I deal with the two leaves with just one door.
Once I have caulked & sealed etc How will the singers breath?

I'd like to know what you come up with for these

Attached is a drawing that I found on the forum for a vocal booth by John. I think if you were to modify it with the extra beef of your design, you might have something that works for your situation.

Hope this helps,

Aloha

[kendale]

Aloha again,

How about something like this?

Aloha

[NickH]

Hi Kendale,

Thanks for the reply & the design!

I was recently instructed to avoid building a square shaped vocal booth: )

Ahh, so my 1m x 90cm is too subtle… bugger…

Also is this not more of a problem when you are recording amps & drums in your booth? If I am rolling the mic off at 75 with I high pass for the vocals, is this still a problem? (I am guessing yes, but I am nothing if optimistic.. )

Also, somewhere around here is the thought that for a small sized room, "dead is better" in regard to acoustic treatment.

I am a big fan of dead, (especially with the way convolution verbs are moving on etc…) and in-fact I have 35 Acoustic foam tiles left over that I have earmarked for lining the inside of my booth….

I'd like to know what you come up with for these

Yep me too, I was going to order 2 solid pine doors from screwfix direct, one 610mm wide & the outside one 762mm wide, both opening outwards, the inside one ‘inside’ the larger outside one…

(I have also toyed with the idea of getting a cheap UPCu double glazed door, but I am not sure if this would work & if I needed two, whether I could afford it… )

Attached is a drawing that I found on the forum for a vocal booth by John. I think if you were to modify it with the extra beef of your design, you might have something that works for your situation.

I really like that, but I don’t have the space, the outside dimensions of 1.24m x 1.14m in my design are about all the space I have available at the moment…

Cheers



Nick

[kendale]

Aloha NIck,

Thanks for the reply & the design!

Hey, No worries!

I am a big fan of dead, (especially with the way convolution verbs are moving on etc…) and in-fact I have 35 Acoustic foam tiles left over that I have earmarked for lining the inside of my booth….

Just curious...what kind of acoustic tiles are these, and do they have a spec sheet on their absorption freqs?

I was going to order 2 solid pine doors from screwfix direct, one 610mm wide & the outside one 762mm wide, both opening outwards, the inside one ‘inside’ the larger outside one…

Andy Wheeler over at Dragon Note/Wise Minds recently completed his studio and used a "Knightfly" door design with good results. It consisted of a hollow core door beefed up on both sides with mdf layers.
http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic ... c&start=15 (last post on bottom of page and then next 2 pages)

Aloha

[Ressurrector]

Actually Nick Kendale has a point about the low end and perfect square booths. I once built a 4x4x8 booth and believe it or not when vocals got loud enough you could hear a really nasty bass resonance in there. I admit its hard to think just changing dimensions(5x4x7 VS 4x4x8) one foot could stop all that but maybe it could.