Hi Chris

Build a vocal booth is o.k. but for good drums sound I think you need bigger room. Small room = big problem (bass is the worst enemy). Ambient mics are very important for drum recordings except for the disco. You didn't mentioned the room measurements. You hardly would save your neighborhood from drums if you are on budget.

Choose bigger room, treat ALL corners with removable bass absorbent panels (baffles - fiberglass or mineral wool covered in fabric, deeper the better), add some wood and acoustic foams on the walls (early reflections).

With a little plan you can make it all easy removable.

Do some deep search in Acoustic & Design forum at RO. It’s all there. Take the time, don’t hurry.

Regards and good luck!

Forgot to mention, room with higher ceiling is better. Make the «cloud» above the drums.

There are lot of rules for control room and not so much for recording room, but both use the same basic acoustic principles. When you treat the room, avoid making it too dead. You can always add some more foams if the flutter echo is too strong. Look at the pictures of other studios and you will find rough ideas.

wanna build a vocal booth

Was hoping that someone could help me with building a vocal booth in my house? I want a portable one because I plan to be moving things around in the near future.

Does anyone have any info they can provide on how to build a booth? Such as... best type of wood to use, size & dimensions, etc.

I would appreciate it!

Thanks,
Az

I built a booth

Hello, My booth gets VERY hot inside. I built it for around $250. Size= 4'x4'x7'. It is the absolute cheapest booth I could build for inside my bedroom, and it replaced hidding behind two matressess (my bed) against the wall in the corner. All I record is vocals, and mainly rap into an M-Box with a tube mic, straight through the presonus pre-amp, and I use only waves plug-ins (gold bundle) for processing. To listen to some recordings with this chain inside my booth, check out... http://www.myspace.com/tslice
Materials:
- 1 piece of 1/4" ply wood 4'x8', half for the floor as support, half for the ceiling.
- 3 pieces of 1/2" sheetrock 4'x8' for the exterior walls.
- One cheap door, cheapest I could buy.
- 26 2x4's. Five for each wall, and three for the ceiling and floor.
- 3 rolls of cheap insulation, the kind that comes in a plastic sleeve (helps trap sound, but not too good for low freq, you can buy stuff better for low freq, it would be more expensive but it would be "rigid" fiberglass insulation. For my purpose of vocals, I just use a LPF to get rid of "most" LF crap).
- cloth to cover the interior walls and fiber glass, allowing air to move into the fiber glass for absorbtion, and not bounce back into the mic.
- 4 rools of foam "egg crate" bed padding for HI freq absorbtion.
- 1 cheap door knob.
- 1 absolutely quiet battery opperated light, green for mood setting.
- screws

It breaks down that you want the insulation for Mid-Lo freq absorbtion, and the foam for Hi freq absorbtion. The cheap door lets sound through like crazy, so position the door away from any loud sounds to keep best isolation. It also sounds best to have the mic directly in the center of the booth, it allows for cymetrical freq absorbtion, and deflection back into the mic.

I am going to experiment with more foam, rolled up in cylinders and placed in the corners for LO Freq absorbtion.

I am not a profesional, just have read a lot of forums, done a lot of research, and went to recording school. I think if you want to do drums, and for a two car garage size drum room, you could probably do it for about $1,500, but you would definately have to invest in the "rigid" fiberglass for better LO Freq absorbtion.

Hey, tell me what you think of my recordings if you listen to them, thanks, hope this helps you out.

Hey man..nice, i knew, it could be done. Wisperroom, and vocal booth.com , want like 2500, plus delivery etc, well into 3,000 for a 4x4 vocal booth.

I also, want to build my own. I dont even mind, using better soundprooofing, then you have done, etc....

Anyway, i checked out your tracks, and i really like them, they sound nice and polished. professional..good stuff..

chris

You could build some Gobo's and put them on casters and put hinges on them and they will fold together. Just make one for example 10'w X 7-12'h(depends on how high you want it to be) put hinges on the ends and attach a 5' X the same height gobo on the right, and do the same on the left.

For those that don't know what a gobo is, it is basically constructed like this:

1"X12" outter edges cut to your desired lengths to make the shape, usually a rectangle. basically frame a standard sheet of plywood.

Place 2X4's laid flat at 6" inside the 1X12 frame at the top and the bottom of the gobo, then place pink fluffy fiberglass insulation inside that and then place a 1/2" sheet of plywood against the 2X4's to cover the insulation. there should be like 2" from the plywood inside to the edge of the 1X12 (don't worry its floppy for a reason), now flip it over, and on this side instead of plywood this time place 5/8" gypsum board against the 2X4's then place a sheet of 1/2" plywood on top of the gypsum board, now just like you did the the other side, but instead place 2"X2" at the top and bottom of the gobo against the plywood now attach pink fluffy fiberglass inside the space from top to bottom of the 2X2's, then find some good fabric and staple it against the 2X2's to cover the pink fluffy fiberglass insulation.

If you attach casters on the bottom, to prevent air leakage from the bottom just make a rubber sweep cut to length, kind of like the bottom of a door to keep sound in and force it up into the gobo wear is is absorbed by the "brain" (fabric/fiberglass) of the gobo.

You can paint or stain the 1X12's to make it look professional.

As an added bonus the side that is just bare plywood, can be used to reflect sound if you have a room that is too dead sounding. :wink:

hello i need help on this i have a blue snowball usb microphone and it catches sound from everywhere and im also looking at building a booth for it in my room its a couple of feet away from my computer any ideas on what i would need? plz email me back @ kidizfresh4rmnyc@aol.com and thx!!! and where did you find the cheap door

I ordered plans to build my own booth. When all was said and done I ended up spending about $445. It was super easy to build. Check out these guys at http://www.dawbox.com. They have a video and plans to do it yourself. Thumbs up! I am able to get the isolation that I need, and it sounds great. Now if I only had the money for one of those vintage Neuman KM-84 microphones.

Juice wrote: I ordered plans to build my own booth. When all was said and done I ended up spending about $445. It was super easy to build.

What did you spend the $445 on material wise, I would like to build one of those as well.

Does Super easy mean that a guy who does not own a powered saw would be able to build this structure?

Brien

You definately need to get a skill saw. I was able to borrow one from a friend.

Supplies include 2x4s, plywood, foam, door, window, ventilation, mic and headphone jacks, foam adhesive, silicone, ect.

There is an option in the video to carpet the outside so it looks like a wisper booth. I saved money by just painting the outside.

I had no prior experience as far as building anything like this. The video was great and the plans were easy to follow. I think that anyone can build this.

Juice,
I'm interested to know what kind of foam you used for the booth. I'm in the process of building one and can't find a good foam to use. Can you help? thanks.

I used Auralex foam on the inside 2" wedge and a combo of pyramid as well. I glued it to the walls and followed the video using liquid nails. The auralex spray or 3m 90 is a waste of money and can cause flash fires.

I have run into tons of other guys who have done these same plans and have posted video on u-tube as well as pics on other sites so it is pretty much a home run for the lowest price.

http://www.dawbox.com/DAWBOOTH.htm

Kidizfrsh4rmnyc wrote: and where did you find the cheap door

you can buy a cheap door at home depot for around 40 bucks, pre hung. trust me.. you want to buy a pre hung door