VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Raymond Hearn]

Greetings,
I'm new to the board and really glad to have found this wonderful resource! Thank you all for being so generous in your sharing. I've learned a great deal just in the few hours since I joined!

I wonder if someone can provide advice on acoustic treatments for my vocal booth? I got a great deal on a used Whisper Room 6084S (5' x 7') and have set it up in my basement. It's missing the OEM foam panels that it came with so I need to buy or make my own treatments. I read all of the related VO-BB posts and have the distinct impression that OC 703 or 705 panels are more effective sound diffusers than the Aurelex foam that originally came with the booth. So I'm assuming I'm going to make OC panels along the lines of Jowillie's recent project:

http://www.vocalimpactmedia.com/DIY.html

Only question is, how many panels should I make? How much of the walls do I need to cover at least for starters? I know this probably has something to do with how I have the booth laid out, so I'll post some photos over the next couple of days so you can see what I'm working with.
Regards,
Raymond

[bobsouer]

Raymond,

First, welcome to the VO-BB. And second, I think you're asking the right questions in the right place. I agree that the OC703 or 705 is a good choice, though you'll need to be careful to cover it well because it is fiberglass. As for placement, having some photos of how you have things set up will help.
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[SkinnyJohnny]

Hi Raymond,
I have the same Whisperroom (5x7) and I have 6 two inch thick panels and 2 four inch thick panels. What I did was put the 2 inch panels in the corners, another horizontally directly in front of where I sit and the remaining one vertically directly behind me. I hung one of the 4 inch panels as a cloud and the other 4 inch panel was mounted at a 45 degree angle where the wall and ceiling meet above the panel in front of me.
I hope I haven't been too confusing. This set up did the trick in taming that boxy sound.
Good luck!
John
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John Weeks Voice Overs
www.johnweeksvoiceovers.com

[Lizden]

Hey Raymond!

I have nothing to add...just saying welcome!
_________________
Liz de Nesnera O.A.V. ~ Livin' The VO Dream!
English/French Bilingual VO w/ ISDN
HireLiz.com / liz@hireliz.com

[Raymond Hearn]

Hi Bob, John, Lizden,
Thanks for chiming in. John, I appreciate the description of your similar setup. Sounds like you covered up all the wall to wall and wall to ceiling corners in the area around the mic as well as the surrounding flat surfaces and ceiling. Do you wear a straight jacket in there too just to complete the picture ? But seriously, it sounds like you've effectively used the panels to change the shape of the room into something less rectangular... at least from an acoustical perspective. I'm trying to imagine the size of your panels (2' x 4'?) and how you attached them to the booth. Can you describe or post some photos?

Here are some photos from my setup. Not much to see really, just a black box in my basement rec room.

[img][/img]

My desk, Mbox, and mixer are inside the booth to keep it all safe from my two adorable toddlers. Now I can lock the booth door and keep everything safe from curious little fingers.

[img][/img]

Once inside, the mic and mic stand are to the left of the desk.

[img][/img]

And since I'm on a roll posting photos, here's a shot looking back at the desk from the mic.

[img][/img]

All for now.
Regards,
Raymond

[SkinnyJohnny]

The panels are all 2x4 ft. I mounted them like you would hang a picture using cup hooks. The panels have a wire across the back like a picture. In the corners I put one cup hook on one wall and another on the other wall and hung them like that. For the cloud I used a combination of cup hooks and eye hooks. The panel kept sliding around, so this fixed that problem.

It's a little tight in here.
I have a small desk similar to yours and a 3 foot rack that sits on the floor to my right. The desk holds my keyboard, monitor and speakers and the rack holds my preamp, compressor and power conditioner. My computer tower and power amp are outside the booth (they both are noisey).

I would post some photos, but I tried before and never could get anything good enough for you to see it. Everything tends to blend together, my panels are black.

By the way, I hung the corner panels and the panel behind me as close to the ceiling as I could. The one in front of me is lower at mic level. I'm a sitter!
_________________
John Weeks Voice Overs
www.johnweeksvoiceovers.com

[Mike Sommer]

Though I would have strongly recommended not getting the whisper/sweat room, and instead would have had you convert that wonderful space you have, into a studio.

Note: Not all foam is the same and may have not been tested especially some of the ebay and online stuff. By installing the diamond shaped foams all you are doing is just breaking up and bouncing the bad sound around so that it has less of affect on your audio -but it still has an affect. What you want to do is absorb all of the refections and the rooms axial modes; to do that you need 703 or mineral wool.

Firstly every room needs the same thing:
Bass Trapping in the corners
Broadband absorption on the walls and ceiling.

The Bass Traps should go from floor to ceiling, 2 feet wide, by 4 to 6 inches thick. Then about 75% to 85% of the wall space and ceiling should be covered with Broadband absorption, and most of that should be in the "early reflection" areas of the room, these are the walls closest to the microphone. 2 x 4 foot panels, 2 inches should do the trick, but if you care to go floor-to-ceiling with the panels, this is good idea too.

Since you have a door in the corner, just place two, 2 inch panels, each on the wall and door.

These two images show what can and should be done in most if not in all situations.





If you have any carpentry skills, the frames can, be made from 1x material.
Or you can have a good full-service hardware store, lumberyard or local handyman build the frames for you.

I just rip the stock down to thickness of the panel I need. Since the 703 comes in 2x4 foot panels, cut the stock to the proper length, so that the inside dimension of the frame is 2x4 foot. Then cover the panel with fabric. Most use inexpensive burlap, but whatever material you use, you need to be able to blow through it.

Oh and don't worry about needing to cover the back of the panels, since once you hang it you'll hardly ever move it again - if you do feel the need to cover it, cheap old muslin is fine or cambric material is good also. Don't worry about the fiberglass: it is not a carcinogen, merely a mechanical irritant, and besides 703 needs a pretty good roughing up to release particles, since it's compressed and glued.

Also 705 is to dense for most situations, and is more reflective than absorbent in some frequencies.
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The Blog:
http://voiceoveraudio.blogspot.com/

Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

[Tom Test]

Mike, I must say that acoustics have always been a mystery to me, perhaps more art than science it seemed. But your post was the single most coherent, intelligible-for-the-unwashed-masses, and concise mini-article that I have EVER come across about this topic as it applies to voice-over studios.

It should be placed as a sticky in the FAQ.

Thank you very very much!
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Best regards,
Tom Test
"The Voice You Trust"
www.tomtest.com

[bobsouer]

Tom,

I completely agree. Great stuff!
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[Lizden]

Ditto!
_________________
Liz de Nesnera O.A.V. ~ Livin' The VO Dream!
English/French Bilingual VO w/ ISDN
HireLiz.com / liz@hireliz.com

[Mike Sommer]

Thanks guys.

Once you understand the basics of of what sound does in a room it's easy to understand how to control it.

For VO we want to be in the biggest room possible especily if we are using a ribbon, capacitor, and some dynamic mics. This is the reason the Sennhseiser 416 was first put into action. The lovely Ernie Anderson didn't want to sit in his little announce booth for 4 or 5 hours every night at ABC. One day he said "B.S., I'm sitting in the control room." The eng. ran next door and grabbed the only mic he could think of to isolate him in the noisy control room, and "voilà!" - the worst idea in VO came to be.
Here he is in action http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x66lcv_hollywood-closeup-on-ernie-anderson_shortfilms

I digress....

One of the greatest sounding big rooms to my ears were Disney's original Stage A & B. Rooms within rooms, about 40' x 35' x 23. It was covered floor to ceiling with fiberglass batts and covered with a fired proofed canvas, that gave the stage it's unique sound. If you ever watched an old Disney movie you've heard it. Today that lovely sound is frowned upon, but it allowed the voice to bloom into rich full tones. Here is what Stage B looks like today: http://studioservices.go.com/postproduction/adr_stage_b.html

Any room under 1500 cubic feet is going to be a nightmare to deal with, the only thing you can do is kill it flat with absorption. The one big problem is that it will sound strange, possibly uncomfortable to you. But if you listen to the play back or in your headphones it will sound fine. WHy? Because our brain is used to hearing reflections. This is where the Haas Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haas_effect comes in, and why we think a room sounds really good in person, but can't figure out why our audio sounds so crappy. The truth is it has always sounded crappy our brain and ears are lying to us; we only hear half of what is going on in our rooms, that is until we record it, and listen to it through headphones or speakers.

Another reason to use absorption is to kill the early refections. In Chris' post http://www.vo-bb.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9296 he was having some problems with his little booth. He had bought some bass traps and it helped a lot a lot but he was not happy, so he emailed me, and I listened to his files. Though after his first round of treatment with the bass traps, it still sounded wooden to me, there was something wrong. I had him move his mic in what I call a double off axis. The mice is placed off center in the room and tilted at about 30° from 90°. Upon hearing the next round of files, they sounded a little brighter, but I could still hear the wooden sound.

Why did it sound brighter, the mic was moved out of some of the early reflections of the walls. His mic used to be smack dab in the center, it was in what is called a "node". Because the room was so small the frequency of the rooms width was canceling out the upper mid range of his voice. You could EQ until the cows come home, but because the mic was in a node, a few frequencies were no longer there, all you could do was make a mess with the EQ. It's the same principal used in background noise canceling headphones, play the same sound you wan to get rid of, and it equals the pressure, and voilà no more background noise. That's what was happening in his booth, and happens in almost everyone else's booth or room to some degree.

So I had Chris buy some ridged insulation and cover his booth floor to ceiling with it. Now it sound wonderful, now he can give a little EQ bump at around 15kHz and he has VO gold. Of course his Speck 5.0 brings everything into sharp focus now.

Killing the room can suck some of the life out of it. Once you kill it now you can put a little life back in the room with some controlled reflections. Often on the back wall you can place 2' wide strips with varying depths based on a primitive-root number sequence on top of the absorption. This can bring a little sparkle to the voice.

Below is A&M Records Studio D's Iso Booth 4. On the wall next to the piano you see a very special kind of base trap called a Helmholtz Slot Resonator. the spacing and the the width of the boards tune the bass absorption at a very specific frequency, and the wood provides reflectiveness to the room. Two for one.


If anyone needs one-on-one help in the L.A. area, just let me know -including the building of custom bass traps, panels and gobos or the building of VO booths. Everyone else is welcome to pick my brain too.
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The Blog:
http://voiceoveraudio.blogspot.com/

Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

[Ed Gambill]

Mike

Awsome and impressive work!
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Esse quam videri "To be rather than to seem"
www.SaVoa.org No. 07000 Member AES

[Raymond Hearn]

Mike, Wow!. Thanks for the powerful post. I'll study it a bit and give you a holler if I have real specific questions.
With much gratitude,
Raymond

[Diane Maggipinto]

raymond, welcome! i hope the baby toys are good tools for you. i have a 6 1/2 month old who comes to work with me and i'm still working out the acoustics (rattles, gurgles, exclaiming!).

thanks, mike. i bookmarked this page. when it comes to sound perfection, i am of the remedial level despite my time devoted to the vo adventure
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sitting at #8, though not as present as I'd like to be. Hello!

www.d3voiceworks.com

[georgethetech]

Mike:
I need to keep you handy, my friend...
My secret weapon for reasonably priced acoustic treatment panels that look good? ATS Acoustics. I seriously don't think you can build them yourself for less money, even without factoring in the immense time it would take to build them.
Make sure you get the 4" panels for corners and order them open backed.
They are a wonderful small company to work with, I've ordered well over 200 panels from them. Tell them George Whittam from ElDorado Recording sent ya!
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If it sounds good, it is good.
George Whittam
GeorgeThe.Tech
424-226-8528
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