VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[ballenberg]

So here's what I've been wondering:

There are lots of posts about sound absorption and room treatment--all good stuff.

But I almost never see anyone talk about noise reduction. For example, Bruce, if you care to comment--what's the situation in your new space? I remember reading that you were putting in some treatment--but is the room quiet enough as is?

Other folks: what are you doing about the noise of the outside world? If you don't use pre-built booths, what's your story? What is the noise situation where you record--especially noises outside your control--and what do you do about it ?

[imaginator]

from-scratch booth built to fit my only available space. it benefits from being built on a concrete slab (carpet added), not touching ceiling or outside walls, insulation-filled/double-dry-walled both sides, bookshelves inside and out, and a solid wood door. no glass. (please note: this was built before i knew about the vo-bb and the generosity of its resident geniuses!)

oddly enough, there was one time the exact frequency of a little bird outside my studio penetrated everything which passing dump trucks could not.
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rowell gormon
www.voices2go.com
"Mr. Warm & Friendly Voice...with Character!"
Rowell Gormon's Clogged Blog - http://voices2go.com/blog

[whalewtchr]

Very fortunate to be in a relatively quiet environment, however, it is not a soundproof room. Most of my recording is done at night when the rest of the world is asleep. For the moment this arrangement works for me and my noise floor is at an acceptable level.
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jonahcummings

[Mike Sommer]

Mitigating sound depends on how much isolation you need, what type of sound it is, where it is coming from etc.

Sometimes adding a layer of drywall to a room can bring noise down to acceptable levels, or installing new doors and seals will keep down ambient noise, or the replacement of windows is required. It all depends on the need.

If the problems are to great to overcome, then new construction is required with two leaf walls to provide total isolation.

If one only needs 25dB's of noise reduction a Whisper Room will do the trick, but to get quiet air into the booth and and treat the booth, for just a little more money you could fixed an entire room with some drywall.

@ Rowell What you are describing is know as an acoustical hole. This can happen especially with glass. Most everything within a wide frequency spectrum can be eliminated, but due to consistent thickness of materials a narrow frequency will sneak through the wall as if is not there. This happens mostly will studio glass partitions.
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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.

[Bruce]

Here's my situation...I'm leasing so I can't make big changes. I'm on the bottom floor of a two story house built into a hillside with the hillside on the South and a smallish window to the North facing a forest. These are technically condos so I have a little old lady who's not home much on one side and our master bedroom on the other. No serious sound invasions from the four walls and floor, but the house is all wooden construction and I can hear the low roar of the sliding glass door to the deck upstairs like it's fighter jet taking off. DW knows to open and close it gently now. Dogs playing and snoring upstairs comes through, but thankfully not into the mic...usually.

My room is 10' x 11' with a ceiling beam separating it from a 10' x 5' alcove I guess you'd call it (or it's a 10' x 16' bedroom with a one foot beam dropping down a third of the way across). It's carpeted. I want to get pre-made compressed fiberglass panels covered with cloth to put on the walls, but the two suppliers I've asked for bids almost 3 weeks ago haven't come back with numbers, even with reminders!

In the mean time I built myself a PVC pipe cage to surround my monitor and a mic on one of those Luxo table booms on my desk and have covered it with a thick quilt and blanket, which did a pretty good job, but I could still hear wall bounce on louder reads.

I then installed red velvet curtains (very theatrical!) across the windowed wall and also hanging from the beam opposite. I now have a 10 x 11 room with curtains on two walls and my quilty cave. Just about perfect, but I really want to get rid of this cave. Full court press now to find insulation for the walls. I just have to figure out how much is enough hoping to not have to cover everything that's bare.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Mike Sommer]

Not being the owner is a problem.

The first thing you've got to figure out is how loud the noise is- an SPL meter will help you with that (measure with C-weighting).

The low frequencies will are the hardest to mitigate, especially in a wood structure. One thing you might be abel to investigate, is whether or not the walls have insulation in them. If not, having cellulose insulation blown into the wall, will help reduce the transfer of sound and heat.

Covering your walls floor to ceiling, and the ceiling with 4-inches of rigid insulation would reduce some ambient noise as well as treat the room rather well for resonance and echo. But it would be hard to determine how much ambient noise that it will reduce.

You may be stuck with the option of a small but not too small portable booth. But I would hold off on that until I know how much isolation I really need.

So get a SPL meter and have your neighbors clump around upstairs and giving the slider a workout, while you're taking measurements.

You could also look for another room that might be a little more quiet.
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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.

[ballenberg]

Stumbled across this video this a.m.

http://www.ehow.com/video_4971321_diy-soundproofing.html

Mike, and others, what do you think about his 25 cent per square foot solution (toward the end of the video after he talks about windows and doors)--Never heard this one before, and he certainly doesn't answer a lot of the questions this technique raises, but overall, does it sound like a plan that might work?