VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Darren Altman · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 4:24 am Post subject: Ventilation for my booth

Hi all,

I have a new voiceover booth which has been acoustically treated: Plaster board outside, then layers of T50 acoustic mineral, compressed rockwool, more T50 hanging, underlay handing and an acoustic material finish. The floor (floated) and celling have both been treated in the same way, with all these layers of treatment. The sound is fantastic in there, nice and dead and more importantly, practically zero sound coming into the booth. I'm thrilled with it!

The question I have is that it is a confined space with no ventilation. What is the best was to get air in and draw the stale air out, without compromising my acoustics?

One suggestion is to make a hole in the roof, leading to a fan in the attic which will blow air in via a long flexi-pipe (over the other side of the attic so it doesn't create any noise) and then a vent in the bottom. Would a vent allow sound in? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Philip Banks · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 6:22 am Post subject:

The answer is angles and corners and baffles between your vent and the outside world. The more sound has to go around corners and change direction the more energy is taken from the moving air and less energy = less noise.

jsgilbert · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 9:47 am Post subject:

Here's a link to Gretch-Ken. They sell whisper quiet ventilation systems, as well as other accoustics products and are very, very helpful.

http://www.gretchken.com/acoustic_ventilation_systems.htm

My current solution is that I have a little fan in my booth with a remote switch on the cord. It mostly becomes an issue during ISDN sessions, whereby I may be standing there while they have executive meeting after executive meeting. During which I turn on the fan and open the door. When I am recording on my own, I take frequent breaks, whilst opening the door and turning on the fan. During those breaks I can return calls, check e-mail or elect to do any editing or cleanup on what I have already recorded.

The system tends to work quite well. 5 minutes is all it takes to cool down the booth, and perhaps becuase of the location of my booth, it tends to stay a decent working temperature for 20 - 30 minutes or so, even on fairly hot days.

The colutions from Gretch-Ken, tend to run around $1,000 all told and of course are considerably more profesional.
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Darren Altman · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 12:53 am Post subject:

Thanks guys. Smile

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JTVG · Backstage Pass Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 433

If you go with air from an outside vent/fan, you'll only be pumping hot humid air into your space in the summer (if your climate gets hot of course). One thing to explore is installing a ductless split AC system like a Mitsubishi Mr Slim, which I just had installed in my booth a couple of weeks ago. At least one wall of your booth would need to be an outside wall for that to be a solution, but it's whisper quiet and you'd be bringing in cold air.
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Bish · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 5:46 am Post subject:

errrr... remember guys, Darren's a Brit. We neither need nor understand domestic air-conditioning* Smile

Personally, I like the "open the door occasionally" solution. Low-tech and functional. What Darren really needs is a punkawallah.

*Jeez... the rest of the world always complains about British plumbing... think what a pig's-ear we'd make out of a split a/c unit!
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ballenberg · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 8:37 am Post subject:

And yet, for those of us stateside, tell us more, Joe.

Is your booth an actual room, or a pre-built?

There's no ducting involved other than a tube? Did you just caulk around the openings to prevent sound leakage coming in from outside world?

And this covers both supply and return?

What about fresh air for non-cooling season--does Mr. Slim have a provision for that ?

Could you tell your approximate room dimensions, and size of unit. (Okay wise guys! The A/C unit.)

Thanks

imaginator · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:08 am Post subject:

i have a lot of "built-in" thermal heat-retention insulation on my person. so comfort in the booth is of vital importance for me.

don't know if this will help your situation, but take what you can from it.

mine is a free-standing home-made booth. double everything on/and/in the walls and built on a slab. nothing touching house walls or ceiling.

i had my ac/heating guy come in and branch an air duct off the central air vent in the main room. he attached a long flexible insulated duct which literally "snakes" across the top of my booth in irregular turns. the other end of the duct comes out in a vent in my booth ceiling.

to let the air flow through, i have a small space at the bottom of my solid door where normally a threshhold would seal it. it's not enough of an opening to let much noise in, and it lets booth heat and a/c flow through just fine.

you can listen to some of the quieter parts of my demos to verify that. i use very little "noise gating" in the mic chain. no complaints from clients in the last 15 years.

hope there's something in all that you can use.

other than that...i also recommend j.s.'s "open door policy".
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JTVG · Backstage Pass Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 433

Ballenberg, Mike Sommer tipped me off to these and can probably tell you a lot more about them. My booth is a renovated closet, 4 x 6 1/2 or so. One of the short ends is on an outside wall, which is where the unit is connected. The smallest rated Mr Slim was more than enough for the booth, and should also be fine to cool the 11x15 room outside of the booth when the door is left open. The inside unit mounts on the wall near the ceiling and air/draining is piped through a small round hole behind the unit that was caulked and sealed after installation. It receives its power from the outside fan unit which is small and virtually silent when running. Used it for the first time today and it worked great.

Here are a couple of pics. On the 2nd one, a little of the unit is hiding above the cloud in my booth.

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ballenberg · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:30 am Post subject:

Very nice--

I was just reading up on it but even the literature didn't make it clear if it can circulate fresh air, rather than just cooled. Perhaps that's because it can't? Anyone know?

Thanks Joe!

JTVG · Backstage Pass Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 433

Not sure about that. Haven't got around to reading the manual yet. Smile

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Bruce · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:23 am Post subject:

It only recirculates the air inside the room, just like most whole house refrigeration systems (it's just a lot smaller)....compressor outside, heat exchanger inside, with coolant feed and return lines in between. If you want fresh air you're still going to have to open a door or window from time to time.

B
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Darren Altman · Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:05 am Post subject:

Problem solved!! We're installing a ducting fan by dropping the pipe from the ceiling to the floor, with the fan up to 10m away from the ceiling otside the booth, in the attic to eradicate any noise. This will pump the air in. On the other side of the ceiling we're putting a grill in to take the stale air out.

The fan on it's slow speed will shift 145 cubic meters of air!!

imaginator, what I'm doing is the same as you mate. Wink

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ballenberg · Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 6:59 pm Post subject:

Thanks Bruce, Joe. Good you found your solution, Darren.

imaginator · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 7:32 am Post subject:

may it work for you as well as it's worked for me.

...and may we BOTH work too!
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