VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[D Voice]

Wondering about optimal placement for mic (and VO artist) recording in a small room.

Is it crazy to record facing into a corner? If so, how far away from the corner? Is there a formula or other considerations for this?


Any additional sound isolation, and reflection advice is also welcome. To my crude ear, it seems that I have little problem with reflection, but much more with isolation.


SOME DETAILS:
I live abroad in a small, corner, urban 1 bedroom apartment on the ground floor. It's on a side street downtown, yet the neighborhood is surprisingly quiet, except for the odd helicopter or motorcycle, and sometimes footsteps from above.

Hard to justify the space an isolation booth would swallow up, so the recording space I must use is a 11'x 10-1/2' bedroom, with an approximately 92"ceiling.

The 'control room' (which houses the desk, computers and is the kitchen/dining area), is on the other side of hollow sliding doors, which I call Wall D (below). Mic, stereo and some speaker cables are slipped through the crack between one of the sliding doors slightly open, and the adjacent wall (A).


SO:
Since the greatest source of constant noise is from the computers and refrigerators in the 'control room' which leaks through that corner, as well as the sliding doors themselves, it seems to me that the most logical thing to do is for me to face them.
Either:
1. directly at the sliding doors
or
2. into the CORNER of walls A/D , where the cables pass through

If so, how far out from a corner, is ideal?
Or should I be facing the A/B or B/C corners instead?

Or is speaking into corners to be avoided at all costs?


Am considering hanging clips for some kind of sound blanket or isolation material above the sliding doors when recording, and perhaps around the A/D corner


MORE DETAILS:
I labeled the walls going clockwise from the corner the cable pass through.

Long wall A is an exterior wall with no windows;
B is mostly a sliding glass door to outside (south) with a heavy curtain and the AC unit above, and the bed in front of it;
Wall C has clothing closets with folding doors, running the length of the wall (the closet is 71" high with 21" to the ceiling).
Wall D, is actually 4 lightweight 76" high (x34") hollow sliding door panels between the bedroom and the dining room/office where the desk and computers live. Normally it has to be open. There is a 15" space above with a 5" hollow wall.


There are book cases on wall A near the A/D corner. Most audio equipment apart from the computers is housed on a 5'(x 36" x 18") rack along one door panel on Wall D. Audio cables, etc. slip through the crack of the door at the corner of A and D

[FWIW Walls A and B have sofets that hang down 12" and 15" respectively, and there a large vertical sofet (for lack of a better term) 17"on each side in the outside corner (between walls A and .]

(would draw this up, but don't know of good software for doing so easily)


TIA

[Mike Sommer]

[D Voice]

not sure about doing that here either, but here's a shot:

[D Voice]

[Mike Sommer]

These are the conditions a lot of folks in VO come up against.

If the main source of your noise is coming from your refrigerator and computer, there are only a few options available to deal with them: 1) Move as far away from the units as you can, 2) Replace them with quieter appliances, 3) Shut down the refrigerator while recording (which still leaves the much needed computer), 4) Close off the partition wall.

The answer is in there someplace, you just need to figure out how far you want to go into solving the problem. Noisy computers are the biggest offenders, and one that will follow you where ever you go. So getting a quiet computer would be my first order of business. You can then, unplug the refrigerator while recording, just don't forget to plug it back in.

Purchasing a quitter refrigerator is another option. Not cheap, but it will be less expensive then construction or a Whisper Room.

As for recording in a corner this is not the most ideal place to record, but if that's all you've got, then a considerable amount of treatment will be needed reduce the echo and bass resonance of the corner.

Your room is basically a cube, and you have a ceiling soffit that appears to extend around at least part of the room. This adds another set of corners to the room. And I don't even want to begin to muddy the waters with that potential set of problem.

So first eliminate the noise. Once you've done that, then you can work on reducing the rooms resonance with rigid insulation.
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Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

[D Voice]

Thanks,

Guess it is also a question whether distance or direction (orientation) of the (cardioid) mic is more important with regard to the noise sources.

(The fridges are actually pretty well behaved; it's more the computers, one in particular). Considering using my Acer notebook at home as well as on the road for recording, as it is the quietest.

Read about the 38% rule, and wondered whether and how that might apply to addressing a corner- is there a formula, or could it be as simple as measuring on the diagonal?

In my ignorance, I was kind of thinking/wishing the sofets might mitigate some of the reflections and bass problems.

Another option I am considering is a Portabooth or Reflexion type construction behind the mic, sitting on one of the shelves of the audio rack along wall D, with its back to the room with the offending noise machines, using sound insulation material, covered by some 2" pyramid foam squares I have..

[Mike Sommer]

[D Voice]

I do appreciate the comments and suggestions.

[Mike Sommer]

[Lance Blair]

Just to be sure so everyone is on the same page, is a noise floor of -70 or -60dbFS:

1.) Measured against peak or average levels of the voice and

2.) Measured against recording session levels (could be from -18 or -9...depends on the engineer/talent) or measured against the processed final levels with the voice peaking at -3 to -.1dbFS?
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Skype: globalvoiceover
and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!

[sounddguy]