VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[richvoice]

Now that I'm getting back into the game, I'm looking at options for my home recording booth. Unfortunately, I don't have any ideal locations in this house, mostly due to the fact that we have a LOT of single-pane windows (we recently had our house painted and the painter counted 128 individual panes that he had to mask, most of them single-pane). And we live in an area in the Desert Southwest where there's a substantial amount of wildlife noise outside (mostly birds, although the cicadas should be starting up soon as well).

It's looking like my best option is an interior closet that we're just using for storage, once I swap out the existing fluorescent light fixture. It's a fairly large closet, about 7' x 8'. I have a bunch of old Auralex foam panels, which I'm sure will help somewhat, but I understand that interior foam panels are much more for absorbing sound within the booth than blocking external sound.

My current plan is to use the existing space with the Auralex, and my longer-term plan (or at least embryonic idea) is to build a much more soundproof booth within the closet: given the layout of the closet and the room that it's in, using the back half of the closet should actually work quite well. But I'm concerned about the size of that space, which will likely be somewhere between 3' x 6' and 3.5' x 6.5', depending on how much airspace I put in the built-up walls and ceiling.

In my previous house, I used a closet space that was more like 1.5' x 3', and I noticed that things started sounding weird when I increased my vocal volume louder than a normal speaking voice. What I'm wondering is whether or not the space I'm envisioning is going to be large enough, or if I really need to consider trying to make the entire closet the booth (which would be more difficult, since the main electrical panel for the house as well as an attic crawlspace access door are in the front half of the closet).

Is there a minimum booth size where well-positioned baffling will accommodate most speaking volumes?

Thanks,
Rich

[captain54]

According to the recommendations of the knowledgeable folk on this site, I purchased a used 3.5x2.5 Whisper Room, covered the walls with Rockwool 60 panels, stuffed Auralex in the corners as traps, and it's worked out pretty well.. George Whittam's recommendation on a shotgun mic, such as a Sennheiser 416 or AT 875r for a male voice in tight quarters such as mine, proved right on the money.. Booth has only been up and running for a week or two now and its already 1/2 way there to paying for itself.
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Lee Kanne
www.leekanne.com

[vkuehn]

I have this "lingering suspicion' that choice of room size is a little bit like choice of mic: It depends on your voice! Some of the YouTube videos put out by voice over folks can be interesting. Sometimes they will be on camera talking outside the booth, and then step into the booth to demonstrate some technique and you can hear a big change. Usually involves proximity effect.

A suit of proximity effect looks good on some voices.... not so good on others. Those of us who got a start as males in radio announcing way too young used to milk the proximity effect for all it was worth to achieve more of the sound that was tradition "back in the day". Then we grew older and our voice changed: Too much yelling at the kids to get in the house, too much yelling at ball games, maybe too much whiskey, too many cigarettes, and we woke up one morning saying: "This proximity effect thing has got to go."

For good or bad, I chose to go with a larger room. The bad news is that it looks strange: shelves of recipes, genealogy records, a lifetime of books and other racks and shelves of flotsam clutter up the room. The good news is that all the flotsam breaks up any standing waves and absorbs a lot of sound including unwanted noises.

Large booth or small booth: Pick the poison that works best with your voice.

[georgethetech]

I feel that larger is almost always better... in terms of voiceover booths.
All the great VO studios I've been in have the actor in a large room with baffles placed as necessary. No need to "isolate" in a booth because there's nothing to isolate the voice actor against. You can work the mic at a larger distance, have more room to gesticulate, better air circulation, and just an overall more open and natural sound. The fuller/deeper the voice, the larger the room you'll need to drop the naturally resonant frequency below the voice range. Of course we've learned to deal with all of these issues in a tiny booth as Lee did, as few have the luxury of the space.
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If it sounds good, it is good.
George Whittam
GeorgeThe.Tech
424-226-8528
VOBS.TV Co-host
TheProAudioSuite.com Co-host
TriBooth.com Co-founder

[Monk]

IF you have an entire room, that's much better. 1500cubic feet is a wonderful sounding space.

Avoid cubes.

you can see my studio build here:

http://www.vo-bb.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13749&highlight=
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Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me...

www.monksvoice.com

[Bruce]

Here's a thought: instead of building walls within the walls of your closet, how about rebuilding the walls OF the closet? Pull down the drywall, or whatever the surface is, and fill the cavity with something dense, then redo the drywall? While the wall cavities are exposed you can rewire electric and Internet wiring if you so desire. If you've got an attic you can lay denser insulation over the closet too.

This will keep your room as big as possible. Also, as a former desert rat, I suggest considering your air conditioning needs in that closet. You may need to bring in an HVAC duct, and add an exit vent no matter what you do in there.

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. .

[richvoice]

Monk, an entire room just won't be possible in this house. It's a very funky floor plan, originally around 1500 sq. ft. (we think), and now over 3000, having been added onto multiple times by a bit of a Sarah Winchester type. And each of the add-on rooms has lots and lots of glass, in addition to other practical considerations that make virtually all of them unsuitable (or unavailable) for any sort of isolated studio/booth.

The house actually has a casita, which would be a great choice -- except for the many windows and lack of any HVAC except for an old wall-unit AC. As soon as I'm making six figures, I'll consider remodeling it into a standalone studio (and three minutes later I'll consider -- more seriously -- moving into a house with a more suitable space!).

Bruce, I will definitely consider rebuilding the existing closet walls when I get to that point. I'm hoping that the space will be suitable as-is as I get up and running, for the next 6-12 months, but time will tell.

Thanks,
Rich