VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

paulstefano · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:43 am Post subject: Any hope to limit vibrations?

Good afternoon everybody.

Looking for some engineering advice on my space. Some of you may remember me struggling with vibrations in my house from my kids running around below the room where my recording space is. Well, I got a drumperfect silencer booth and configured it to a smaller footprint to help with sound noise reduction. I configured it at about 3 X 4.5 and used the extra pieces to sit the whole booth on top of. I also used the existing roof pieces to completely enclose the space.

The results are good for sonic quality, so I'm hesitant to start over. I sent a sample to George and he said "gotta say, that audio sounds great". I am still struggling with vibrations, however. One, from the kids, and two, from the highway behind my house that has a low rumble with a cutoff frequency of about 85 khz. Trouble is, that is also partially where the low end of my voice sits.

So, my question (finally) is this. Is there anything I can do to help with the vibrations? I'm convinced most of the rumble is straight vibrations in the walls. Will putting the whole thing on wheels, or laying vinyl underneath do anything? The roof of the booth as well as the sides are not touching the rest of the house now, but the floor is, albeit through additional sound damping panels. Or is this a lost cause with my current set up?

Thanks,

Paul
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richvoice · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 11:11 am Post subject:

If it's a low rumble, I'm pretty sure it's 85Hz. Unless you're a dolphin or a bat, you're not going to be hearing anything at 85kHz. Smile

As someone with (I think) a deeper voice than yours, I wouldn't worry about losing any of your voice at 85Hz. Most high-pass filters are set to 80-100Hz, and high-pass filter usage is common.

Are you hearing the vibrations during playback, or are you simply feeling them and/or hearing them while you're recording? As George says, "If it sounds good, it is good!" I've learned that while I notice a few things in my headphones while recording (e.g., quieter jets, distant traffic), I don't hear them during playback, so it's not really an issue.
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paulstefano · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 11:17 am Post subject:

You are right, HZ!

I do hear it during playback as well. If the kids run, I hear a thud. And always the low rumble from the traffic.
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vkuehn · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:29 pm Post subject:

Paul: are you using any software based noise removal to attack this problem? Is it helping? Thinking of the way we measure and express levels for Room Tone, do you have a measurement or estimate of the level of these vibrations and thumps? Are they -30... or maybe -50 or even -60?

Maybe besides having a voice with low frequency content, maybe you also have extraordinary hearing ability for those frequencies. You may be obsessed with worry over an issue where only 0.0003% of the humans on earth can hear the issue.

NorthEndVoice · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:01 pm Post subject:

The 85Hz lo cut is where you should start. No one will notice. I've started leaving the adjustable filter on my Avalon pre (80Hz) always engaged. It can help with some of your issues but maybe not all of them.

Eddie Eagle · M&M Joined: 23 Apr 2008 Posts: 2393

A floating floor under your drumperfect possibly?

paulstefano · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:27 pm Post subject:

Eddie Eagle · M&M Joined: 23 Apr 2008 Posts: 2393

I don't think so but. Only one way to find out.
Here's some interesting solutions that could be improvised on.
http://www.kineticsnoise.com/arch/floating_floors.html

Lee Gordon · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:34 pm Post subject:

Fair warning: I built my booth on two dozen Auralex U-boat floor floaters and I can still hear the low rumble of passing traffic. It's barely enough to get picked up by the mic, but it's enough to annoy the crap out of me.
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paulstefano · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 4:06 pm Post subject:

Thanks Lee. That's kind of where I am and nearly exaxlty what I was thinking. U boats or maybe wheels. I can get by with aggressive high pass filtering, but I was trying to improve. Maybe it's not worth it
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Eddie Eagle · M&M Joined: 23 Apr 2008 Posts: 2393

Maybe try hanging your mic from the ceiling

DenaliDave · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 5:10 pm Post subject:

One creative way ...

Use a filter to eliminate the offending frequency and then try experimenting around with Waves Maxxbass. Here's the SOS article on it:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb98/articles/waves.html

It's not an EQ...it actually adds clean harmonics around what's there. Like any of that software stuff, less is more. The less you mess with the audio via software the better IMO. Good sound in = good sound out.
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vkuehn · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:22 pm Post subject:

DenaliDave · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:58 pm Post subject:

Sound doesn't travel in a vacuum...

I wonder if it would be possible to leverage this fact of science...are there any kinds of metal or glass containers that have vacuums in them people could use to "insulate" a space?
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richvoice · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:07 pm Post subject: