Recording Booth

**bitingmidge** · 22nd April 2006, 09:17 PM

Some of you will be aware that in the midst of building three boats and a few other bits and bobs, I've have made some oblique references over the last month or so to the Great Recording Booth Project.

Well it's finished, and has been my custom of late, a small photo submission follows, but first you have to wade through the usual diatribe!

So:
What on earth is it, and why?

A quick search of the web will give you many references to Vocal Booths, Sound Booths, Recording Rooms, Mini Studios (I had to say that to give the Search Engine Spiders some decent key words!

) and all are aimed at providing a "dead" or preferably an adjustable recording sound environment, and blanking out as much ambient noise as possible.

I'll go into my theory on that in the next post, but for now we'll stick to construction.

If you did that search, you'd find that the really cheap ones start at around $3,000 US, and if like me, you had an exceptionally talented Son in Law who was serious about writing music for a living and as a result lives off the smell of an oily rag, you too may have suggested - "Why don't we build one?"

Besides, "I reckon we can scrounge one for $250.00! (Here we go again!)

To build something that works at about 90% of the efficiency of the $3,000 US model, we scrounged the following

5 Sheets of 18mm MDF (damaged cover sheets from a cabinet maker) - (free)

A heap of 40 x19 hardwood ripped from those crappy floorboard seconds bought from Grafton (Thanks again Trevor!) for $100/m3. We didn't use enough to work out a cost!

Some carpet given to us during a house reno.

Two sheets of glass from an old aluminium window rescued from a tip.

Polyurethene sealing tape (50m) $30.00

50mm Acoustic Foam Tiles (9 @ $28.00 each)

Three hinges out of my collection.

An old screen door latch.

A few dozen screws (ex stock)

A bit of yellow glue and two tubes of liquid nails (for the foam),

Total cost a little over $300.00 and it works like a charm, so this is what it looks like:

1) Floor Plan: No parallel walls for best acoustic performance, so we have two 1500 long walls (the width of a piano - see Soundman, I DO listen!)

and two 1200 wide.
The 18mm floor is supported on five 'bearers' which sit on highly resilient foam (thrown in as part of the deal by the place we got the acoustic foam from), floor is carpeted to minimise reflected sound.

Wall 1: 1200 wide with trims at each end so that the adjoining walls can be easily located (I may have forgotten to mention above that the booth needs to be able to be dismantled to move house etc!) Walls are 2100 high so they can be brought in through a standard doorway, and besides, the 300 offcuts were used to make the 1200 wide sheets on the other sides 1500 wide!

2) Wall 2: this one was a bit of a bugger really, we had to screw the first two walls together then using ignorance (due to an absence of brute strength) somehow push them over the edge to locate them on the floor panel. The walls are supported on their skirtings, on a poly foam gasket. Note also the foam in place on the vertical end of wall one.

3) Wall 3 just popped into place as though it was designed to! The acoustic foam stops short of the floor because it comes in 600 wide tiles, and free carpet was a much cheaper option for the other couple of hundred millimetres!

4) So then we pop on the ceiling, complete with carpet. It reminds me terribly of a panel van I once owned a few years ago!

If I still have your attention, well you really are sad and lonely aren't you, so stay tuned for the next post!

cheers,

P

**ozwinner** · 22nd April 2006, 09:21 PM

Is this like the cone of silence?

Al

**bitingmidge** · 22nd April 2006, 09:30 PM

If you're still here:
1)
Finally Wall four pops into place, the ceiling is screwed down onto its foam gaskets, and the window is installed. No it's not as simple as it looks, in fact it's double glazed AND the inner face is angled to break up the reflected sound. The window is one of the weak links acoustically, and would be better if the glass was 6mm rather than three, but the price is right for now, and it's been designed so we can easily pop thicker glass in at a later stage.

2) Poor photo of the internal shot of the window. If you squint, you can see the top is approximately 40mm out of plumb. Of course the parralax error caused by the wide angle doesn't help.

I'm quite proud of the simple glazing detail though: I cut the "groove" from the tongue and groove flooring, then ripped one of the cheeks off, leaving a nicely rebated frame. The glass has poly tape on both sides, and this is compressed by the frame screws. In theory, we could replace the glass with 10mm glass without changing the detail!

3) Door is 18mm MDF, edge stripped and two "stiles" planted on and glued.

4) Handle is a roughie, cut from the hardwood flooring, a quick trim with the spoke shave, and inspired by DanTom, Andy Mac et al, left in it's more rustic form. (No sandpaper was killed in the recording of this construction!)

5) Inside of Wall 5 is all carpet, including the door. With three walls acoustically treated the sound in the confined space is quite dead, and MDF sheets will be used to introduce "life" as necessary for particular effects, so we figured completely lining with foam would be a waste of money and time.

If you have got this far you are really keen!

One more installment and we're finished, a nice change for yours truly!

Cheers,

P

**Gumby** · 22nd April 2006, 09:39 PM

You taking confessions at home now BM ?

**bitingmidge** · 22nd April 2006, 09:42 PM

Originally Posted by ozwinner

Is this like the cone of silence?

Yes Al, that's exactly what it's like... only you can fit a drum kit in it (if you are really skinny!)

Pic 1) Tada!!!! Finished: the outside is finished with a very economical

(read light) coat of Nitro Lacquer, the shelves from Ikea look the part (OK they were my daughter's from a long long time ago, but they work really nicely here don't they?

Pic 2) Bless their hearts: So grateful were they for the help from the old man, they built a replica in chocolate bars, complete with foam clad microphone on a toothpick stand, and acoustic foam lining. (I've been eating the choc while posting this!). The chocs were appreciated, but the looks on their faces as we did our first acoustic testing were all the reward this bloke would ever need! PRICELESS!!

A sort of non-tech tech bumf thing is next, with no pics!
Cheers,

P

**bitingmidge** · 22nd April 2006, 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by Gumby

You taking confessions at home now BM ?

Hmmm... I think that could be a reasonably lucrative sideline come to think of it!

P

**ozwinner** · 22nd April 2006, 09:45 PM

Originally Posted by Gumby

You taking confessions at home now BM ?

Be gone owhhhh Sataneded one.......:eek:

Al

**ozwinner** · 22nd April 2006, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

Hmmm... I think that could be a reasonably lucrative sideline come to think of it!

P

:eek: Theres one at the shop, a real one, well as real as can be from a home made one.
It was a wardrobe that someone converted into a confessinol box.
Ill take some piccys tomorrow, it scares the bejabus out of me.

Al :eek:

**bitingmidge** · 22nd April 2006, 09:54 PM

So how does it work and what does it do??

Firstly it's NOT a SOUNDPROOF booth.

True soundproof structures cost many tens of thousands of dollars to construct and are extremely difficult to create as demountables (without a crane and a forklift anyway).

It was designed to provide a "dead" recording environment, and to drop out the bulk of extraneous sound from the background. 18mm of MDF will only give a nominal dB reduction in theory, but the reality is that sounds like talking in the next room or birds twittering outside are completely eliminated.

Importantly the computer hard drive and fan, is now inaudible, and with the door to the room closed, the sound of a vacuum cleaner operating in the next room was also completely eliminated.

Sure the odd scream, car or truck revving etc will interfere with recording, but 80% of the background noise is now either completely eliminated or reduced to the point where it can be digitally removed.

On balance, we could have spent a LOT of money and time trying to get a perfect acoustic solution, but this one is almost there, and with a bit of careful juggling of recording times will provide results that are technically indistinguishable from a tru pro studio, and all for the cost of one small boat!!

cheers,

P (Address any questions to Soundman, he knows all about this stuff - thanks for your advice too Joe!)

**Pat** · 22nd April 2006, 09:56 PM

Perfect for the woodies with screaming children!

Another well executed project by you, again. Have a greenie

**Gumby** · 22nd April 2006, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by ozwinner

:eek: Theres one at the shop, a real one, well as real as can be from a home made one.
It was a wardrobe that someone converted into a confessinol box.
Ill take some piccys tomorrow, it scares the bejabus out of me.

Al :eek:

There's something to go to bed thinking about. A confessional wardrobe. You could sin in there and confess at the same time.

**ozwinner** · 22nd April 2006, 10:21 PM

Originally Posted by Gumby

There's something to go to bed thinking about. A confessional wardrobe. You could sin in there and confess at the same time.

Owwwwwhhhhhh.

Its even got the ten commandments written in red on a black board in it.....

Al

**Harry72** · 23rd April 2006, 12:09 AM

Done well Midgey... if you ever hit the finger rather than the nail head you got a nice place to scream %@%*&^ ^^$#% )*(&^!

**mickp** · 23rd April 2006, 12:26 AM

great job midge

**ss_11000** · 23rd April 2006, 11:31 AM

awesome stuff on the booth.........nice guitar too, did you make it?

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