do you really need a vocal booth???..

[activexjava]

Hi .. I know that the vocal booth is a must have for any studio ... but I am wondering if you can manage to get a decent vocal track in a normal room with acoustic treatment ...

I am currently trying to record in one of the bedrooms in my house .. the next bedroom I use as a control room .. I have about 12 acoustic foam panels that I installed in the control room and it does make a big difference in the sound..

will surrounding a number of performers 1 - 3 (only vocals) with acoustic panels .. such as using the primacoustic free ports ( a standing 2 x 4 panel) can give you decent results?..

how can I make a virtual vocal booth that I install when I have a session and remove after ?... can I get reasonably good results with that approach?...


thanks
John

[Dog_Chao_Chao]

Hi, i am no expert in this but, in my studio, i have no vocal booth and i don´t think i have a problem with it. What i do when recording vocals is either place the singer in the center of the room, far away from walls and other reflective surfaces or place a absorvent surface behind the singer ( like a big frame with any absorvent material. I think you can improvise with blankets.
The vocal booth is a must if you want to do a live recording with all the band playing and want to record the vocals at the same time. For that it´s great to have a booth with a window to comunicate with the rest of the musicians. Of course if you have one in your studio it´s a great place to track vocals ( no unwanted reflexions) but if you don´t...don´t stress. You should get a very decent sound without one!

[zkaudio]

I am setting up a "whole house studio" myself... i have the control room in a bedroom... the garage is about to undergo construction for drums and other LOUD stuff... and Im trying to figure out if I should just set up for vocals in another bdrm or use a specific spot in the garage with some strategic curtains...

[activexjava]

actually its kinda tricky to setup the vocal booth ... you have ventilation problem .. you need something that will put fresh air into the booth and another (fan) to push the air out .. these fans will make noise ... also in your control room .. your PC(s) and the rest of your gear will generate lots of heat .. so ventilation is a big issue .. you also will need to have light in the booth .. such that the person can read the lyrics .. etc ... that wil generate heat also .. and possibly electric noise...

[Lagerfeldt]

If you don't have a booth you could do worse than check out the brand new reflection screen from sE (don't even think it's on their website yet).

[DirkB]

You absolutely do not need a vocal booth when you have a decent bigger space to record vocals in.

Actually, I prefer bigger spaces for any recording situation and rather use some gobos to dampen the ambience into the mic.
In a small booth, the voice can easily get colored in a bad way when the vocalist moves away from the mic.
In general, small booth's are acoustically relatively problematic IMHO.

But lots of people get it to work, so there you have it...

Greetings,
Dirk

[activexjava]

Originally Posted by DirkB

You absolutely do not need a vocal booth when you have a decent bigger space to record vocals in.

Actually, I prefer bigger spaces for any recording situation and rather use some gobos to dampen the ambience into the mic.
In a small booth, the voice can easily get colored in a bad way when the vocalist moves away from the mic.
In general, small booth's are acoustically relatively problematic IMHO.

But lots of people get it to work, so there you have it...

Greetings,
Dirk

Hi Dirk ... I left a funny comment for you .. following your remarks about the ISA220 ..
I did a little testing yesterday .. following the thread I mentioned about bad vocals... I cranked the gain on the AT4033 .. and adjusted the compressor .. then tried to record my voice close to the mic .. and .. the voice was good .. bass components were there .. BUT .. the room reflections (as I cranked the gain high) became VERY clearly present with my voice .... it would ruin your vocal track for sure..
even though I had acoustic foam placed at the end of the room .. where my setup is installed .. I guess that would not be an issue in a vocal booth....

what do you think?..

[stellar]

I once set up a pair of 2' x 4' gobos I built on mic stands in a V shape and put the mic in between them and sang into it. I thought the sound was great, but everyone who heard the recording (including my family) said that the vocals did not fit with the music and sounded like they were in a different place. I don't think the gobos were the only contributing problem, but who knows. something like that might work for you. especially if the syle of music has all of the other instruments going direct; like hiphop or dance or something (I am just guessing here). I still love the sound from when I had no treatment and was using a close mic and a room mic on vocals, but that sounded more "creative" than "professional". Now I just record in the control room which has treatment on the walls. seems to be a happy medium....its nice to have options though. the way we used to do it was to just put up a bed matress against the wall and have the singer face that. sounded as professional as anything.

[Jose Mrochek]

I think there are a few examples of very very famous singers who have recorded in the control room with the monitor bleed included. Bono ? I havent heard a track of his yet that sounded bad.

[kevinc]

Originally Posted by DirkB

You absolutely do not need a vocal booth when you have a decent bigger space to record vocals in.

Actually, I prefer bigger spaces for any recording situation and rather use some gobos to dampen the ambience into the mic.
In a small booth, the voice can easily get colored in a bad way when the vocalist moves away from the mic.
In general, small booth's are acoustically relatively problematic IMHO.

But lots of people get it to work, so there you have it...

Greetings,
Dirk

I agree completely !

The only "advantage" of a vocal booth is seperation. Otherwise just a nice sounding room is great and a nice sounding room is typically on the bigger side.



Jose I use a monitor with most of my vocalists and I never have problems with bleed even when they`re cranked up a bit. Headphones are the anti-christ ! Get the room shaking a bit and see how much better the vocalist sings !

[RKrizman]

To me the challenge has become how to get the mics further away from the source. Once your room acoustics are deadened or at least controlled, and the noise from computers and hard dives reduced, you can get the mics away for less distorting proximity effect and use omni and fig 8 patterns. It can solve a lot of problems.
-R

[neve1073]

you can buy "acoustic blankets" on ebay. you can improvise a vox booth by hanging four of them from the ceiling.

[activexjava]

Originally Posted by neve1073

you can buy "acoustic blankets" on ebay. you can improvise a vox booth by hanging four of them from the ceiling.

he he .. looks like more people are against the vocal booth than for it ...

try a simple test ... if you have a walking closet .. get inside and try to sing ..
you will see what I mean .. if you have lots of clothes inside .. it will absorb almost all the reflections ..

however .. you will hear your voice much clearer inside because your voice will quickly eflect back .. .. in the normal room .. your voice will NOT reflect till it reflects off the room walls .. and that takes more time than the booth ..

my guess .. the reflections in the vocal booth are weak signals that gets absorbed quickly by the acoustic treatment .. but its a more precise representation of your voice ....

finally .. in the vocal booth .. I can crank the gain much more .. try that in your bedroom and you will see what I mean .. the room effect will intensify dramatically as you increase the gain ..

[adrianex]

I don't have a vocal booth, but I do have the gobos and that good enougth, plus I can move them around to change the sound of the room...

[mbvoxx]

I don't have a booth-(sometimes wish I did) - But last year a friend gave me three 4 x 8 panels of 1 inch air conditioning duct board which I covered with heavy fabric and built some wooden feet for, and created 3 custom made gobos from them. They are very light weight and easy to move around the room. I can use the 3 gobos to separate musicians during a multi-mic session, and for Vocals and VO I set the 3 gobos up to make a 3 sided enclosure in the middle of the room...open on top. I position the "gobo-booth" so that the open side is facing an a/c wall duct...that way it always gets cool air from the back side of the vocalist. Until I get around to building a booth at the end of the room this works pretty well.

[lordmiguel]

bedroom joe usually messes up a vocal booth rig.

eggcrate too small of a space and it sounds muffled.

moving blankets in as big a room as possible is def better

this makes bedroom joe sometimes feels ghetto and he does not like this solution.

what he really wants is something that looks cool regardless of how it sounds.

don't be bedroom joe. be very careful of the vocal booth.

sound good and you are good.

[John Suitcase]

Originally Posted by lordmiguel

bedroom joe usually messes up a vocal booth rig.

eggcrate too small of a space and it sounds muffled.

moving blankets in as big a room as possible is def better

this makes bedroom joe sometimes feels ghetto and he does not like this solution.

what he really wants is something that looks cool regardless of how it sounds.

don't be bedroom joe. be very careful of the vocal booth.

sound good and you are good.

Agreed, most vocal booths in project/home studios just make things sound worse!

[jchadstopherhuez]

dont waste your money on a "booth" unless you KNOW you can make it sound RIGHT and have proper HVAC in it.

i have a proper "booth" but usually prefer to cut vocals in my main room. usually putting up a few gobos or just hanging packing blankets around the singer will titen up the room for what i need.

there are ALOT of manufactured options out there to help treat your room. i have had luck with simply building 6-8 ft tall "gobos" out of a 2x6 frame...and loaded with 703-type insulation...covered by breathable fabric.

4 of these are often used in my room for isolation, room "titening" and mostly for creating a "vocal area" in the middle of my BIG room.

good luck with it !!

jchristopherhughes

[jchadstopherhuez]

here is a picture of what i use (2 of them setup for a vocal session...)

best,

jchristopherhughes

[IntenseJim]

Try this:

[Eric Greedy]

way too easy....

1 .As mentioned above... I record vocals in the control room on dynamics all the time (SM7, RE20, PR30, sm57/58. etc. etc.)...

2. a REAL simple way to control reflection's behind the singer that is portable to any space is three (3) packing blankets and three (3) mic stands with booms... raise stand all the way and make them into the shape of a giant 'T'... hang blankets over them... place behind with wings to cover the sides.... works like a charm.

[sctt_stone]

Originally Posted by lordmiguel

bedroom joe usually messes up a vocal booth rig.

eggcrate too small of a space and it sounds muffled.

moving blankets in as big a room as possible is def better

this makes bedroom joe sometimes feels ghetto and he does not like this solution.

what he really wants is something that looks cool regardless of how it sounds.

don't be bedroom joe. be very careful of the vocal booth.

sound good and you are good.

[vernier]

Who uses a vocal booth? ....not the top singers: Beatles, Patsy Cline, Nat Cole, Sinatra ..etc, etc. Maybe for isolation though, if you live in an apartment like I lived in. Yikes.
'

[Unclenny]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

If you don't have a booth you could do worse than check out the brand new reflection screen from sE (don't even think it's on their website yet).

My home studio is about the size of a decent vocal booth.

My own vox tracks improve markedly when I started singing into this canvas screen.

[whitepapagold]

As everone has pointed out, its not necessary. I f I have access to studio A at my work, I put them up in the center of the big room- everytime.

If I track at my studio, I put them in my tracking room- everytime.

I only want a booth for VO work! Or at least a super dead room...

[lordmiguel]

well iso booths can be great but most of the time if not made by pros they are not.

i overcompensated and made it a bit too dead, but still my choice of engineered flooring was poor, then after all that i an now at a rug. i've got 4" of rigid 703 panels around the whole booth, and corners, ceiling not missing an inch, basically almost everywhere, and that is inside a double walled room.

I can do vox, but resonant instruments (Acoustic Guitar, Cello, etc) that need to breathe can be a challenge in that dead type of iso booth. A bricasti, TC5000 etc might help a little.

ventilation was an issue. and it still is and it sucks. so it does still get hot after an hour and we have to take a break. / clear the room with a fan.

to be done correctly is not easy, but doable. its more work than you think though.

smaller "live" rooms? totally different. i won't go there. someday i may expand but ive just been working at studios that have appropriate rooms and its welllll worth it.

Im a believer in a nice professionally designed room (console is pure bonus!), and i don't know how guys get there sounding decent with using rooms in houses. but id like to know!! (i imagine a lot of those mixdowns are heavy sample replaced).

[whitepapagold]

Originally Posted by lordmiguel

and i don't know how guys get there sounding decent with using rooms in houses. but id like to know!! (i imagine a lot of those mixdowns are heavy sample replaced).

Its pretty common to track in a living room nowadays... And I guess Im suprised you assume there are no good sounding rooms, just by happenstance... Tuned rooms guarantee better resluts but it doesn't mean things don't sound good in a house... All SORTS of rooms can sound GREAT- regardless of their original intention!

But I agree that smaller rooms can be tough.

[binsys]

I have always HATED vocal booths, and always record vocals in a large acoustically treated room if possible. There is nothing worse than taking a performer who's basic function it is to get out on stage, jump up and down and yell at the the top of his lungs, and put him in a little constricting, claustophobic space.

If you are a in a project studio with marginal acoustics, try a new product called a Se Reflexion Filter. I found that it works surprisingly well in controlling what goes into the back of a multi-pattern mic when recording vocals, really helps to focus the singer, and lets everything hang out in free space, so that everybody can BREATHE....

- h.

[lordmiguel]

Originally Posted by whitepapagold

Its pretty common to track in a living room nowadays... And I guess Im suprised you assume there are no good sounding rooms, just by happenstance... Tuned rooms guarantee better resluts but it doesn't mean things don't sound good in a house... All SORTS of rooms can sound GREAT- regardless of their original intention!

But I agree that smaller rooms can be tough.

yeah, rooms with high ceilings or reasonable in most dimensions can be tough to come by here in NY, esp if your partner has a say in where you live, not to mention that great room with the vaulted ceilings *ain't* gonna be the drum room. its gonna be the room to impress friends and her in laws. i get the english or garden and sub basement. you know....family first!!! damn, that just doesn't work. ring ring......hello avatar?......i'd like to spend some money i haven't actually made yet.....

[Mike H]

I built a sound booth inside a bedroom for two reasons:
(1) Traffic noise from a nearby road
(2) My wife's objections when I tracked electric guitars.

I did all the treatments:
- Mineral fiber in the new stud walls
- Double layers of sheetrock inside and out
- Resilient channel for hanging sheetrock
- SheetBlok in walls, ceiling, floor
- Floor floaters
- Double doors, solid core
- Lots of OC 703 panels hanging on walls
- Lots of OC 705-FRC panels for bass traps.

Obviously I went for a dead room...............no other real option for a relatively small room.

It works great.
You hear absolutely nothing outside the booth, regardless of how loud the guitar cabs are.
And no outside sound gets into the booth..........zero.

It just removed a constant worry I had that I was picking up outside noises while I was tracking (which I often did, pre-booth).

No ventilation issues...........but I don't stay in the booth very long.
I set it up, go in, do the vocals, come back out and see how I did.
Repeat as needed.

It was a must-do for my situation, and I'm very happy with it.

BTW, the vocals sound much better now.
The vocals in the bedroom didn't have a nice room sound........they just had a bad echo.