Vocal Booth pros and cons

[DrShann]

Hi all.

I'm having trouble with background noise during tracking (dogs barking, kids shouting, planes and cars and you get the ***annoying*** picture).

Living in London, I don't have much of a chance of finding an oasis of calm. Also, I don't want to heavily invest in soundproofing a room of my property because we'll be moving sometime soon.

So, I'm thinking of saving some cash towards a booth, probably one by Vocal Booth, like this:

http://www.vocalbooth.com/products/p...ies_specs.html

I'd need to go for something about 4' x 6' i.e. small.


It will be for recording vocal and acoustic guitar at the same time.


Can anyone with experience tell me the pros and cons of using something like this?


Thanks.

[TheSweetener]

I always track vocals in a selfmade booth like that. make sure you treat the corners with some bass traps and cover half the room with some hi/mid absorbers. Should work. I would built it myself, these "professional" booths are too expensive, at least here in Germany.

On the other side, I know that there are many people here, who prefer a big room for tracking vocals.
So first of all you should know what you want, a dry or a "wet" vocalsound!

[Ruphus]

I use a booth too, despite of a great room, because there is too much leakage in the room.
However, I always wished I could use the room instead of the booth.

A booth usually gives you a boxy sound, even when you put up absorbers as good as possible. And even if you managed to get it "really" dead and EQed the box out, there is no comparison to tracks made with a natural and good sounding room reverb.

Still, in a situation like yours and mine ... Go for the booth. Better yet than having noise in your recordings that would be screwing up the whole mixes.

Ruphus

[kittonian]

I have a 4x6 vocalbooth.com made vocal booth. I love it. It's not boxy and they fully treat it inside before it arrives. Never had a problem. Takes a few people a couple hours to set it up (at least the first time). Very sturdy. I've thrown amps in there plenty of times as well as recording acoustic guitars and vox.

[monobeat]

we've had a booth by the german company studiobox (http://studiobox.de) for the last few years and are very pleased by the results. of course it is very dry but i'd say that the accoustics are as good as can be expected for a box that size. as they use proper absorbtion the sound is very well balanced.

another great plus is that these booths are fully transportable...mind you you will need a few strong men and backs of steel. we have already moved locations once and the booth moved with us, no probs.

[picksail]

99% of our vocals are cut right in the tracking room. If I need a tighter sound I will apply partisans around the vocalist. I prefer the sound of a good room in the vocal tracks anyway. It's fun manipulating the physics of the room to create some interesting 'spaces' with only partisans. It sort of parallels the mic placement mentality.

Many times I will hang a pair of mics up to acheive a Blumlelin pattern. It gives me a great picture of the room and allows me to then use it as a 'stereo verb' along with the direct vocal mic. And since I prefer to use the AEA R84s for this application I can also boost/cut EQ where necessary-they like EQ.

No booth required. Albeit, more of a necessity when doing VO/ADR work.

[DrShann]

Thanks for the feedback.

Picksail, those solutions are great if you have a great room. I don't - as explained a large proportion of the time I have background noise pollution, so no matter what mic configuration I don't get a clean result.

I'd love to be able to have the benefits of a good room like yours but based on my situation I have to consider other options i.e. a booth.


I think overall it's looking like:

- using a booth is not as good as tracking in a great room with great natural reverb and character

- but given I have a pap noisy room, a booth is the next best option

- I can claw a lot (if not all) of what I miss by recording 'dead' in the booth by adding in reverb (etc.) later.

This about right?

Anyone else use the Vocal Booth products? If so which ones and how have you found them?

[picksail]

But, can you partisan your existing room with gobos? It would certainly be less expensive than purchasing a booth.

[DrShann]

That's a possibility. I allways thought gobos were more for controlling the sound generated within a room i.e. influencing the acoustic of the sound created by the vox / guitar etc.

Do they also insulate from external noise sources?

If yes then I'd like to learn more - do you know any links / sites / vendors I could check out?

Thanks again.

[picksail]

That's a possibility. I allways thought gobos were more for controlling the sound generated within a room i.e. influencing the acoustic of the sound created by the vox / guitar etc.

Well you will certainly alter the physics of the room for better or worse.

Do they also insulate from external noise sources?

Obviously, not as much as a full enclosed isolated booth

If yes then I'd like to learn more - do you know any links / sites / vendors I could check out?

Maybe Dave Martin will respond. He has built some really nice gobos. I'm sure doing it this way allowed him to apply more money towards car insurance

[shack jonz]

My solution to a similiar problem was to get a Shure Sm7b. As a dynamic mic, it basically eliminates any room problems/outside noises. An added bonus is that it sounds great on just about everyone.

[DrShann]

Thanks for the responses

Does anyone have anything else to add?

[mikey]

you could use a gate

[fross]

DrShann, I have the same kind of noise problems. I live in NYC. I tried gobos and although they were great for acoustically shaping the room, they weren't sufficient for isolating the mics from the outside. I would go the vocal booth route.

Fortunately, I have a bathroom right off the studio that doesn't share any walls with the outside. I put portable gobos in there and close the door and it works extremely well.