Vocal Booth...Dead or Alive?

[Geddyleewannabe]

I know you don't want a completely dead live room, but considering the nature of recording vocals and the narrow range of frequency with the human voice, is a vocal booth best to be made completely dead?

Also, is it a safe assumption that bass killers in the corners aren't necessary since the human voice doesn't produce low enough frequencies for low freqs to be an issue?

[Ethan Winer]

> is a vocal booth best to be made completely dead? <

I tihnk so. The issue isn't so much live versus dead, but that small room ambience is always bad ambience. Another problem is the comb filtering you get off all the nearby surfaces. This is what creates that hollow, boxy, off-mike sound we all strive to avoid.

> is it a safe assumption that bass killers in the corners aren't necessary since the human voice doesn't produce low enough frequencies for low freqs to be an issue? <

You may not need bass trapping down to 50 Hz, but some bass trapping will be useful. Try singing a sweeping pitch in a very small space like a shower stall, and you'll hear the resonances somewhere around 100 to 300 Hz. These really should be tamed.

--Ethan

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

> is a vocal booth best to be made completely dead? <

I tihnk so. The issue isn't so much live versus dead, but that small room ambience is always bad ambience. Another problem is the comb filtering you get off all the nearby surfaces. This is what creates that hollow, boxy, off-mike sound we all strive to avoid.

> is it a safe assumption that bass killers in the corners aren't necessary since the human voice doesn't produce low enough frequencies for low freqs to be an issue? <

You may not need bass trapping down to 50 Hz, but some bass trapping will be useful. Try singing a sweeping pitch in a very small space like a shower stall, and you'll hear the resonances somewhere around 100 to 300 Hz. These really should be tamed.

--Ethan

Ok I think I am going to be sick.. Ethan in the shower singing..
The other things about vocal booths is a lot times you use them for guitars and you need bass trapping for that...
Glenn

[gitarrero]

> is a vocal booth best to be made completely dead? <

In my point of view/experience: NO!

why? because when you kill every single early reflection, the vocal will simply sound thin.

for example: I used to have such a dead vocal booth when I was younger. Then one evening I only wanted to record an idea and let the singer perform right beside me in the regie. Well... somehow the vocal sounded much better instantly (more volume, richer sound - which I was unable to add on vocalbooth-records with FX) - and so I begun to figure out why.

I think the early reflections are very important, and you can't reproduce with FX units what you missed in the recording.

[Geddyleewannabe]

Originally Posted by gitarrero

> is a vocal booth best to be made completely dead? <

In my point of view/experience: NO!

why? because when you kill every single early reflection, the vocal will simply sound thin.

for example: I used to have such a dead vocal booth when I was younger. Then one evening I only wanted to record an idea and let the singer perform right beside me in the regie. Well... somehow the vocal sounded much better instantly (more volume, richer sound - which I was unable to add on vocalbooth-records with FX) - and so I begun to figure out why.

I think the early reflections are very important, and you can't reproduce with FX units what you missed in the recording.

Ethan...could you please comment on this reasoning? I've heard this arguement before, so I'm wondering to what degree OR under what conditions might this be true in light of what you said earlier.

Thanks!

[HDGuru]

Depends a lot on what type of music your doing. For rap and pop stuff, a neutral sounding dead room is best. Meaning that the room needs to absorb frequencys across the spectrum evenly. For other types of more ambient music a larger room with some reflection may or may not be better depending on the ambience of the overall mix. I would much prefer a dead room to a bad sounding live one though. You can always add ambience with effects. The most important thing is that the room absorb evenly from bottom to top. The only way to do this is with proper use of multiple layers of materials specifically constructed for this purpose.

[Brad McGowan]

Originally Posted by HDGuru

Depends a lot on what type of music your doing. For rap and pop stuff, a neutral sounding dead room is best. Meaning that the room needs to absorb frequencys across the spectrum evenly. For other types of more ambient music a larger room with some reflection may or may not be better depending on the ambience of the overall mix. I would much prefer a dead room to a bad sounding live one though. You can always add ambience with effects. The most important thing is that the room absorb evenly from bottom to top. The only way to do this is with proper use of multiple layers of materials specifically constructed for this purpose.

That explains why I've always thought rap vocals sound odd on recordings. I'll take a big live room for vocals any day. I think it gives my recordings a signature sound having the vocals and drums in the same sonic space.

Brad

[XSergeantD]

With a properly built livelier vocal room, it's a hell of a lot easier to control and deaden the room for each session than it is to make a dead room livelier. With wood floors, you can throw a rug on the floor. You can throw gobos in the room to ease wall reflections.

[T_R_S]

You can always add ambience/reverb if you need it. But it's really hard to remove. I've had the odd session to mix from other studios with "room" in the vocal mic. It always makes me pull my hair out!

[gracejames]

I bought an Auralex MaxWall 1141 and i decided to put all the foam on the walls and corners. Kind of customize it and mismatch with other foam. So, yeah, i'm using their 'vocalbooth foam' for other use.

[thejook]

I used to track vocals in a really really dead room too all the time. I found, though, that the best sounding vocals in my mixes were of those tracked in a normal room - a lot more 'open' sounding, and even when compressed to sh*t there was never enough of the room to be really noticable in a full mix. Again, it just sounded more natural and open.

[gitarrero]

Originally Posted by T_R_S

You can always add ambience/reverb if you need it.

nope, I disagree. you can't add the fullness of a good (!) room to a record made in a acoustically dead environment through a unit.

You don't need to "hear" the room itself on the record - there is no room effect like on an ambient mic in drum recording. It's just that it sound much more open (..like jook said) when recorded in a not-dead room.

from our first day on this earth, we're surrounded by acoustically reflections - I guess this is another reason why it's important.

I also know some studios with dead vocal booth - in my ears, they pretty much all sound the same. Once you discovered the diffrence to a good sounding live room, you won't go back.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Brad McGowan

That explains why I've always thought rap vocals sound odd on recordings. I'll take a big live room for vocals any day. I think it gives my recordings a signature sound having the vocals and drums in the same sonic space.

Brad

Hey Brad,

Oh yea you are right on the money, but make sure that everyone understands that you, Brad know how to tune your room.. Right?
I would hate to think someone reading your post can walk into a non treated 15x21 room and think the vocals are going to sound right..

Glenn

[Brad McGowan]

Glenn,

Yeah--if you're room sounds like ass, then of course the ambience you get from that room is going to be crap. Depending on the configuration/sound of the room it may or may not need to be treated. My own room does have diffusive and absorbtive treatments in it, however. My thought is if the ambience is doing justice to the drums and other instruments then it should be just fine for the vocals.

Brad