Floor for my vocal booth

[Adlen]

Almost finished my temporary studio, most of the gear in it is up for sale though to help me fund the upgrade (oh what happy days). I'm planning to build the vocal booth soon using office screens.

The booth will be 1500mm x 1500mm on each wall, with another screen used for the lid, all bolted together except for one which will be hinged.

My question for you experts (or at least people who know more about this than me!) is this:

What should I do about my floor? Leave the current laminate floor in my studio room exposed inside the booth? Office screen? Carpet tiles? Rug (thicker than tile)?

I'd prefer not to use the screen as I think it will get wrecked. If it's far better acoustically then I can use it for one of two artists I'm recording soon, she'll take her shoes off to relax anyway. The other artist is messy.

My other question regards lighting:

What should I do about lighting? I was thinking of getting a rope light to go around the top, it will light the booth without being so bright as to be annoying. Hoping it will create a nice mood. My other options are a small dome lamp thing, a lava lamp (mood, but will it be bright enough?) and mounting a Maglite (a big C-cell one).

This is all working out to be quite expensive :(

Thanks in advance!

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Adlen

The booth will be 1500mm x 1500mm on each wall

A square shape is not good for a small room. It's not good for a large room either, but it's even worse for a small room like that.

What should I do about my floor?

Assuming the rest of the booth is made totally dead, which it should be, what you have on the floor might not matter because it's 5 or 6 feet away from the singer's microphone.

--Ethan

[Adlen]

What about a trapezium? like:

1800
1800 1800
3600


Also, the singer's mic will be about 3 - 4 feet from the floor. Does that change your statement or is that too little of a difference to what you assumed to make any change?

Thanks

[Ethan Winer]

There's nothing wrong with a rectangle, but all the dimensions should be different from one another. Much more here:

Graphical Mode Calculator

--Ethan

[Adlen]

No Mac version but I'm gonna keep trying different things, would a 1800 high, 1500 wide wall (x4) work? Then one 1500 all round for the lid? Does it help if my lid is angled or waved? Is there a 'perfect' design for a vocal booth that I could build from office screens?

Mucho appreciation for the help

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Adlen

No Mac version

This is from that page:

MAC USERS: We don't have a version of ModeCalc for Macs, but you can still get some benefit by clicking the image at left to make it full size. Then note the eight recommended ratios and build your room close to one of those.

[Adlen]

Oh yeah, sorry didn't read that bit.

That's great, just gotta work out what I can do with the standard size screens to avoid adapting them. I'll end up destroying them

Cheers