Ok, So the company I work for has recently relocated into a smaller facility and I have our whisperroom iso booth a little closer to our control room monitors. (maybe 3 or 4 feet diagonally) In our old setup I had the booth about 3 feet directly to the left of the work area with the monitors.(No feedback issues what so ever even at higher volumes) I usually track at low levels in this new room and I was cutting a V/O last week. I was noticing this low rumble in the talents voice, so I had him stop for a minute and while he went to use the restroom I began trouble shooting and raised the control room monitor level little by little and low and behold I was getting bad feedback through the booth.(which is heavily insulated with foam on the inside.) We finished the V/O even tho I had to have the monitors sooo low and I ended up just rolling out a bunch of low frequencies which sounded ok for what we were doing it for. But I'm concerned about tracking avocalist in here. I dont have any options as far as moving the booth due to the very small space that we have in the control room.(Damn NYC) My Mic Chain is TLM103-----> Vintech X73i------>DBX 160X (Yuck)----->192i/o.
If anyone has any suggestions that could possibly help me out with this I would grealty appreciate it.
Thanks.

Acoustiblok International Office
*6900 Interbay Blvd.
*Tampa, FL* 33616
*Phone:(813) 980-1400
*Fax:(813) 849-6347*
*Email: [email protected]

Works as well as any similar stuff.
Regards.•:*¨¨*:•. ¸¸.•´¯`•.Mark Fairfax-Harwood, Engineer Springvale Studios

If the floor is strong enough you can bolt them to the outside walls all over. They are metal backed and efing extremely heavy. The walls will not move much and the booth will be so efing heavy it will not move up and down very much. Make sure the floor can take it. The only way to get rid of LF is tonnes of weight and no air leaks.

When I was working in a small room (with the Whisper Room literally right next to the desk), I ran in to the feedback problem... but only when the door to the Whisper Room was open. However, I never have the volume up that loud while tracking.

Is your Whisper Room on casters?

-CJ

yes, it is on casters and there is no rug underneath it. the old setup was on wall to wall carpeting and a bit farther away from the monitors and i didnt have any problems. I am getting this feedback with the door shut.

I was wondering if it was on casters, cause they help float the booth's floor.

Are you working with a sub (if so, see if that's the problem)?
And, you're sure it isn't from the headphones bleeding in to the mic...?

No, I'm not working with a sub and I tried cutting off the headphone feed.(I still get the same level feedback)

Damn...

Are you sure that it isn't the intake fan from the air circulating system? Occasionally, I could hear that in the mic... but that all depended on how open the mic pre had to be for the track.

If it isn't that... I am without a clue...

Heh, we actually dont have the air system hooked up because it makes too much noise, I am in the process of buying a bigger fan housing+fan and a voltage controller to essentially have a bigger fan spinning at a lower rotation which would give me nearly dead silent ventilation. I am pretty much stumped as to how to get rid of this nasty feedback. Thank god our live room is almost done. Ill just cut Vox in there, but the booth is essential for V/O's and I must get it straightened out soon.
Anyway thanks for reading the thread...
O well

I guess the only other questions I'd ask is: where is the booth within the room? Is it right up against the wall? Cause, if it were in the corner (and against the wall), you could be getting a big low-end buildup (without really knowing it from the desk) that is causing the feedback...

FWIW, I had my booth in the corner of a small room, but pulled it 6-8" from each wall, and had no feedback problems.

Good luck (and glad to hear you'll have another room to track vox in!!).

-CJ

Yes, it is in a corner.... not sharing a wall with the desk that houses my monitors, but a corner none the less. O well.
Thanks for the feedback guys....no pun intended..
I guess its time to let this thread slide through the cracks......

Ummm...the obvious solution: turn your monitors down so you dont get feedback? I track vocals in a room with about 20-30db isolation from my control room and thats what I do!


M

You dont understand, even with the monitors cut and I'm tracking.( we did a test). When the talent is talking you hear the mic feeding back.. I dont track loudly at all. Even with the headphones cut as well..

Well thats not feedback then, unless there is some other way the mic signal is being amplified and played back into the booth. But if the monitors and headphones are off and its making funny noises, it cant be feedback.

Have you tried taking the compressor out of the path, just use a mic pre, and see if it still does it. If it does, move the mic out of the booth into the control room and see if it still 'feeds'. Even with the monitors up in the same room you should be able to get enough gain to record vocals before any feedback happens.

Can you post a short sample of the noise?


M

Move the booth out of the corner. Seriously. It's the talent's voice exciting the room, even through the booth - that's what it's mainly LF rumble you're hearing. The corner just magnifies the problem. If you can get the booth away from at least ONE of the walls it's up against, it should get better.

Also, try an omni, or reposition the mic so that the null of the mic (I'm assuming cardioid) is facing into the corner.