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Post by lowlou on Apr 7, 2023 8:11:19 GMT -6
Hello !
I'd like to invest in an excellent vocal booth (does that even exist ?) for my project studio. A booth to record... Vocals. It has to be small, about 1,3X1,3m or 1,3x2m with the door on the small side. Excellent noise reduction, neutral acoustic. The good stuff...
The brands will all say that their booth is the best, I guess. Which make one's choice difficult. I lean toward the closed designs with real materials and thick surfaces, not the foam-based designs.
I don't want to DIY. If you know european custom-made makers, why not !
Do you have that kind of booth ? Do you know some that are best than others ? What is worth buying, what is to be avoided ?
Anything to share ? Let's discuss !
xxxxxxx
Louis
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Post by mcirish on Apr 7, 2023 8:36:15 GMT -6
Personally, I'd skip getting a booth. I had one for a while and I absolutely hated what it did to the vocals. It's going to add some odd resonances to what you record. I now do all vocals out in the main part of my home studio and I am happy with the results. I do understand why you might want one, but the tonal trade-off isn't worth it. You can never EQ out that sound of the booth. If the booth could be 3x4 meters with a 3 meter ceiling, you might be able to make it work. You'd need a lot of absorption to take out the boxy sound. I'd rather not use one at all.
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Post by lowlou on Apr 7, 2023 8:57:40 GMT -6
Thanks mcirish ! Yes, it makes sense. Small booths negatively affect the sound. A no-go then. Argh  . |
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Post by lowlou on Apr 7, 2023 9:36:05 GMT -6
The VicBooth Ultra vocal booth was used, I think, to record Thomas Mars vocals for Phoenix's latest album ; they recorded in a studio located in the Louvres.
You see the vocal booth in this music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxTCTAnTP6Q). They say in an interview that this space was hard to tame and work with, because of all the marble and reflecting surfaces. Looking at the studio, they used huge absorbing panels on the walls and ceiling, and recorded vocals in the small 1x1m booth (a model with glass one two panels, but a windowless version exists).
Seeing a vocalbooth used by such band (I love Phoenix, they do everything themselves, including their mixes), made me consider the possibility of a vocal booth again.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 7, 2023 9:58:25 GMT -6
The VicBooth Ultra vocal booth was used, I think, to record Thomas Mars vocals for Phoenix's latest album ; they recorded in a studio located in the Louvres. You see the vocal booth in this music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxTCTAnTP6Q). They say in an interview that this space was hard to tame and work with, because of all the marble and reflecting surfaces. Looking at the studio, they used huge absorbing panels on the walls and ceiling, and recorded vocals in the small 1x1m booth (a model with glass one two panels, but a windowless version exists). Seeing a vocalbooth used by such band (I love Phoenix, they do everything themselves, including their mixes), made me consider the possibility of a vocal booth again. Their drummer is one of my favorites. Such cool beats and hits hard. Killer player. |
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Post by chessparov on Apr 7, 2023 9:59:21 GMT -6
What do you call a hippopotamus in a vocal booth?
Stuck.
Chris
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Post by copperx on Apr 7, 2023 10:13:20 GMT -6
What do you call a hippopotamus in a vocal booth? Stuck. Chris 😑😬 |
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Post by lowlou on Apr 7, 2023 12:21:24 GMT -6
The drums are programmed if I'm not mistaken, but they have a drummer on stage. Actually it's Thomas Mars behind most of the drum programming. THat's what I've read anyway. Could be different nowadays. The four members play a bit of everything. The vocalbooth : so far nobody defends it. Not even the hippo . |
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Post by notneeson on Apr 7, 2023 12:23:26 GMT -6
The drums are programmed if I'm not mistaken, but they have a drummer on stage. Actually it's Thomas Mars behind most of the drum programming. THat's what I've read anyway. Could be different nowadays. The four members play a bit of everything anyway. The vocalbooth : so far nobody defends it. Not even the hippo . I mean, the vocal booth at Hansa is amazing for drums based on the toontrack samples. So there’s that. |
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Post by lowlou on Apr 7, 2023 12:28:14 GMT -6
I was thinking I could stuff a PSI Avaa in a corner and few treatments on the walls of the booth. That could help absorb resonances.
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Post by tkaitkai on Apr 7, 2023 12:59:04 GMT -6
Skip the booth and buy 8 - 10 ASC StudioTraps (basically tube traps with adjustable stands) and use them in a Quick Sound Field configuration. Works like a charm and dead simple to setup. Only downside is the price, but pre-made booths aren’t cheap either.
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Post by chessparov on Apr 7, 2023 13:07:39 GMT -6
The drums are programmed if I'm not mistaken, but they have a drummer on stage. Actually it's Thomas Mars behind most of the drum programming. THat's what I've read anyway. Could be different nowadays. The four members play a bit of everything. The vocalbooth : so far nobody defends it. Not even the hippo . Or even Rhino Records! Chris |
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Post by Quint on Apr 7, 2023 13:30:02 GMT -6
It depends on why you want the booth. If it's purely for acoustics or the perception that you need one, then I'd say that a vocal booth isn't really necessary, especially if it's going to be really small. Just set up some mobile treatment (vocal tent or whatever), and be done with it.
However, if you need a vocal booth for isolation purposes, in order to keep the vocal out of other instruments or vice versa during a live tracking session, then a booth might still be worth having. It may or may not get you keeper vocal tracks, but it might keep a shitty vocal take from ruining an otherwise good take from the other instruments.
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Post by lowlou on Apr 7, 2023 14:52:04 GMT -6
Thanks everybody. Food for thought !
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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 7, 2023 15:44:23 GMT -6
The drums are programmed if I'm not mistaken, but they have a drummer on stage. Actually it's Thomas Mars behind most of the drum programming. THat's what I've read anyway. Could be different nowadays. The four members play a bit of everything. The vocalbooth : so far nobody defends it. Not even the hippo . I specifically meant the guy that plays live. I assumed he wrote the parts because he nails them. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hedlund |
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Post by Ward on Apr 7, 2023 15:51:22 GMT -6
Invest cheaply in a simple and effective design and build it yourself
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Post by winetree on Apr 7, 2023 17:45:57 GMT -6
The band PHOENIX bought the Micheal Jackson "Thriller" Harrison 3232 Console originally installed in Westlake Studios.
Back in the day, Dennis Rose traded a tape machine for the decommissioned Harrison console.
Later, It was installed in his studio.
I had used the console at Weatlake and went to see it in locally.
The sale of the console's asking price, raised a lot of contraversy.
The band PHOENIX bought the console and had it shipped to FRANCE.
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Post by bossanova on Apr 7, 2023 18:32:02 GMT -6
When I’ve tried to do the DIY booth thing in a normal room I’ve just ended up with a muffled top and pronounced low mid resonances. I’ve had much better results recording in medium to bigger rooms and arranging acoustic panels around the back and sides of the singer to block reflections in cardioid position. It’s not going to be studio quality, but likely neither is a homemade vocal booth unless you get it ridiculously thick.
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Post by thehightenor on Apr 8, 2023 2:36:22 GMT -6
Hello ! I'd like to invest in an excellent vocal booth (does that even exist ?) for my project studio. A booth to record... Vocals. It has to be small, about 1,3X1,3m or 1,3x2m with the door on the small side. Excellent noise reduction, neutral acoustic. The good stuff... The brands will all say that their booth is the best, I guess. Which make one's choice difficult. I lean toward the closed designs with real materials and thick surfaces, not the foam-based designs. I don't want to DIY. If you know european custom-made makers, why not ! Do you have that kind of booth ? Do you know some that are best than others ? What is worth buying, what is to be avoided ? Anything to share ? Let's discuss ! xxxxxxx Louis How big is your studio room? |
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Post by ericn on Apr 8, 2023 10:50:10 GMT -6
Problem with most DIY home built booths, nobody ever realized the expensive HVAC behind that nice booth at the real studio.
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Post by Quint on Apr 8, 2023 12:25:25 GMT -6
Problem with most DIY home built booths, nobody ever realized the expensive HVAC behind that nice booth at the real studio. Yeah, I built a room in a room style vocal booth, with double doors and the whole nine yards to get it properly isolated, and had to build four independent baffle boxes for getting air into and out of the booth, plus two more baffle boxes to surround the fan that pulls air through the whole system to circulate it back into the main room. I spent nearly as much time, money, and effort on the air system as I did on the entire rest of the vocal booth build. Regardless of size, a properly built booth of any kind takes some real work to build if you're going to do it right. Even if it sounds great, a booth is no good if you can't breathe when you're inside it. |
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Post by lowlou on Apr 8, 2023 13:53:37 GMT -6
Hello ! I'd like to invest in an excellent vocal booth (does that even exist ?) for my project studio. A booth to record... Vocals. It has to be small, about 1,3X1,3m or 1,3x2m with the door on the small side. Excellent noise reduction, neutral acoustic. The good stuff... The brands will all say that their booth is the best, I guess. Which make one's choice difficult. I lean toward the closed designs with real materials and thick surfaces, not the foam-based designs. I don't want to DIY. If you know european custom-made makers, why not ! Do you have that kind of booth ? Do you know some that are best than others ? What is worth buying, what is to be avoided ? Anything to share ? Let's discuss ! xxxxxxx Louis How big is your studio room? It's 4 meters by 7 meters, the walls are covered with books. It's almost symmetrical, It has a lovely sound. I could record in it. But it's the sound of the computer that's the main issue. And then also the sounds of all the cheap synth power supplies, some old screens hiss, that bother me. Well if you know a good solution to make the computer sound disappear, a large computer isolation booth with air flow inside of some sort, I'm interested. It could be the start of something. |
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Post by Tbone81 on Apr 8, 2023 14:17:11 GMT -6
How big is your studio room? It's 4 meters by 7 meters, the walls are covered with books. It's almost symmetrical, It has a lovely sound. I could record in it. But it's the sound of the computer that's the main issue. And then also the sounds of all the cheap synth power supplies, some old screens hiss, that bother me. Well if you know a good solution to make the computer sound disappear, a large computer isolation booth with air flow inside of some sort, I'm interested. It could be the start of something. My first thought is that the cost of a commercial booth is probably as expensive, if not more, than buying a new computer. Something like the Mac studio, which so far for me has never once engaged it’s fan. Also, there are several good threads on the interweb about replacing noisy computer fans with higher quality, silent ones. That would be a good start. In my old studio I put my computer with all my noisy spinner drives im a rack under my desk. Then I attached a nice glass door to the front of the rack. It wasn’t sealed, and the back of the rack was open too, but it did reduce the fan noise by a significant amount |
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Post by Quint on Apr 8, 2023 14:53:47 GMT -6
There are also computer iso cabinets with rack rails and built in fans that you can buy for this purpose. I got one off Craigslist for like $50, and I think it was like $400 or $500 brand new.
I never ended up using it though. It kind of ate up a lot of space relative to the benefit it provided, and I ended up building a dedicated machine room anyway. Now all of my gear with fans is just racked in a big 7 ft tall server rack in the machine room.
So, if you're considering building something, and computer fans/psu noise is your biggest concern, you might consider just building a machine room instead of a vocal booth. It wouldn't need to be built to as high a degree of effort and expense as building a vocal booth to achieve all the iso you need. Fans spinning around and transformers buzzing don't require the same amount of isolation to remove said noise from the picture as is required to isolate something louder like a vocal. I've built both and the vocal booth definitely required a lot more work.
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Post by tkaitkai on Apr 8, 2023 15:12:50 GMT -6
Oh man, if it’s just computer noise and the room sounds great otherwise, a vocal booth is serious overkill. Even my suggestion of tube traps would be excessive.
I would just find a way to isolate the computers/fans and save yourself thousands.
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