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Hello all,

so my room is terrible for sound, and i am thinking about building a sound booth something similar to this http://youtu.be/6UzkFmfTzhk .

Basically i need a sound booth to record sfx at home, also it should be quite portable if i want to record something that could not be recorded in my room. So anybody has a experience building/using these diy booths?

Ahhh and btw, some sudgestions for materials would be also good. Also is it essential to buy acoustic foam, or any foam will be good?

p.s.:sorry for my bad english :)

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  • thanks everyone, for your answers :) yeah basically what i want to eliminte is reverberation, i don't own a studio at the moment, so basically my apartament is where i record sounds, i already found that recording sound near opened wardrobe(full of clothes) is the best solution atm heh :)
    – Linas
    Sep 8, 2011 at 20:15

4 Answers 4

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Control over high mids and high frequencies is easy but it will be the lows that will do your head in, and I do believe that's where the commercial solutions start to make a difference. get your foam pre-cut and pre-painted to spare yourself time and trouble, but also it won't look messy.

If you plan to do any "professional" work for clients coming to record (or perform) into the space, DIY has to be top quality as they don't quite understand sound, so you will likely be judged on looks alone.

Have a look around, sometimes acoustic foam comes reasonably priced, i.e. not expensive.

You will likely spend long times in that space, so the effort to make it look perfect pays off.

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What about this one?

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Hi Linas,

If you want to record just vocals it could work.
But are you recording and tracking in the same room? You have to sit very still i guess? These kinds of products are ok, but it will never sound really good. Your mic will still pick up other sounds and those matter also.
If you're room really sounds terrible you have another option; treat your room (to make it acoustically better).
It's not easy and it costs money but you will have a lot of advantages compared to building a mic booth you refer to. One advantage is that your mixes will sound better (if placed correctly etc.) and another one is that you'll have less sound bouncing back into your mic.

Maybe it's to much work (or you also have to sleep in the room, which i did when i was a student), but it really makes your work sound a lot better in the end.

Good luck!

Arnoud

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Whether or not it will work will depend largely on WHY your room is "terrible" for sound. If it's early reflections and reverb, then these sort of things will do wonders to help. On the other hand if the room is muddy or harsh sounding, there's a lot of noise, electrical noise, or horrible standing waves (amongst others) then this will do exactly NOTHING. I do use a variation of this. I bought one of those folding screens at IKEA and drape a down filled Duvet over it - does a great job of removing reverb and "room" for recordings. However doesn't do a thing if the vacuum starts upstairs or the dogs start barking! Also difficult to record anything at a distance for perspective, as the farther away you get from the mic, the more the room comes back.

As an aside, I know Ric Viers of the Detroit Chop Shop (on Designing Sound TV) often brings old mattresses with him just to help with this sort of thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwxWwQi7HGY&feature=player_embedded

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