Should I build a vocal booth?

[nickbatzdorf]

newph, convolution reverb is great, but it's still a good idea to start with a recording that has some air - whether it's vox or anything else. It's actually not true that most manuals, mags, hot tos, etc. recommend recording as dry as possible. Or maybe I should say that if they do, they're wrong.What you don't want is long reverb, especially long reverb from a bad room.

[roughly]

We've done quite a bit of building at our studio and the best advice I can give for an all-purpose booth would be to give it some live-liness (is that a word?) but make sure it's not going to have a terrible slap between walls. I would say a bad slap is worse than a dead room. If possible don't have parrallel walls and what we've done in our booth (that has been successful) is to put "clouds" on the ceiling or pieces of acoustic tiles (or similar material) in a random arrangement. Just stuff to break up the sound and soak up some of it, but not neccesarily all of it. We've also had luck using pegboard to help break up the sound. Just some ideas we've done at our place. Not necessarily right, but we've benefitted from it.Theresa

[ernstinen]

Quote: it's still a good idea to start with a recording that has some air - whether it's vox or anything else.Normally Nick and I agree, and I DO agree about "anything else," but vocals I think should be recorded fairly dry. I'm a singer, and an advocate of extremely close miking vocals, so that may wipe out most room issues.My booth is pretty dry, and my control room (where I record my own vocals) is moderately dry. I guess it boils down to semantics what "dry" means! Ern

[andreh]

I actually like to disagree with Nick - he makes funny sounds when you poke him. I take Ern's approach as well; the drier the vocal, the better (though I'm not as into super-close mic'ing except when I'm looking for a very intimate sound).This is mainly because the reflections that most small- to medium-sized rooms create are more harmful than helpful to the sound IMHO. If I had the luxury of tracking in a world-class studio on more projects, I might prefer a live room in some cases...but even then, it would depend on what kind of song I'm producing and how I envision the other instruments being mixed.As always, though, use your own ears to be the judge of what works best for your projects.

[nickbatzdorf]

I like to disagree with Nick too, but in this case I agree with him - and with you guys, because close-miked vox are The Sound. It's a matter of degree. I don't like to get a whole lot of room sound on the vox either, but a tiny vocal booth with no reflections sounds bad to me.And I'll be honest: I've learned this from making the mistake of recording vox inside a foam booth. It sounded like dookie, but I read that's what you're supposed to do and made the mistake twice. So what I do now is stick a foam screen (Auralex - 4" foam sheets impaled on a mic stand) back a few feet from the mic, sometimes on all sides. That leaves a little bit of air without giving you that lowpassed tiny booth sound.

[gitarrero]

Quote:Hey Gitarro, Thanks for saring that. Do you know why your boot had such a dry sound? Wouldn't it have been possible to liven it a bit, or was this a function of its size?..I'm a little bit late..;)well the problem is that it was a small Box, and therefore sounds small - so people tend to add foam to kill the "tiny" sound, which also kills the early reflections resulting in a thin sound.I really would suggest to not use a small vocal box. For sound reasons as well as for the communication: I know some singers who feel "safer" if there's no window between them and the producer - you simply talk to each other as you're in the same room.convolution reverb: yes there are great units BUT:* why to try building something artificially if you can have it in the natural way?* you won't get the same result, no matter what unit: what0's lost in the recording is basically lost, of course you can try to "add" it with an unit, but it's defenitly not the same

[53mph]

I started this thread in September about building a vocal booth and to my joy Recording magazine (which is free to all Taxi members) has dedicated its entire December issue to that very subject.Now I've just got to get off my Gary Glitter and build the thing.

[michael11]

Quote:I started this thread in September about building a vocal booth and to my joy Recording magazine (which is free to all Taxi members) has dedicated its entire December issue to that very subject.Now I've just got to get off my Gary Glitter and build the thing. Gary Glitter + Sitter????

[53mph]

You'll have to ask the "trouble and strife", she knows. (put on the ol'Posh and Becks)

[michael11]

Quote:You'll have to ask the "trouble and strife", she knows. (put on the ol'Posh and Becks)If it was my trouble she might cop a deaf unSelective mutton in fact