Sound Booth

[53mph]

Some of you may remember that a while back I was asking on here about how to build a sound booth. Well, I finished mine the other day using mainly recycled materials from the building work on our house and wood that I found in the street. The whole thing cost me less than $200 in total.I did some quick guitar recordings in there the other day and would appreciate anyone's input on the sound quality or room noise (if those of you with practised ears can tell about these things from a recording.) Do I need anything to deaden the noise etc...This link should work:http://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_ ... eam=trueIf not:http://www.taximusic.com/hosting/home.p ... t=53mphThe song is The Marshall PlanAs I said, I'm not looking for a critique of the song or the performance (please no) just the general sound quality.There are no effects on the recording what so ever.Thanks alot.

[ibanez468]

53,Sounds totally dead & kinda' muffled in there ta' me. Don't know if that's what you want to hear, but that's what I hear.ibanez468

[53mph]

Quote:53,Sounds totally dead & kinda' muffled in there ta' me. Don't know if that's what you want to hear, but that's what I hear.ibanez468Thanks ibanez - is "totally dead and muffled" what I should be looking for in a sound booth 'cause some people on here have said before that it's best to have a bit of natural reverb in a booth.Thanks again.

[ibanez468]

53mph,I think the "totally dead" is OK, muffled...don't know. I'm probably the wrong person to ask about sound booths. Don't recall hearing any kind of natural reverb, considering how dead it was. You'll have to wait until the booth experts respond for the proper answers.ibanez468

[anne]

Hi guys - I'm no booth expert, but I'm giving it a listen on a macbook using my good headphones. At first I was thinking exactly what Ibanez said - dead and muffled - while listening through only the speakers on the laptop (which suck). Then I popped the phones on and actually thought it sounded pretty damn clean, which is a good thing to get from a booth. I thought this was a guitar recording that I would completely be able to use in a track and produce as needed. Its a little on the warm side, which is likely where the "muffled" sound is generated, but the low mids / low notes end quickly. There is good highs ( a little bit "dull" , but they sounded more like a need for new strings rather than anything wrong with the booth). I thought the natural reverb was a little lacking, but then when you got to the higher picking parts (about 1/2 way in) I could hear a nice extension of those notes. In my limited experience, I'd say you've got a great booth to work with as its much easier to add reverb etc later than if you booth weren't so clean.I'm sure you'll get different opinions on it too - I just know that if I were using a recording like this with the set up I have, I'd have many options in working with this recording.

[ibanez468]

53,Just want to be clear on my opinion of your sound. If dead and muffled is the sound that a booth is supposed to properly produce, then you've nailed it. Like I said, I think the deadening of the sound is OK, wasn't sure about muffled though. But as Anne mentioned, there is plenty of room for sonic tweaking & treatments. Adding verb & EQ would be a cinch if needed, based on what I hear. And if you do vocals or get someone to do vocals, sounds like the proper location to be in. But this is all just my own guesstimate. HTH. Maybe I'll look up sound booths just to see what the overall effect is supposed ta' be. I never really got into 'em even though I'd thought a few times about purchasing one, but couldn't afford it.ibanez468

[anne]

Just a note, to follow up with what Ibanez said - same here! I'm not sure what the "sound booth sound" is supposed to "be". I only know that what you have would give me a track that is really easy to work with. I'd suppose that is the goal. I know many vocal booths I've heard are way too dead - I don't think your booth is that dead from the sound of your recording. I think you did a nice job.HTH

[53mph]

Thanks Anne and ibanez,The thing that may be making the sound muffled on your laptop is that the recording is stereo, using a mic near the sound hole and a shot down the neck of the guitar. When played on laptop speakers that may cause some phasing (or some other thing I don't really know enough about).My main objective was to have a room in which I could play and record in without hearing background noise or disturbing the neigbours. Although it's not completely sound proof outside, it seems to keep the sound out of the recordings really well. The recording you heard was done with a crowd of people outside the main room chatting and cars passing in the street less then 3 metres away. The fact you can't hear any of them in the recording makes me really happy.I'm going to do some vocal work in there over the next few weeks and I'll report back on the progress.Thanks again for the helping ears.

[ibanez468]

53,I'd say you did a durn good job then, because I didn't hear any of that. Would ya' like ta' build me one? ibanez468

[mazz]

This recording sounds pretty good. It does sound like it was recorded in a small room, kind of boxy sounding. Some of that is due to the natural soundhole buildup around 200Hz that most guitars exhibit. You can get away from that somewhat by aiming the mic towards the 12th fret rather than towards the soundhole.Better mic placement, subtle use of EQ and very subtle use of digital reverb on the mix should yield very nice recordings from your booth!!Good work,Mazz