VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[ballenberg]

I was thinking I didn't understand Mike's earlier posts. But now, I'm completely certain.


And yet even without this deep technical understanding: If it sounds good, it's good. If it doesn't sound good, further treatment is needed.
The formula here would be:

SG=IG NSG=FTN


Sorry, Mike

[Mike Sommer]

Let's imagine you are standing in front of a microphone in the middle of a
completely flat desert, there are no mountains, no echos, no wind, no sound
-just you and a microphone. If you speak into the microphone, you are then
a single sound source. Your voice is picked up by the microphone, and the
rest is carried off and dissipates into heat energy. This would be
referred to as sound in a "Free Field."

"Sound in a "free field" travels in a straight line and is unimpeded. That is
to say that sound in a free field is not reflected, deflected, diffracted
refractive diffused and is not subjective to the effects of resonance. "

If on the other hand, you are in a small room, your voice travels and hits
the wall, reflects back and hits the opposite wall and back and forth until it
decays. In the meantime these refections are picked up by the
microphone and recorded as echo.


By installing a "blanket" you can effectively reduce the rooms influence at
the upper frequencies, but the rooms influence in the lower frequencies
are not treated.

For example: If you've ever happened to stand next to a door where a
conversation is going on on the other side, you will have heard the
unintelligible mumble. Highs are cut and the powerful lower frequencies
carry and rumble along. This in effect is what the blanket is doing.

But because the room is resonating too, it can be increasing and or
eliminating frequencies in the upper spectrum as well. This problem begins
in the lower frequencies and builds up. If your room length resonates at
35Hz, then other multiples of that frequency will resonate too. Think of it
like plucking a single string on a guitar, ever notice how the string next to it
vibrates or resonate too? That's what is going on in almost any room. (This
of course is in it's most simplistic form). This can be illustrated with
simple math" 35Hz+35Hz= 70Hz; 70Hz+35Hz=105Hz; 105Hz+35Hz=175Hz
and so on. These would then be the other frequencies that are affected
by the rooms resonance -some will be boosted or eliminated.

When you start including all the rooms other demotions and frequencies,
you begin compounding frequencies rather quickly - often doubling and tripling
frequencies. In small rooms (under 2000 cubic feet) you start to have a
mess very quickly.

"Because rooms are containers of air, when they are excited, they
resonate." Rooms are, in all intent and purposes, an instrument. A room is
the same thing as the body of a violin or a guitar, or the pip of an organ;
once excited they resonate or produce a tone. And now we have a second
sound source that is often out of tune and will reduce the clarity of the
source we are trying to capture -our voice.

In music recording studios, the "Live" rooms are very big, and yet they are
still deconstructed sonically to remove as much of the bad sound that the
room produces, and then controlled action (reverberation) is then put back
in.

But we don't need to go this far, we just need to remove the the bad
influences of the room -the echos. SAVOA standards suggest:
"reverberation, echo or ring should be below .07 sec with a decay of 85%
from first test impact" The only way to get to these numbers is with
material with high absorption coefficients such as fiberglass (703), or
Rockwool. In most small rooms, this will require 85% of your room (ceiling
included) to be treated with absorption and bass traps.
_________________
The Blog:
http://voiceoveraudio.blogspot.com/

Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

[Deirdre]

Just did considerable housekeeping in this thread and found a fair amount of trash to take out.

Guys— we're discussing noise.
If you feel the urge to call names, stick a sock in it.

Keep your petty disputes off this board.
_________________
DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[Don G.]

Just wanted to post a little follow-up. I ordered one of the oversized blankets with grommets on Monday afternoon. Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang today and it was Fedex with a good sized box. I didn't think for a minute it could have been the blanket already, but lo and behold, there it was. Not too shabby. Two days from MD to MA via Fedex Ground. Needless to say I was impressed with that. As for the blanket, I'm impressed with that, as well. I mean, it's just a moving blanket, but it is certainly a heavy, substantial one. One of the reasons I didn't think the box would contain the blanket is that the box is 13" x "13" x 17", and there wasn't much extra room in there.

Anyway, it's here and while I don't expect it to "soundproof" anything, it will certainly block out (at least temporarily) any two-legged or four-legged disturbances while I'm recording.

Kudos for quick shipping of a quality product at a good price.

[georgethetech]

Mike and Ed:

Thanks for your wealth of knowledge and saving me the time of keeping everyone in the know about what "sound proofing" really is. The first part of my voiceover recording tech workshops covers soundproofing myths for a good reason.
Just to demonstrate how few really know how to properly soundproof a studio...
I recently visited a prominent VO Agency in Beverly Hills who asked me to sell their WhisperRoom. I visited to take photos and get the dimensions. I was saddened to see the booth was used INSIDE a recording booth that was attractively built with all the things that make it look like a studio. Yes, they needed it because their "studio" wasn't quiet enough. I am sure they paid a LOT OF MONEY for that space.
Cherish guys like Mike Sommer and Ed Gambill who, despite the fact may speak over some heads, spend a lot of time giving valuable information out of the goodness of their hearts and for the benefit of our community.

And yes, if it sounds good, it IS good.
_________________
If it sounds good, it is good.
George Whittam
GeorgeThe.Tech
424-226-8528
VOBS.TV Co-host
TheProAudioSuite.com Co-host
TriBooth.com Co-founder

[Mandy Nelson]

I'm only just getting to this post and am ever so grateful for the goodies posted by Mike & Ed. They have done well to refresh my memory.

We have discovered a big sound issue in our studio and all of this input is going to help. I do VO daily but hubby does it only a few times a month, mostly from his work studio and rarely from/for Dandysound. All of the other talents that come here are my height or shorter. He is a good foot taller. I won't bore you with the details of how we got through a gorgeous recording for a new client that required only his voice but I will say that I'm grateful for what I'm reading and can't wait to share it with him to help make the studio even better than it was yesterday. Thanks.
_________________
006 member of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Mic. Bonded by sound.

Manfillappsoc: The Mandy and Philip mutual appreciation Society. Who's in your network?

Have you seen my mic closet? ~ me to my future husband

[Mike Sommer]

I cherish you too George!! You big lug!

And I'd like everyone to know that even some of the big guns in audio don't
really understand acoustics. Even I get a little lost with it.

But there are guys that eat and breath this stuff everyday, and they all say
the same thing about small studios; that bass traps and broadband absorption
are the most important thing you can have in your studio -outside of room
isolation.


If anyone ever needs help or clarification, or just don't understand a word
I'm talking about. Ask me! I'll try do my best to help you understand.

And if you don't want to raise your hand up in the middle of class, PM me.
_________________
The Blog:
http://voiceoveraudio.blogspot.com/

Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

[georgethetech]

Here's something clever you can do with all those blankets.
http://www.palmcitystudios.com/timobrien/music/soundbooth/simplesoundbooth.html
_________________
If it sounds good, it is good.
George Whittam
GeorgeThe.Tech
424-226-8528
VOBS.TV Co-host
TheProAudioSuite.com Co-host
TriBooth.com Co-founder

[Mandy Nelson]

That's cool. Just hope your big delivery of juicy audio gear doesn't arrive because you can't get to the front door!
_________________
006 member of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Mic. Bonded by sound.

Manfillappsoc: The Mandy and Philip mutual appreciation Society. Who's in your network?

Have you seen my mic closet? ~ me to my future husband

[Rob Ellis]

------------------------------------

[flaspots]

The "booth" I have used here for the last five years has been nothing more than a framework of PVC pipe wrapped in moving blankets.

The framework is 2" schedule-40 glued up to a 4'x4'x7' box. Originally it had two layers of blankets, but over time (cats and bird) it's been reduced to one.

From day-to-day experience, moving blankets do nothing for any kind of soundproofing, because, as mentioned above, they lack mass and space. But, they are quite good at all but wiping out the room's natural reverberance. So, I close the door and turn off the fan on the floor and I have a quiet - if not rather warm - place to vocalize.

The original booth (two-blanket thickness model) was in a 20'x30' room that was highly-reflective. Using only one blanket thickness didn't absorb enough of the room to keep the reverberance out of the recorded audio. But, the room I use at the moment is only 11'x10', and a single blanket thickness does quite well.

I've only had one client in all that time mention anything about background noise, and I found out it was because they were compressing my audio to a stratospheric level, bringing out every tiny thing the AKG would pick up. Shutting down everything in the room except a very quiet laptop to record on, and asking the family to go into silent mode for an hour did the trick.