VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

louzucaro · Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 3:20 pm Post subject:

Whisper Rooms are nice because, inherently, they're not too dead. They come with some sonic foam panels that you can velcro to the walls if you want, but as you want. Without them, you get a little livliness.

Back to your closet, though, couldn't you just take out some clothes to make it less dead?
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BenWils · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:13 am Post subject:

The tough thing about any 4x4 booth is the artificial boom they can lend to a recording. I was told by a wise man to get a 4 x 5 or 4 x 6 booth. I did not. But I got a good 4 x 4 booth from a great manufacturer and added the extra treatment (the verdict was out for a while on their service level...but they kicked in at the end and made it all good).

I really like the life in my new booth compared to my old set-up with the lesser quality foam. I am not sure what type they used in the booth, but it is the egg crate stuff and it is a little more rigid than the foam in my old recording environment, which was more cushy. The old foam really sucked the life out of my recordings and I had to EQ on the higher end a lot to get the sound I wanted. Your environment really pays a big part of your sound. Even being too close to a wall or corner...too much foam...too little. It is something you have to test and adjust....and test and adjust.

A few LENRD (Low End Node Reduction Device) bass traps in the corners of a 4 x 4 square booth will make a difference in removing artificial "boom".

So if you're a guy and an engineer, via ISDN, says....man, you've got some serious nodes! That is not a good thing. But I digress. Sorry.
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Yoda117 · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:37 am Post subject:

I recently listened to a trailer that a very talented VO (Colleen Clinkenbeard) did for an animated series. I know the recording chain she used, and also the room (4x4 Whisper Room). If anything, the deadness of her read convinced me that I'll never own that model.

It's a personal choice, but I've listened to her work for too long to chalk this track up to anything but the room... you could hear that a lot of her emotion and energy was sucked out (still, a great read, but you get my drift).

Can a room be too dead? You bet'cha!
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TheVoiceOfBob · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 12:45 pm Post subject:

bobbinbeamo · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 2:23 pm Post subject:

interesting. In my 4'x4'x7' home-built booth, it's tight, but not completely 100% dead. There is a monitor, mixer, 2 shelves to hold the monitor, wireless keyboard & mouse, the door frame, window and assorted crevices abound for a small amount of reflective sound, and haven't had any issues arise, like before the booth. It's especially good for ISDN sessions. Because of the size, on longer form narrations, I crack the door or window so I can breathe, which doesn't affect the sound, providing there's no noticeable sound activity (computer fans, or my teenager etc.) beyond the office where it is situated.
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steveanthony · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 3:49 pm Post subject:

Ya gotta watch that foam - it can suck the mids and highs out of a room but leave the bass. No life but lots of boom. Rigid fiberglass panels in thickness's from 2-4 inches strikes a good balance. The expert on that is Ethan Winer - www.realtraps.com. Reading some of that stuff hurts my head, but the take-away is to be easy on the foam. Plus, there are a number of sites that will show you how to build the fiberglass panels much cheaper than buying from RealTraps. Heck, even Ethan tells you that on his site.

Then, you get into booth dimensions and standing waves and phase cancellation and nodes and lions and tigers and . . . well, you get the idea.

And the 'jingle the keys' or 'clap your hands' to see if the room is dead will likely lead you down that 'lifeless room' path. They both generate sound waves in the upper range of the sound spectrum. You've got to control that bottom end that gives a room the boom.

Steve

Jowillie · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject:

Mike Sommer · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 5:49 pm Post subject:

Foam or carpet on the walls will suck up all the highs. There is a studio here in Burbank that has this real dense foam in the booth along one wall (about 6" thick) it's dead but not to dead, but I can still feel the words just being swallowed up by it.

703 fiberglass is good stuff, you can get it from Air Conditioner supply houses. If you make a DIY Sound panel use MDF or plywood a little more denser material, and when you hang them you want the a few inches from the wall, not directly on them.

You can also make sound traps using 703 tubing/ducting here is what they look like http://www.asc-studio-acoustics.com/qsf.htm

Unless you folks are having a lot of outside noise coming into your studio, you "DON'T" need to dump a ton of money on over priced booths.
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