VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[Hart]

Many of you have been curious how my attempt at a VO booth build has been going. I'm very happy to say it's finally nearing completion and in workable order.

I just recorded a small passage from William Bligh's "The Mutiny On Board H.M.S. Bounty" as a test file. No processing on the mic. How does my first test sound? Small disclaimer: I'm a bit stuffed up and the allergy medicine hasn't taken effect yet.

There are still some tweaks that need to be done to the booth so I'm still playing with my mix of reflective and absorbative (is that a word?) surfaces. At the moment I've placed Auralex on all the walls and the ceiling but the floor is reflective.

As you will see in the pictures the booth is diamond shaped. The back walls are 4 feet each, the two short walls are approximately 2 feet and the front wall with the door is approximately 4 feet. It's a bit small I know, but it's all the space I could take up.

Here's a few pics of the build:

The outline for the walls.


Putting up the framing.



Added gypsum board to the inside and MDF to the outside.


Now with Auralex Goodness







The isolation of the walls is amazing. The door still needs some work. Too much sound coming in around the edges. It's not bad, but nowhere near as good as the walls. Nevertheless, my wife can now type on her computer in the same room without disturbing my recordings.

I still have to install the ventilation. It's a work in progress in my garage at the moment.

I also need to add a real floor as some point. Lowe's has some parquet floor at a very good price that I might use and then add a rug. Or I may just carpet it. I haven't decided yet.

I'll pretty up the outside too. My wife wants me to put beadboard on it. I'm not really keen on the stuff but I may give in on this one.

Also, I need better lighting. I have a floor lamp I'm going to try first. If that doesn't work then I'll add some low wattage track lighting and maybe a light attached to the copy stand I'm building.

And finally, I plan on adding an LCD monitor, mouse and keyboard so I can control my DAW from the booth and read copy without having to print it out. Plus that will help the lighting situation some.

The work continues but I am so glad I've finally got it almost done.

Was it worth it? Hmmm. I haven't added up the exact costs in a while but I've spent about $1300.00 to date. I budgeted $1800 and still have a few things to add (like the lcd monitor) but I got lucky and shaved a bunch off my budget for Auralex. And that doesn't account for who knows how many manhours put into it. My wife says that when we move (I hope it's a good long time away) she wants me to buy a prebuilt and save the headaches and cussing for other projects. We'll see.
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Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[tackerman]

Great work Brian. Thanks for posting your progress and tips.
I'm an occasional woodworker/furniture builder and you've given me some great ideas for when I finally build a booth!

[Deirdre]

I think everyone building a booth needs a dog to help-- that should be in the instructions.
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DBCooperVO.com

[Hart]

Thanks Tom.

DB, You should have seen her try to help paint. I should have gotten a picture of that. One side of her was almost totally white. Thank goodness latex paint cleans up easily.
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Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[tackerman]

Forgot to add... are you planning ventilation updates too?

[Hart]

Sure Tom.

My knowlegde here is VERY limited so I'm still playing with it. Here's what I'm thinking at the moment. I'm building two baffles like this:



The air (and sound waves) have to make several 90 degree turns before entering the booth. Hopefully the sound waves don't make it...

The internal walls of the baffles will be caulked (airtight you know) and lined with mineral wool.

For the exhaust side, I'll attach a fan to one end of the baffle to suck air out of the booth. I'll mount the fan in it's own separate box and run that to the baffle with flexible ducting to cut down on any vibration issues. At the other end, I'll attach ducting to the long side (missing in the picture) and run it through the double wall of the booth near the ceiling of one of the short walls (Man I hate the idea of cutting holes in my well isolated walls) and caulk everything up tight. I'm still debating what type of fan to use. Either a squirrel cage or an inductor fan. The inductor is cheaper, the squirrel cage is supposed to be quieter. Either way I'll probably put it on a speed control, get an oversized fan and slow it down for less noise.

I'm thinking I'll leave the intake side passive. Same basic idea but without the fan. This will be attached to the short wall near the floor.

So the hot air in the booth gets sucked out near the ceiling where it collects and cool air enters near the floor.

I'm reading everything I can about pressure and all that other HVAC crap. It's a lot to wrap your head around.

I don't know how well this will work but that's where I'm heading at the moment.

On that note, I'd be curious to know how the ventilation systems on the prebuilt booths are constructed. If anybody wants to share I'd greatly appreciate it.
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Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[JeffK]

Brian, that is some very impressive handy work! I am jealous of both your skills and that you have what looks like a great booth. Just curious, are you using a solid core door?

[Hart]

Thanks Jeff. It's been a lot of work.

Yeah, it's a solid core prehung door from Home Depot. Hindsight being 20/20 I shouldn't have bought the prehung version. I ended up having to tear off the casing and rebuild it since the walls are so thick.
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Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[BenWils]

Bravo boothman! You aren't messing around are you? Nice work.
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Ben


"To be really good at voiceover, you need to improve your footwork and hip snap."

[asnively]

Amazing! Thank you so much for sharing!
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grape ape marijuana

[bobsouer]

Brian,

I agree. Very impressive work. Thank you for the insights and the inspiration.
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Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
ISDN, Source Connect, phone patch

[Hart]

Thanks for the comments everyone. Heck, I consider the build the easy part. Now the hard part comes - gaining enough steady "voice-talking" work to pay for it and justify the expense.
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Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[tackerman]

[Deirdre]

Yeah-- where do we sign up?
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DBCooperVO.com

[Diane Maggipinto]