MY ROOM IS TOO DEAD!!! PLEASE HELP

Hi all!! Basically, I just have a quick question regarding a new vocal booth that I have in our studio in Melbourne. Recently I purchased a 6 x 4 vocal booth from vocalbooth.com (I know they are not ideal however I got it at a very cheap price). Now my problem is my vocal recordings are coming out slightly muffled or dull. We record hip hop / Rnb so it is usually close miked vocals and a dead room is ideal. However I’m guessing that all the foam is sucking out the HF and that is where the dullness / muffled sound is coming from (please correct me if I’m wrong). The sound is not too far off the mark, so I think with a little work from myself I may be able to liven up the room to make it a tad brighter (hopefully without adding much too reverberation). I was thinking of interspersing a HF reflective material to achieve the brighter sound I need and finding the balance between full open vocals and a dry sound. Although I am unsure as to which material would be best for this. Or would a better solution be to try rockwool etc in certain areas inside the booth to try and get rid of the LF buildup?? If anyone has any ideas or suggestions it'd be much appreciated.

However I’m guessing that all the foam is sucking out the HF and that is where the dullness / muffled sound is coming from (please correct me if I’m wrong).

The problem is that the lows are not being absorbed. You need low frequency absorption. 100 mm thick mineral woll on all available surfaces will do the job cheapest. Andre [edit] 08.06.06 Added the word "not" to the first sentence after Jamesoz88 pointed out the error.

Thanks Andre. I had a feeling that might be the case, although as I only have a limited amount of knowledge on the subject I wasn't 100% sure. Cheers :D

AVare wrote:

The problem is that the lows are being absorbed. You need low frequency absorption.

I think this statement needs some correction. If the current problem is that lows are being absorbed too much, the solution can't be to absorb them more. WGE your first post was spot on, HF is being sucked out, thus the build up of LF making it sound muffled. I would go with the mineral wool solution that AVare offered. James

jamesoz88 wrote:

AVare wrote:

The problem is that the lows are being absorbed. You need low frequency absorption.

I think this statement needs some correction.

Thanks James, you are correct. I missed one word in the sentence. I corrected it for future readers of the thread. Andre

If you still think your booth lacks high end after you have added the fibreglass André suggested you could try to pin up some used CDRs to ad some HF reflexion. Cheep, easy and most often available right away! HOOK

assuming its a gold series booth, then they have specs which back up Andres' findings: Frequency ( Hertz ) 125 250 500 1000 2000 4000 Reduction ( dB ) 27 28 31 37 42 44 too much high end absorption. you could take some 60cm x 60cm x 5mm plywood panels and place a few of them on angles over the foam to add some reflections backing to the space. and add some deep 100mm porous absorption.

Yes Gullfo its a gold series booth... Thanks for all the responses thus far, its been a HUGE help. I'm putting together a few 100mm porous absorbers as you suggested gullfo and will hopefully have them up on the booth within the next week or so. In the meantime, I have worked on the pre amp settings / mic positioning to try and lessen the amount of low - mids being picked up and have had some success in doing this. Once I've got the 100mm panels in I think it will be sorted. Again, thanks for the help guys!! :D