how much insulation to use?

hi, i'm trying to make my vocal recording booth and i'm trying to figure out how much of this home construction insulation i should use. i turned this walk-in closet (6ft high, 32 inches wide on each side) into a little booth. i found this sound deadening stuff at my work - it is carpet-like with hard cardboard fabric in between. i put that all around inside it. the sound is ridiculously boomy in there, so i looked up bass trapping, and talked to some experienced friends, and upon reccomendation i bought a load of this r12 pink insulation to trap the bass. i just put it in the corners and it remained boomy. i put it all around everywhere and the boom is definitely gone but i'm afraid that the sound is too dead. i'm wondering if there are any specific sides i should leave alone (to not touch with insulation) in relation to where the mic is.. or where exactly the insulation should go on the walls if i shouldnt cover it 100% with the stuff i'm a young newbie so please bare with me. thanks, wes

Wes, I am assuming that the carpet padding stuff is probably doing nothing for you, carpet hold little to no isolation value. You also have an extremely tight space for a vocal booth which I would imagine is hard to find a place between boomy and dead. That's a tough one. I think If I were you I might pick up some 703 rigid fiberglass, and cover it with burlap or a breathable fabric, then maybe hang it on every other side of the opposing walls, and over the every corner, but don't take my word for it. The closet, especially this one, is not ideal for recording, isolation, etc. but sometime I guess you gotta make do.

speaking strictly to do the pink insulation i bought, how should i cover the inside?

Pink fiber glass insulation is not easy to work with for acoustic treatment on walls. That's why Lilith suggested 703. Your best bet is probably to build wooden frames a couple of inches deep, fill them with the fiberglass, wrap them in plastic (so as not to lose the highs) and warp that in acoustic cloth, for aesthetics. Build several of those, and you can experiment with them, to find the best placement. Make them 16 inches by 24 (outside), and it will be easy to fit them on the walls: 6 per wall (2 x 16 inch "modules" across, by three up). Or if yo make them 16 x 16, then you could fit up to 2 across and 4 up the wall, and up to 4 on the ceiling. My guess is that you'll need to cover the ceiling completely, maybe 3 inches thick (I hope you are not taller than 5'8!), but nothing on the floor (leave it as bare wood, no carpet), then experiment with a few modules on the walls. Perhaps do each wall one module wide, and from around knee-height up to above your head. Or maybe floor to ceiling on two adjacent walls, and nothing on the other two. Or partial coverage on the other two. Or "checkerboard" patterns of modules, such that where there is a module on one wall, there is nothing but bare wall on the opposite wall. The advantage of building modular frames is that it makes it easy to experiment like this, before deciding on the final position and fitting them permanently. You might even find that you need to stack them two-deep in some places, to get enough absorption. But like Lilith said, that's a rather small space, and it won't be easy to make it sound good. This will be a lot of work to make the modules and experiment with them, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me. - Stuart -

That's why Lilith suggested 703

Ehem Ehem, Stuart?

Dude might be a sponge and can speak 37 languages be he ain't worth a shit at remembering when Lilith is or is not speaking ;)

OOoops!!!!! :oops: OK, sorry! Why did I think it was Lilith? :oops: :cen:

Hahaha, 8) it's alright, I thought it was funny, but poor Wes is probably like who the hell is Lilith hahaha

Dude might be a sponge and can speak 37 languages be he ain't worth a shit at remembering when Lilith is or is not speaking

Yeah, you got that right, for sure! :oops: :oops: :oops: Don't rub it in!!!

Well heck Stu, the first time it was me! I was the only one qualified to bring it up. :)

Hahaha, 8) it's alright, I thought it was funny, but poor Wes is probably like who the hell is Lilith hahaha

Yeah, well, just wait till Lilith sees it.... I'll never hear the end of it! :)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/57100894942f4fb6/ that's a mix of a sample verse i just did with my booth. man i think it sucks... i don't get it. i always used to just rap in the middle of my room and it sounded perfect. like, check this: http://www.zshare.net/audio/5710090297fec537/ covered 2 sides and the ceiling with the home construction pink insulation.. and covered everything in a blanket... im getting pissed. i used to just record upstairs in my parents' closet and it sounded so much better, same with the middle of my old room... sound is stupid!

Nah, I'll take any credit I can get!

that's a mix of a sample verse i just did with my booth. man i think it sucks...

Well, if you don't want to try the advise that people are giving you here, then it's not going to get any better! It also sounds like you need a pop shield on your mic... What kind of mic is that, anyway? I'd suggest that you do a full-spectrum acoustic analysis of your booth, to see where your issues are, then figure out what to do about them. - Stuart -

Like Stuart said, r u using a pop filter. Your plosives seem really strong, but like we said, the closet is not exactly ideal. I have recorded hip hop vocals in everything from a pro studio, to a crappy bedroom on a 5th floor apartment in noisy downtown Boston, with the mic facing just a towel on the wall. But if your not happy with your closet idea, why not just go back to rapping in the middle of the room, since you're more content with the final product from that.

i am using a pop filter and was pretty far away from the mic.... i'm using the rode nt1-a, in both files above i need to use the booth so it isnt so disruptive to my family and that (quieter to the outside)