HELP! MAKING ISO-BOOTH IN ODDLY SHAPED CLOSET

Hello all, I am a new user on the BBS site, and a big part of the reason I signed up is because I have read through many posts and seen what great things you have done and what solutions you have offered others through forums and designs and so forth. So I hope that maybe someone can help me out by giving me some tips or anything at this point because I have a big project coming up that has to go smoothly! I go to the New England Institute of Art in Boston and I study audio and graphic design, and I am recording a rapper in my apartment studio. We have a closet/storage space that seems to be plenty big to convert into an isolation booth. So here's the problem... The closet is more or less the shape of half of a trapezoid, somewhat like a square with a side of a triangle connected to it. The ceilings are at least eight feet high and there is a wooden shelf that goes around the inside walls of the closet about six feet up from the ground. I cleaned out the clost except for two air conditioners and a refridgerator piled up in the angular corner of the room, will this abosrb sound? On the wooden shelf there are also some suitcases but I don't know if these will take away from the sound we want for a clean recording and a "dead" sound. In addition I have about four good sized pieces of acoustical foam I would use for diffusion, but the real quandry is where to place it? Above the shelf on the walls? On the ceiling? Or in a tiled pattern along the inside of the wall? I am unsure if there should be foam in front of the vocalist or behind him? Should we record facing a corner? :shock: ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED "Marlon Brando wrote in his autobiography that power and influence wasn't given to him, it was bestowed upon him. Ultimately the consumer decides who the stars are. Unfortunately in todays brand dominated world, the same thing goes for products and services."

Foam or any acoustic treatment will not isolate the room. It may get rid of some nasty standing waves, make the room dead and so forth. Isolaltion requires a room inside a room build with use of exterior doors and a lot of other stuff, which would also make the isolated room 8 to 12 inches smaller then it already is. You should go here 1st: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 Follow it to the end, then come back with actual dimensions of your room. Also read: http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html I'm a complete learning novice at this point but I hope this helps you out. Marc

Aloha and welcome to the forum! :D In order to help us help you, could you please:

Edit your profile to include your location. This is very important, because this is a worldwide resource, and as such, material costs and availability vary widely. For example, masonry is cheaper than gypsum in some parts of the globe, whereas it's the exact opposite in other regions.

Thanks! :wink:

I cleaned out the clost except for two air conditioners and a refridgerator piled up in the angular corner of the room, will this abosrb sound? On the wooden shelf there are also some suitcases but I don't know if these will take away from the sound we want for a clean recording and a "dead" sound.

In addition to contributing to a cluttered, non-professional look and impression, it's possible that these items may introduce mechanical noises (rattles, jiggling) depending on how loud the exterior bass levels are that penetrate the closet walls. They will not, however, contribute to any positive absorbtion or sonic qualities. May I sugggest that you remove them and store them in another location.

I have about four good sized pieces of acoustical foam I would use for diffusion, but the real quandry is where to place it? Above the shelf on the walls? On the ceiling? Or in a tiled pattern along the inside of the wall? I am unsure if there should be foam in front of the vocalist or behind him? Should we record facing a corner?

This thread addresses some of the foam/vocal in the corner issues: http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic ... ocal+booth While recently lining my speaker soffits with 3" rockwool (2.5 pcf), I noticed how dead the space inside the soffit became, giving me the idea of lining my future vocal booth with rockwool, then covering with some visually appealing acoustical cloth (as in the Guilford of Maine product line) and being sure to provide adequate ventilation. Using a similar approach in your situation, you may achieve that "dead" sound you're looking for, but without the proper mass-air-mass construction, you may find that your low levels of isolation may require you to take this into consideration when monitoring at loud volumes, especially in the bass frequencies. Hope this helps, Aloha 8)