How I built my vocal booth (step-by-step w/pics)

Okay... here's how I built my vocal booth. Now, I built the vocal booth about a year ago, and I am just getting to writing this post. I tore down the vocal booth over this past week (long story). Since it was built a while ago, the detail of my memory is not the best. However, this should still be useful for someone - I know there are people looking for info on vocal booths. I am no moderator, nor do I claim to have anything approaching the knowledge of the real experts on these boards. But, I will answer questions if you have them. There are better vocal booths out there, with better designs and workmanship. I'm proud of mine, though, because it is high quality and the result of a lot of reading and research I did. The booth worked sufficiently for my needs. It provided enough isolation for vocalists to get a clean track even if someone was playing the drumset right next to the booth. With full bands, I would have drums mic'd in the room, the singer in the booth, a bass amp in the room next door, and the guitar amp out in the hall. And let me tell you, every rapper that came in here was very excited to use the booth - most small studios in my area do not have vocal booths. It kind of sets your small home studio up a league. This is by no means an exhaustive guide. If you build a vocal booth (or anything studio-related), it requires a lot of time, research, and planning. I have tried to trim down the number of pictures to the minimum required to convey the main plan. Each post has a description of the pictures and the building processes. Here we go: 1. This is how I framed my walls. I used a staggered stud design, with 2x6 top and bottom plates, and 2x4's for the studs. This helps decouple the two sides of the wall; helps with mechanical vibrations. I would basically set up the two pieces like you see in the picture, and then sandwich them together to have a wall. I tried to space the studs appropriately so that I would be able to fit in my insulation, but I still ended up needing to cut some pieces of insulation to make them fit snugly. There are discussions on the board about how wide you should make the studs, and general home improvement advice on the internet for framing walls. 2. Overtop view of the staggered studs. 3. I used half-inch MDF board for the floor, seen here. You can see in the back corner how I kind of didn't plan right for the framing, but correct my mistake with the next two bottom plates. Now, I built this vocal booth right on carpet, and I read in a recent post that doing so is a bad idea. Harmful things can grow under the carpet, so maybe I should have torn up the carpet. 4. This is another view of the framing. A friend of mine is also pictured. 5. In order to put drywall on the back sides of the two walls next to my room's walls, we had to scoot the frames over and then move them back. I placed two pieces of 1/2 inch drywall on the face of each wall. The way we hung the drywall was to put one piece on, drill it in, and then drill the other piece on separately - we did not do them both at once. Every wall, essentially, was two pieces of half inch drywall on each side, 2x6 top and bottom plates, staggered 2x4 studs, and stuffed with johns-manville acoustic rated insulation.

6. You can see here the drywall on the backside of two of the frames, on their sides next to my current room's walls. However, in the frame where the window will be placed, we cut out part of it to make room for the window that will be going up. There will be another post on how I made my window. 7. This picture shows the window after being put in. First, we added a 2x6 piece for the window to rest on. Then, we placed the window on top of it - the window was inserted as a unit, including the two 2x6 side pieces that fit the height of the space exactly. The window essentially sat on the 2x6 piece. The left 2x6 side piece of the window frame was drilled into the leftmost stud on that wall. All the caulk there is some really nice acoustic caulk. The window was REALLY heavy, requiring three guys to lift it in. The window is home made because I don't believe it is feasible for most of us to buy premade acoustic windows, and the regular windows at stores just aren't thick enough. Here is another thread on the windows for this vocal booth. 8. Here I inserted the insulation. I forget the exact type, but it was some nice johns-manville acoustic rated insulation. I chose it after reading on their website and threads on this forum. As you can see, I had to cram the pieces in between the staggered studs. 9. More shots of the insulation being put in. Notice that the one on the right had to be wedged behind that 2x4. Note: there is acoustic caulk ALL OVER THE PLACE in there. You can't see it in these shots, but it is all over the points where the drywall met the top and bottom plates, and also the sidemost studs. I went crazy with the caulk gun. It was a larger sized gun to accomodate the larger sized tubes. 10. Insulation has now been placed beneath the booth window, and the two layers of drywall are being placed below it as well.

11. Close up view of the insulation, double drywall, window frame, and 2x6 piece the window rested on. The drywall had to be cut so that it lined up nicely with the window frame. 12. Drywall is now all up, and I have placed a little tube sticking out. I will describe that in more detail later. Please note that there is insulation crammed in every possible space, including around the tube. 13. This is the start of the ceiling. There are little silver joist brackets, screwed into both the top plate of the wall frame and a new 2x4 piece resting on top of the top plate. Now, I don't remember if that new 2x4 piece was screwed into the top plate. I have a feeling it was somehow. Maybe screws went up through the top plate into the new piece. Don't really remember. Anyways, there were 4 joist brackets. I found them near the lumber section in lowe's. 2x4's fit into them. 14. We had to cut the drywall so that both pieces would fit around the joist brackets - this was a real pain. It took a lot of measuring. 15. The framing is coming along, the drywall is more complete. We added "corner bead" to the drywall around the window, in order to prevent the drywall from being damaged.

16. More insulation is being put up. 17. We are mudding and taping over the cornerbead and nail spots. The better job you do with the tape and mud, the better the paint will look. The secret to good painting is a good, clean, flat surface to paint on. (by the way, the "tape" i am referring to here is some special tape you use for drywall patching purposes. i don't think there's any adhesive on it, the mud (caulking compound is the technical name i believe) is what causes it to stick.) 18. Now, unfortunately I missed taking a few pictures here. The roof is now up, the door is hung, and the final wall is built. Here is basically how that all happened: - We added the ceiling joist brackets to the opposite side, placed the 2x4's across, and screwed those 2x4's in. Then, we screwed the ceiling drywall into those 2x4's. Insulation was place overtop of that drywall, from above I believe, but I don't know if we put any drywall on top of that insulation. If we did, that drywall was placed from above also. - We placed cornerbead on one of the corners. - We built the final wall. It is framed the exact same way as the others. - The door: This was difficult. We bought a solid core 3 foot wide door slab and framed and hung it ourselves. This was where we saved money. You can buy pre-hung doors, such as fire doors, really expensive acoustic doors, and really cheap, thin generic doors at lowe's. None of these, in my opinion, are good options. The pre-hung doors at stores like lowe's/home depot just aren't thick enough for good sound isolation. They aren't designed for it. Pre-hung fire doors are way too heavy and expensive. Giant metal doors have the same problem. Then, if you want to get a pre-hung door used for the entrace of a house, you are talking some SERIOUS cash. The best option (IMHO) is to just do it yourself. The door we bought was $80. It was just the door slab - a giant rectangle piece with no predrilled hole for the doorknob. Just buy the door, the doorknob, the hinges, the acoustical gasketing, the closer, and the threshold, and then frame it yourself with wood. You can learn about framing doors from various internet websites, or from friends who know home improvement. It must be framed and hung correctly or else it will not swing and close right. This is a delicate process, at least from my inexperienced point of view. You should have someone who knows what they are doing help you out, or research an awful lot. - We used a dummy knob. It is called a dummy knob because it doesn't turn, so you feel like a dummy when you try and turn it! Anyways, this meant there was no hole in the door, like you would have for a usual doorknob. This was to improve sound isolation, as a hole in the door would lose some sound reduction efficiency. Also, the knob helps direct people's hands, so that they don't get on your nice door. We used commercial grade hinges; this was a heavy door. Sealing the door? Well, that comes later. 18b. Another shot of the door and the drywall around it. Again, measure and plan carefully for framing your door. 18c. A view from the inside; you can see our door frame and some more drywall and cornerbead. Cornerbead, as mentioned earlier, prevents damage to drywall.

19. A shot of our hinges. To install the hinges, you must indent the wood of both the door and the frame. The was done using a chisel and a hammer (surprisingly effective, at least to me). The hinges come with installation instructions. There is some discoloration on the inside hinge because the hinge face, screws include, stuck out a little bit and had to be sanded down. 19b. The hinge as viewed from outside of the vocal booth - see how it has to be installed with indents in the wood in order for the door to close and be flush. 20. Back to this whole tube business - The little tube was going to be my air conditioning system. I left it in the so I could fan hot air out of the booth. I never ended up building it, though. I was going to add on a longer tube alongside the booth outside of it, and then use very silent 80mm computer fans to pull air out. The fans would be enclosed in some quiet duct system that I'd build. If you cut the power cable on a computer fan, cut the power cable on an AC adapter (wall wart), and then wire them together (as simple as stripping the cable, entwining them, and taping up with electric tape), you can power the fans that way. You can also underpower the fan to make it spin slower if desired. I would use the appropriate voltage, though. However, the only on/off switch is to plug it in. So, I was gonna have about 4 of these really quiet fans (trust me, this brand was pretty quiet) plugged into a power strip, and then to turn all the fans on I would simply turn the power strip on. 21. These are the fans I would have used. I still have all of them and will be using them to build a silent computer case.

22. More mud, taping. 23. Smoothing out the inner door frame. 24. Now, what to do about the bottom of the door? I bought a little thing that screwed to the bottom of the door, as you can see in this picture, but that was completely ineffective. Also, note that there is no threshold yet. 25. Here, I now have the threshold which I will install (you can also see the fake wood vinyl flooring, which actually was installed much later. i installed the door seal kit later, after painting and such). I had to place a small piece of wood to cover the area below the threshold, in order to raise the height a little bit.

26. On the far side of the wall on which the door is hung, I drilled out a hole to run some cables through. I had some XLR's, quarter inch, headphone, A/V RCA, a power strip, etc. The powerstrip and XLR's were used most. The powerstrip was used to plug in a lamp inside of the booth, and also used for amps. The jacks are covered in painter's tape in order to protect them during this installation process. I wanted to make sure my bases were covered as far as connections went, but I didn't want to spend the money to make proper plates. If I did, though, I would have gone through markertek (markertek.com). 27. Cables coming out the other side. Please make note of which way you run your XLR's (male-female, female-male, etc). I actually did one wrong and had to put adapters on both ends... 28. Then, I put mud and tape all around the cables in order to seal it up. I'm sure I lost some sound isolation by doing this, but this was the best I could think of at the time. 29. The door is hung, painting has taken place. 30. Another friend of mine, staining the door. DIY doors don't come stained and glossed and all that!

31. Even though you've already seen it in the threshold picture, this is how the vinyl flooring I put down works. It's cheap, sticks to the floor, and looked very nice. 32. This is the door gasket I used. All the door sealing stuff I used was bought from Acoustical Solutions. Here is a link to their door products. It was very expensive. This stuff is REALLY high quality, and after researching, I chose it to seal my door. There are probably cheaper options out there, but you have to take the door into consideration. A lot of sound typically escapes through doors and windows, so you must take care to seal them appropriately. From this company, I bought the door jamb (which is the stuff that the door hits against when closed) and the threshold (the thing at the bottom of the door). There are cross sectional diagrams of these products on their website, which contains a lot of useful information. 33. A shot of the door jamb after being installed. You've gotta give them measurements of your door, I believe, or you can buy it pre-packaged - I don't remember. Priced by the foot. 34. This is my commercial door closer. It was about $80 as well. You see these on doors in office buildings, etc. I chose to use a commercial door closer so that it would really pull the door closed tightly - I mean very tightly. With these, you can adjust the tension for the rate of closure at different angles. Very high tech. 35. There's a little shot of where the AC thing would have been. That gold thing is just a shower drain cover.

36. Here's a shot looking in on the booth, after I put a bunch of foam up. 37. This is the booth in its finished condition. Overall, useful for me and impressive to others. Various points not covered above: - Where to buy stuff? (from a USA perspective) Lowe's, home depot are the big chains. I went to a smaller company, "People's Choice" for the hinges, door closer, door, and dummy knob. Their prices and service were WAY better than the mega-chains, plus I don't even think Lowe's sells door slabs like the one we got there. Anyways, try some local, smaller places for better service. Online can also be very good; like I mentioned earlier, I used Acoustical Solutions. I also used sweetwater to buy all the foam. Also, I am selling the door gasket system, hinges, and door closer for half price. PM me for details. (moderators, if you want me to remove this from my post, just say the word) - Shims I never knew the power of shimming before building this vocal booth. So useful. - Built like a house This thing was built like a little house - very powerful and strong. Mega heavy, thick walls. Make sure you don't lose all the good sound reduction with poor windows/doors. I also learned a lot about general home improvement by building the vocal booth. - What I would have done different Maybe I would use a less expensive acoustical gasketing system. I don't know if that's possible though. - The air conditioning system I never used Even with the hole in it from the A/C system I never used, there was very good sound reduction. It would have been better if I did implement the A/C idea, and I think it was a cool idea in general regardless. Maybe build yours without the A/C thing or hole in it. However, it can get hot in there - air tight and all that. Just a warning. - ACOUSTICS The booth didn't sound "excellent." It sounded "okay." I had to put up a ton of foam, and even a blanket on the floor to kill reflections. It was a little boxy in there, but still useable. I wish it had sounded nicer. There are proven room ratios that people have for the room dimensions, and I believe I used one of "Bolt's ratios." Still, could have sounded better. Maybe an angled wall would have helped, maybe a bass trap in there, who knows. I don't think it was the window because the two panes were differing thicknesses. Please don't let that last paragraph discourage you from building one - it was still very useful when the project required it. Just do a better job than I did! Finally, you'll have to adapt this to your situation, pricewise and size-wise. Look at the good room ratios and then plan it out. Remember, something like 90% planning, 10% execution. The booth was expensive. You cannot build a good vocal booth cheaply. I think my costs approached $2k for the whole thing. I had to buy the following: wood, screws, drywall, joists, circular saw, toolboxes, acoustic caulk, caulk gun, acoustic door gasket system, door threshold, two panes of glass, wood for framing glass, wood glue, wood clamps, dummy knob, hinges, door slab, computer fans, vinyl flooring, MDF board, paint, mud, putty knife, books, and various other things. The biggest expenses by FAR were the window and the door gasket system. It took me about 2.5 weeks to build this vocal booth, working about six or so hours a day. HOWEVER, this was the first big construction project I ever did, so I was reading during a LOT of that time. I didn't know ANYTHING about building, and had hardly used a drill. So, it was a big learning experience. I was researching studio building, acoustics, etc etc. Hopefully, this thread will make it easier for YOU to build YOUR awesome vocal booth. Have fun! John

John, I've moved this to the Construction forum, seems more the spot for it - thank you VERY much for sharing, you're right about a lot of people wanting info on how to build a booth and yours looks to be a valuable addition to nearly any home studio. I'm also linking to this from the REFERENCE section so it doesn't get lost... Steve

i really appreciate this post-- this helps me out alot in my own situation-- although i'll be using double walls with separate plates- but i really would like to know how the windows were installed

Windows Click above to see how the windows were made, and how I put them into the vocal booth structure.

Hello I'm glad u posted ur booth I'm in the process of purchasing a shed 12 x 16 and i'm gonna turn it into a studio of course. The booth will be approx. 6' wide and 12' long to give me room for videoing my artists. I would like to keep in touch with u cause i know i'll need help or at least a little insight on my project to be. I never thought about staggering my studs for any reason but yours makes sense. I guess i'll have to add a bottom plate to do the same the walls will be open on the inside i have to provide the plywood and dense glass for the booth myself small price to pay so i don't have to travel with my equipment to record

you.... are..... the... MAN!

Needs to stay near top ... this is excellent! 8)

So if I use my 100W 3-way speakers on Volume level 25 (out of 31) outside a vocal booth like this I will be able to cleanly hear only myself and BARELY any outside noise?

Hi there, Well, if you're tracking your own vocals then the control room speakers wouldn't need to be on anyway, so you'd be fine. If you're tracking another vocalist with you as the engineer, you could monitor through headphones during vocal tracking, then mix on the speakers of course. Good luck with your booth! best,