An update on the vocal booth I am building in my closet

[CarlosM]

Check out the progress I’ve been making of turning my bedroom walk-in closet in my Miami condo into a vocal booth where I will be launching a podcast show on police accountability.

As I mentioned in my previous post from a couple of months ago, I’ve been running a police accountability news site called Photography is Not a Crime aka PINAC News since 2007.

Included in this post are three photos from the way the closet looked before starting the project (after removing tons of clothes), three photos of how it looks now and several screenshots from Sketchup on how it will look when completed within two weeks hopefully. The work is being done by my mother’s longtime handyman with me helping him when needed.

So far, we’ve added five panels of 5/8 QuietRock drywall using Green Glue on the sides and on the ceiling where he cut openings for the sprinkler and the air conditioner vent. He has also added rubber floor mats on the floor. And he placed a 1/2-inch layer of rug pad underneath the rubber mats.

He also narrowed the door frame from 36 inches to 28 inches and added a solid core door. And he created a small desk on one end of the room for the microphone, computer, camera and other equipment.

At the moment, the weak side is the door where I measured a sound transmission loss of 25 decibels while standing on the other side of the door. The sound transmission loss of the other walls is about 40 decibels.

The plan now is to paint the walls with SC-1000 paint from a company called Hy-Tech. The SC stands for “sound control” and it is supposed to increase the STC rating by as much as ten points. I bought two gallons which might be good for two or three coats. I want to apply at least three coats to the door which is the weak spot.

We will also add weather-stripping and a door sweep to the door to further increase the sound transmission loss. I also ordered some cork pads which I plan on adding to the door as well.

Once the paint is applied and dried, then the plan is to place 3D faux brick wall pads on the walls, followed by acoustic panels and pads.

I ordered two acoustic panels from ATS Acoustics with the logos of my news site for two of the walls that will be behind me when I do video interviews. The acoustic panel that includes the badge and says “PINAC News” is 36” x 36” and the other panel of the hand holding the camera is 36” x 24”.

For the other walls, door and ceiling, I ordered 48 acoustic foam panels from Pro Studio Acoustics that measure 12” x 12” x 2”.

In the Sketchup screenshots, I added yellow arrows to indicate the direction of my voice when I begin recording. One viewpoint is from above, the other is from below.

I will buy more acoustic pads if needed but for now, the plan is to go with the 48 panels I have, placing 14 pads on the ceiling and the rest on the walls and door as illustrated in the Sketchup design.

Does anybody have any feedback, advice or comments, especially regarding the placement of the acoustic pads?

[DanDan]

The Acoustic Pads are way too thin. Many of us will not recommend less than a minimum treatment of 4" absorber plus 4" airgap between it and the boundary.

[CarlosM]

Everybody I spoke to recommended the 2-inch panels. I'm not going to be singing, just speaking.