Inexpensive noise reduction

[John Donovan]

Having built a new control room and vocal booth after years of recording out of my office and the broom closet I really wanted to shoot for a very quiet mixing environment. I wanted a dampened case for all of my noisy pc, amp and other ventilated 19" gear, and I wasn't ready to pay for a professional, off the shelf solution, which can easily go over $1500. Here is what I came up with:

Used server racks can be found on ebay dirt cheap. I got one over seven feet high with both a front and a rear door and even active ventilation for $175. I placed it outside the control room in the hallway. They use 19" mounting as do music racks, but have space to spare to dampen them from the inside on all sides. A wireless outlet switch system (which we use to control the studio lights) lets me turn on or off the active ventilation during breaks to cool things down, and a cheap wireless thermometer keeps the temperature inside visible at all times. Never had a problem though; the thing is so big that passive cooling is sufficient. New, these units go for as much as $2,000.

Hope somebody can make use of this as I have.

Best,

John Donovan
Megaton Sound Design

[knightfly]

Thanks, good call; I've always been amazed at the prices they want for racks, bought a few used at scrap price myself and refurbed them for less than $50 each, none sold new for under $1k... Steve

[Sword9]

If anybody is ever in Orlando, FL there is a place called Skycraft that has an amazing wealth of surplus and scrap items. They buy stuff from NASA and Disney and all of the big tech places in FL and beyond. I used to go there every saturday and spend about 3 hours there just looking at all the cool stuff. they always had racks for really cheap. Some of them were huge. If you're ever in Orlando/Winter Park and you're an electronics geek, you have to check it out.

[John Donovan]

And here is the result:

Best,

John Donovan
Megaton Sound Design