Vocal Booth design - use John's Project or adjust it?

[rane]

Hey guys,

So I decided to build a vocal booth at my place.

It's not a permanent thing so I'd like to keep it as low-budget as possible.

So the 1st picture (below) shows the room as is - dimensions are 558x389cm (they are on the third picture)

BAZKA.png

On the second picture (below) you can see closet door and drapes that are not included on the first picture (sry for the paint - didn't have much choice now

4.png

So i figured I can build a booth designed by John some time ago in the top right corner (picture below)

1.png

I could live without that closet for some time but then I started wondering how much of sound isolation (booth<->room / booth<->neighbors) would i lose if I drop two walls, use the existing room walls (properly treated) and build it like on the picture below

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Now I'm wondering if the booth-window-wall should be parallel to room-windows-wall so that there is some symmetry where i'm sitting. (Pictured below) Or should I just treat the first reflections independently and go with the non-parallel walls.

2.png

The last setup i'm considering is totally different and I'd like to know what you guys think of it (below)

3.png

Here I'd have the symmetry and the only way to treat the rear wall (with windows) would be some bigass gobos i guess.

I'm pretty sure I'll have a few questions about treating the rest of the room but for now i'm just asking you guys about the booth - what do you think? Which idea is best? or do you have another perhaps?

PS:IMPORTANT - I'm planning on building it a double-wall construction

[JCBigler]

I would turn the control room around so that your desk with your mixer faces the windows. Keep the vocal booth behind you, kind of a pain for sight lines, but it's the best way to get the symmetry for the control room, and puts more of the depth of the room behind you. This assumes that the ceiling is flat and not angled in someway, which you don't show in your drawing.

The fourth pic with the door from the booth to the closet is the best option if you want to retain use of the closet, but has the least amount of isolation. Can you build another door from the booth going to the closet? This would give you better isolation and still retain use of the closet.

[rane]

Of course - there are doors - old heavy wooden doors and i will leave them there or replace with better ones for maximum isolation.
This solution would be also easier and cheaper since i don't have to build two walls. Just wondering if it's going to affect the cr->booth isolation.

As for the desk facing windows - hmm.. I don't really like the idea of having the booth on my back. If I switch the desk and sofa there's still pretty much the same depth behind me plus the small area around the entrance to the room. Is it significantly better than the other setups?

[JCBigler]

The issue is that you will have an angled wall to your right, where the booth is, and a perpendicular wall to your left, which throws your symmetry off. You want the room to be a mirror image of itself left-to-right, as if you cut it down the middle, at least for the first half of the room. Further back the symmetry can be not as tight, but you want the listening area to be symmetrical, otherwise your stereo image will not be right.

[Soundman2020]

I'm absolutely with JC on this one: symmetry is a very, very important part of getting a properly balanced stereo image. If you don't have symmetry, then your ears are hearing different acoustic environments, and you will try to adjust for that subconsciously in your mix. You can make the mix sound good when you play it in the room, certainly, but then when you play it anywhere else on the planet that toes not have the same distorted acoustics, it will sound bad. This is called "translation": your mixes will not "translate" to other places: they will only ever sound good when played in your room, but nowhere else.

Symmetry isn't really an option, or something "nice to have if you can get it. On the contrary, it is a critical element of control room design.

- Stuart -