VO GUY / PIPE DREAM?

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bhp2000
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Joined: Mon May 28, 2018 8:52 pm
Location: West Palm Beach, FL

VO GUY / PIPE DREAM?

Post by bhp2000 »

Hi and may I say,
what a treasure trove of valuable acoustical tips and
meaningful input! Thank you for providing such a venue!

I have a perplexing dilemma that may or may not have an acoustical solution
or maybe so at least as a partial solution. Open to any and all thoughts that
would be greatly appreciated!

SCENARIO:
I do all sorts of media work and a lot of same includes recording my voice for
broadcast ads or online videos etc. Because 95% of these offerings are produced
with background music any nominal noise demons present are well camouflaged.
(I also avoid doing same when the army of lawn men start mowing and blowing except
for in-between times on that particular day.)

In addition to the music-in-the-ad "blankets" I use either a dynamic or very low, self-noise condenser mic.

MY PIPE DREAM is to quiet my actual little recording area (see attached) further to be able
to record voice-only work WITHOUT having to fix little noises in post. I will say that I don't
like the boxy/hollow sound of little voice booths on the market.

- 2nd floor bedroom of townhouse that was built with poured concrete walls. Room is 8' high.

- (2) specific noise areas of concern: Sliding glass door to balcony and AC vent over entry door

- The sliders are old and well built with 2 pains of glass in them and do a pretty good job
blocking outside noise except for say those mowers and blowers. They're muted some.
I'm not near a busy road either.

- I use half of a 2' deep, length-of-wall-closet as my work area that can be entirely closed off at night with
the sliding closet doors. The wall inside this area are covered with Sonex Wedge type panels.
There's a butcher block type bench and the computer is beneath on a carpet
covered bench with the comp-fan facing into the Sonex covered back wall. I can't hear the fan noise,
even with the condenser open, but could also hang something in front as well if need be.

IDEAS to block exterior sound further...


- One idea I had was making folding divider of sorts where each panel/partition
was of mass and absorbing-material inside framed panels connected via continuous hinges. "piano hinge"
When not needed, I could fold together like a divider and push out of the way. I was thinking like 7 feet high.

- The other idea was build 2 or 3 panels to insert in the area between the slider doors and the verticals.
The idea being to try to cover the entire slider area with 2-3 panels of mass. I have a gap there of just
over 2.5 inches. The would stand about 78 inches high and maybe rest top side against the track of the sliders.
Sitting side by side with the one being able to lifted out if I'd have open the door for any reason.

SEE THE ROUGH LAYOUT and I'll fill in the blanks thereafter not knowing what else
someone will need to know to at least proffer an idea or simply say, fughidaboudit. 8)

I'm thinking this is probably a pipe dream but figured I'd float it in case there is some type of possibility.

ALSO...if I were to be able to do VOICE ONLY work, I'd also buy a Sennheiser 416 shot gun mic.
This is another very "forgiving" condenser mic when used for VO since it SUPER-cardioid.

THE ULTIMATE GOAL would be to reduce as much outside noise as possible
and totally eliminate any AC Vent AIR NOISE. The room right now is amazingly pretty quiet
with a hint of "live-ness."

I thank you for ANY thoughts whatsoever!
Soundman2020
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Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:17 am
Location: Santiago, Chile
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Re: VO GUY / PIPE DREAM?

Post by Soundman2020 »

Hi. Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things! :)
I will say that I don't like the boxy/hollow sound of little voice booths on the market.
Right! That's actually true of all very small booths: the boxy sound is the acoustic "signature" of a small space, and there's basically nothing that can be done about it: For acoustic reasons that I don't have time to go into right now, the simple fact of having walls close together will always produce that sound, no matter how you treat it. You can make it a bit better by totally "killing" the room with abundant absorption, but that doesn't sound very nice either.

The ONLY way to get rid of that boxy sound, is to record in a larger room.
- The sliders are old and well built with 2 pains of glass in them and do a pretty good job blocking outside noise except for say those mowers and blowers. They're muted some.
Do you mean that the sliding glass door panel has a double-glazed unit in it? In other words, there are two panes of glass attached to each other around the edges, and with a very small air gap between them, all sealed together into one single object?

If so, then that's not going to isolate very well for low frequencies. IT works fine for mids and highs, but not for lows.
- I use half of a 2' deep, length-of-wall-closet as my work area
With a depth of only 2', that is never going to sound good, no matter how well you treat it. Sorry.
if I were to be able to do VOICE ONLY work, I'd also buy a Sennheiser 416 shot gun mic.
I would not use a shotgun mic for serious vocal work. The very high directional sensitivity comes at the expense of sound quality in other areas.

If you want good sounding vocal recordings, use a much larger space, and treat it accordingly. For example: if the room has carpet on the floor, get rid of that and lay a hard surface, such as laminate flooring, ceramic tiles, linoleum, etc. Carpet will make the room sound "dull", "boomy" and unpleasant.
and totally eliminate any AC Vent AIR NOISE.
That is possible, yes, but you will need to build something called a "silencer box", or "baffle box". It can be done.


- Stuart -
bhp2000
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon May 28, 2018 8:52 pm
Location: West Palm Beach, FL

Re: VO GUY / PIPE DREAM?

Post by bhp2000 »

Soundman2020 wrote:Hi. Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things! :)

STUART....thanks for the reply!

Whoops! Caught me!
Please accept my apologies. I think I was so excited to have found a resource like this
I just started reading topic after topic after topic but couldn't find the "search" engine
since I wasn't on the main page after first clicking the first topic. Then, with little time left
due to work deadlines, hastily slammed together a rough visual rendering of my quandary. I think I falsely assumed
the forum rules would have been the proverbial don't curse, don't smoke, turn of cell phones etc. I was mistaken. Sorry. :|

- The sliders are old and well built with 2 pains of glass in them and do a pretty good job blocking outside noise except for say those mowers and blowers. They're muted some.
Do you mean that the sliding glass door panel has a double-glazed unit in it? In other words, there are two panes of glass attached to each other around the edges, and with a very small air gap between them, all sealed together into one single object?

If so, then that's not going to isolate very well for low frequencies. IT works fine for mids and highs, but not for lows.

YES...SORRY AGAIN, should have mentioned double pane and yes after reading here, saw that mentioned about sliders more than once.
- I use half of a 2' deep, length-of-wall-closet as my work area
With a depth of only 2', that is never going to sound good, no matter how well you treat it. Sorry.

SHOULD HAVE CLARIFIED that as well. When I say 2 feet. I meant my little "workbench area where the monitors, speaker monitors, keyboard, mics and outboard gear
is in INSET into this 2' deep by 5.5' area. The room itself however is all open behind me when seated before mic.
if I were to be able to do VOICE ONLY work, I'd also buy a Sennheiser 416 shot gun mic.
I would not use a shotgun mic for serious vocal work. The very high directional sensitivity comes at the expense of sound quality in other areas.

I DON'T CARE FOR THE MIC mentioned either but it is used quite extensively for achieving a "Movie trailer, Station Imaging type sound" that's edgy, in-your-face, almost gravel sounding.
The technique is to use it (carefully) far closer to the mouth than it's intended "shotgun" purpose. Tricky but that's how it's done...around 5-8" max. My other mics that I use are popular dynamics and
a low, self-noise condenser.

If you want good sounding vocal recordings, use a much larger space, and treat it accordingly. For example: if the room has carpet on the floor, get rid of that and lay a hard surface, such as laminate flooring, ceramic tiles, linoleum, etc. Carpet will make the room sound "dull", "boomy" and unpleasant.

Yes, got that from previous readings. I'm sitting on a laminated area and the little bit of carpet left that's visible is minimal and I can't remove it.

and totally eliminate any AC Vent AIR NOISE.
That is possible, yes, but you will need to build something called a "silencer box", or "baffle box". It can be done.

NOW that I know where the search engine is, I'll search for these boxes. I had read about them in some of the posts
but many didn't allow me to see the photos. I'll try again.

MY GOAL is to reduce the external sound from the sliders as much as possible
and the air noise coming from the air vent that's approximately 13 feet behind me
above the doorway. I'm toying with a few ideas with two displayed on my rough-up.

THANKS for your time and please forgive my newbee faux pas. :wink:

- Stuart -
Soundman2020
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Posts: 11938
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:17 am
Location: Santiago, Chile
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Re: VO GUY / PIPE DREAM?

Post by Soundman2020 »

:thu:


- Stuart -
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