John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I want to create a vocal booth with a nice reverberant sound, but I also want to keep the clarity. Is this possible?

I was thinking of making it rather large, like the size of a bathroom. I was thinking of using tiles on the floor and some of the wall to make it reverberant. Then I was thinking maybe of adding some bass traps in the corner to control the low frequencies so voices will still have clarity.

Is this a possibility or will the bass traps eat up all the reflections anyway if i'm gonna have any control over the low frequencies.

Any ideas??

Are you building from scratch?
You could make a wall out of paving stone or similar. I think this would give a nicer sound than just tiles.
Im just reading one of Newell's books where ther is a chapter on "stone" liferooms. Sounds really interesting. In one he did the ceiling with one layer of 13mm drywall, "rough" plastered on the roomside and a lot of Mineralwool above to control the lows.

Florian

In that small a room, hard surfaces will make it more of a ringing than a reverb; and if you use absorbent traps, they will kill that ring pretty quickly.

Newell's examples of stone rooms are all quite a bit larger than that, minimum dimensions around 3-4 meters or more... Steve

Yeah this is why I asked if he is building from scratch and could choose. And btw. how big is a typical bathroom in the US?

"how big is a typical bathroom in the US?" - public, or private?

I think the question was in reference to the size of some vox booths, in which case most US bathrooms are probably larger (typical vox booth maybe 4x5x7 feet, typical bathroom (private) at least 5x7x8 feet) -

('course, putting cloth-covered rockwool on the walls of your "poopie-place" will likely get you "flushed" by the boss, which could "wipe out" your entire operation...

Now I got it, you guys are talking of WCs. I thought it's about the room where you "take" a bath. My real "bathroom" is 11m2, that's would give a nice vocalroom.

Florian

Florian, in the US many "bathrooms" are both WC's (Water Closets for us "sheltered americans" :=) AND "bath" rooms - same room, typically 5x7 feet or larger, has bath tub at one end, sink and toilet at the other, bathtub likely has also a shower head so you can choose between shower or bath.

As usual, the more money involved the larger the rooms... Steve

I understand. It's often the same here, a "shared" room.

As usual, the more money involved the larger the rooms

I could easily live with a smaller bathroom and have a bigger studiospace

I guess that you want to keep it a bit reverberant, so a combination of absorption and a good amount of diffusion (ceiling and walls) would give you some nice tone without too much ringing.