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Emmett Location: USA Posts: 59	Posted - Tue May 13, 2003 6:36 pm  I have found the perfect poor man's vocal booth. It works great! I just moved into a new house, with an unfinished basement. Obviously a basement with no treatment sounds awful. Being that I just moved, money is super tight and I decided to try something. Quite simply, it involves taking 2x4's and making something that resembles the shell of a phone booth. 4 posts about 6 feet tall, that, when connected at the top with 4 pieces (almost like you were building a very small, 6 foot tall bed.) I then added curtain rods to the top, all the way around. I bought some very heavy fabric, you could also use a thick blanket. Hung them on the curtain rods all the way around, all the way to the floor. Then covered the top with more fabric and set it on a rug. It works great. It's completely dark, I had to bring in a desk lamp. The sound is open, but there is no echo. I think it sounds better than a small area done with acoustic foam, which I think ruins the sound. Also, if I need a hint of natural reverb, I open the curtain a bit in one spot, and get what I need. All for about 50-60 bucks. When I have time, I will make a larger one that looks nicer. If you take the time to use nice wood and finish it, it could look really nice. I hope that makes sense. Let me know what you think of the idea. _________________ Emmett KPNT, St. Louis, MO
VoodooRadio Location: USA Posts: 3971	Posted - Tue May 13, 2003 6:47 pm  Quote: Let me know what you think of the idea. O.K.... if it's working for you and your happy with the results, then I think it's Marvelous idea!! ;) FWIW, I've used a similiar approach to building "mic tents" for micing guitar cabinets and kick drums. I used PVC pipe a handful of fittings and U-Haul blankets. _________________ I said Good Day! Voodoo
Emmett Location: USA Posts: 59	Posted - Tue May 13, 2003 8:00 pm  Quote: I've used a similiar approach to building "mic tents" for micing guitar cabinets and kick drums. Sometimes I love not having much money...Makes you think more and "invent" new things! _________________ Emmett KPNT, St. Louis, MO
Wildduck Posts: 466	Posted - Tue May 13, 2003 11:45 pm  The technique of hanging heavy curtains spaced away from the wall is quite well known amongst builders of very cheap studios. It can work extremely well. It's good that it's working for you. The things to be aware of are fire and dust. The curtains should be treated with some sort of fire retardent. And it's worth thinking about how you will keep them clean. Otherwise you'll get excited one day, wave your arms and all your friends will think you have the most amazing dandruff.
SteveG Location: United Kingdom Posts: 6695	Posted - Wed May 14, 2003 1:10 am  Emmett wrote: I have found the perfect poor man's vocal booth. It works great! I just moved into a new house, with an unfinished basement. Obviously a basement with no treatment sounds awful. Being that I just moved, money is super tight and I decided to try something. Quite simply, it involves taking 2x4's and making something that resembles the shell of a phone booth. 4 posts about 6 feet tall, that, when connected at the top with 4 pieces (almost like you were building a very small, 6 foot tall bed.) I then added curtain rods to the top, all the way around. I bought some very heavy fabric, you could also use a thick blanket. Hung them on the curtain rods all the way around, all the way to the floor. Then covered the top with more fabric and set it on a rug. It works great. It's completely dark, I had to bring in a desk lamp. The sound is open, but there is no echo. I think it sounds better than a small area done with acoustic foam, which I think ruins the sound. Also, if I need a hint of natural reverb, I open the curtain a bit in one spot, and get what I need. All for about 50-60 bucks. When I have time, I will make a larger one that looks nicer. If you take the time to use nice wood and finish it, it could look really nice. I hope that makes sense. Let me know what you think of the idea. Yes, it works quite well, doesn't it? In the UK we have this really stupid idea called 'listed buildings' - well, the idea isn't stupid, but some of the buildings that it has been applied to are, to say the least, of dubious merit. Anyway, what this often means is that you can't do anything to the walls without going through a staggering amount of red tape, and then you'll probably be refused permission to do what you want. And if what you want is to put a studio in one of these buildings, then heaven help you. So along comes (small fanfare) the 'framed drapes' studio. Well actually, the first one was about ten years ago... In ours, which get moved around (!) we have long lengths of flexible curtain track, and the frames can be reconfigured quite a few ways. The curtains are velvet, but you can get good results with most sorts of reasonable density material. If you have them at least a foot from the wall, you can hide all sorts of junk behind them - flight cases quite often in ours. And nothing touches their oh-so precious walls... They don't help any LF problems though. You can still get nasty deep standing waves, so there are some sorts of situations you still need to avoid, but as a cheap and cheerful approach that's quite effective, it's fine. It's also worth noting that if you do this in a room with a large window, that it's often worth treating the window separately. In the spirit of 'cheap and cheerful', bubble-wrap on the panes can work wonders... _________________
Wildduck Posts: 466	Posted - Wed May 14, 2003 11:18 am  Steve, I bow to your superior knowledge, but I think this would be worth a short discussion. My understanding was that good heavy curtains with plenty of 'folds' in them would take care of the HF. But the reason for hanging them away from the wall was for them to have an effect at LF. My guess has always been that the curtain-gap interface partly formed a bass absorber and partly broke up the standing waves from the hard walls. I'm not sure that putting too much in the way of junk behind the curtain would have entirely predictable results. Old cinema curtains were what I used to use back in '68.
SteveG Location: United Kingdom Posts: 6695	Posted - Wed May 14, 2003 2:39 pm  Wildduck wrote: Steve, I bow to your superior knowledge, but I think this would be worth a short discussion. My understanding was that good heavy curtains with plenty of 'folds' in them would take care of the HF. But the reason for hanging them away from the wall was for them to have an effect at LF. My guess has always been that the curtain-gap interface partly formed a bass absorber and partly broke up the standing waves from the hard walls. I'm not sure that putting too much in the way of junk behind the curtain would have entirely predictable results. Old cinema curtains were what I used to use back in '68. As per usual, there are a lot of 'it depends' issues here... We tried altering the gap between the curtain and the wall, and discovered that if you used thinner curtain material, you have to have it further from the wall to get a similar effect to that which you got with thicker material, certainly around the speech band. The amount of junk makes less difference with thicker material as well. But the absorption coefficient of virtually all fabric materials falls off quite dramatically at LF, and acoustically, it's hardly there at all - so all the standing wave problems remain. Where you score with the heavier material is in the lowest part of the speech band, where the material still has some effectiveness - the spacing will usually make a significant difference to 'boominess', but not because it's acting as a bass trap... You'd think that the folds would make a difference to the MF and HF, but in practice, they don't have that much effect - the spacing from the wall is more significant. Although pulling the material tight wasn't too great, because it resonated... What appears to happen is that the material acts as an acoustic impedance changer as much as anything (which is why you get a better result with thicker material), significanltly altering the tangential and oblique modes of the room rather more than the axial ones. To make a bass trap that works, you have to trap the LF energy in a defined space, and convert it to another form (preferrably heat!), and this just can't be achieved with hanging drapes... Now, I'll be the first to admit that I haven't yet done a full analysis of the various effects of this - although it would be useful to know a little more accurately what is actually happening. But from the known properties of the materials, I'm pretty sure that the present analysis isn't far out... _________________
Brad Posts: 106	Posted - Wed May 14, 2003 2:51 pm  Well yeah, common sense kinda stuff.
VoodooRadio Location: USA Posts: 3971	Posted - Thu May 15, 2003 4:49 am  Quote: common sense kinda stuff. Actually, that's what it boils down to! _________________ I said Good Day! Voodoo
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