VO Studio Setup: Voiceover Recording Booth Upgrade Part 3

After receiving my shipment of acoustic panels and bass traps from ATS Acoustics, I removed all the “interim” treatment out of my Vocalbooth to confirm my upgrade plan would fix things. The various absorptive chunks and foam bass traps I’d been adding over time had definitely been making things better. Reverting to only egg-carton foam walls reminded me of how “boothy” my booth had sounded originally. The “unenhanced” version sounded noticeably echoey and definitely held onto a resonant frequency or two. In short, foam alone created unacceptable results. 

I stacked the new ATS panels up in a rough approximation of their final position. Since the booth had to handle a pretty wide range of performance dynamics, I’d opted for 4” thick panels (the ones with the solid back) at head height, with a single 24” x 48” bass trap and a couple of larger 2” panels. With the foam still on the walls and the new panels roughed into position, the results were mildly disorienting due to the lack of echo. It provided serious absorption for reflections.

That tempted me to consider leaving the foam in place. However, the simple process of bumping the interior walls with the hard edge of the panels had caused a bit of foam exfoliation. That reminded me of the need to do this in the first place. 

Stripping my foam – a couple of methods

When I first started considering removing the foam, it seduced me with loose edges. The top few inches easily peeled away from the wall. Moving further down, things got more difficult. Masked up and wearing gloves with the air filter on high, I started peeling the foam, only to find it breaking off in chunks. This left a lot of difficult to remove residue behind. You can view that fail here.

While taking a break and grumbling, my wife reminded me that we had an ice scraper in our car. (I know all you folks who live places that actually have “winter” are laughing. But in California, having an ice scraper in your vehicle is not a foregone conclusion). The long-handled, metal-edged scraper turned out to be exactly the right tool, and by the halfway mark, I had the touch and technique. The second wall came off in one complete piece, which made me inappropriately proud. 

Stripping the walls exposes some gaps in the booth

Putting it bluntly, the construction of my older, single-walled Vocalbooth model is pretty rudimentary. While in place, the original 2” thick foam obscured a number of less-than-ideal aspects of the design. For example, the corners have pretty significant gaps where the MDF panels come together. That helped to explain some of the leakiness. While it may address acoustic reflection, foam does a very poor job of isolation, and I was looking at a quarter inch gap in each corner. 

The foam also masked issues around the doorway. The cutout to fit the doorframe had been a little imprecise, leaving more gaps. Placed sideways, the wall panels I’d ordered could be wedged in to fit there, so I ended up using the end trimmings to fill that in. 

After a bit of bare wall cleanup, I began placing the polyester panels in place. The ones I had purchased came with a gel-type adhesive which created a thin air gap between the panel and the wall – not a bad thing acoustically. I’d set the inch squares firmly on the back of the panels and then pull off the backing strip before placing them. Since the panels had beveled edges, I could flip every other one and obtain more of an overlap. They also fit nicely into the corner gaps, filling in things there as well. 

As with most projects, it’s the finish work that takes the most time. Since the interior dimensions were less than 48 inches, I had to trim the last panels to fit. Of course, I had to slice around the various vent tubes and pass-through channels. A sharp blade and robust cutting mat helped quite a bit. The window and the door walls provided lots of trimming practice as well. 

Panels provide better isolation – treatment still needed

With only the polyester panels in place, I did a few test recordings. The room sounded slightly “live” compared to the original foam – but it was surprisingly close. It did feel a bit more isolated from environmental sound. Stacking up the ATS Panels and Bass Traps again created a usable booth. Deciding I wanted to confirm how things sounded before attaching the panels, I used the booth through the following week of auditions and sessions. It behaved quite well, but I had to be a bit careful not to dislodge the tower of treatment. The only adjustments were to tweak the position of mic arms and iPad holders so that I had easy access to adjustment controls. Things sounded good with both my microphones. 

That left the door, which has always been a bit of a weak spot in the design. While I’d filled in the gapping around the frame, the lightweight material in the door itself made it acoustically porous. I’d considered getting a custom-sized panel made, but ended up obtaining a thick solid acoustic panel which came from a decommissioned local recording studio (with some notable heritage). With a bit of careful trimming and hot glue, I created a cutout for the door handle and it fit perfectly on the inside of the door.

All the free-standing panels got hung with “Z-Clips” from ATS (also referred to as “French Cleats” – that’s the metal bit in the image at the top of this email). ATS supplies a paper template which made lining things up ridiculously easy. I mounted those to hardwood blocks, which I’d attached directly into the walls, doubling up the blocks on the bass traps to increase their gap. 

As with any project, you sort of look up and realize you’ve run out of things to do. I left a few things a bit loose so I could make any final tweaks as they occurred to me when working.  After a few days of nudging things slightly, it felt as though I had a good space in which to be creative. Things felt good.

Next: More sound testing and final tweaks…

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