I was going to do the vocal booth thingie, but between the ventilation, lighting, monitor, etc, and cutting the physical size of my small studio, I decided to just cut my noise sources instead.
I put the computer in the next room and that made a huge difference in background noise. It's actually kind of weird working at the monitor when you can't hear the computer running. When vocals are being done, all power amps, synths, everything but the bare minimum gets shut down.

For the type of music that I do, which is mostly progressive rock, this method works very good. And I can still breathe!!!


Poly

ORIGINAL: patrickhamm

If you want to hear how it sounds, check this out: The song is called cracked out maniac and there is a part at the beginning where the vocals are soloed. I recorded it in this "booth". Anyway, there's a good cheap and effective suggestion. Hope it helps...

Omigod! What a great, hilarious song! F***in' awesome! It's the best thing I've ever heard in these forums.

Did you get it professionally mastered - sounds excellent!

No, I did it all myself. Thanks for the kind words and asterisks!

ORIGINAL: rickgn

Yes, it will work. Especially considering that most musical works these days will be mixed in with other instruments so much of the background is masked in the mix. Computer fans, your house air conditioner, and even the sound of your mouse sliding across the desk can be picked up on a good microphone. If you are using a gate on your inputs, odds are the only time you will hear anything is on the quiet parts of your songs. If it works for you, great. Not to be rude, but your "zero background noise" cannot be totally accruate. I'm sure you had to redo takes because someone slammed a door in another room or your furnace kicked on at the wrong time.

I must clarify.. that my control room and live room are on opposite sides of the house. both rooms have doors . the live room has nothing but a mic, chair and music stand.. 0 background noise is achieved because we take the appropriete measures to eliminate background noise. I do shut off the furnace. I do not have tons of people running around the house while I record. anyone who is, is there for the recording and are in the control room with the engineer... but rickgn does make good points if you don't have 2 rooms to spare...and have people slamming doors and making a ruckus while you record.. (which doesn't exist in this particular environment) casper13

Did you get it professionally mastered - sounds excellent!

No, I did it all myself. Thanks for the kind words and asterisks!


What did you use for mastering? plug-ins, etc.? Sounds very slick - did you compress your drums? What sound modules are you using? Or are you using loops?

Cheap and effective, huh? at http://www.markertek.com/ I got myself 2 of these blankets, stuck some grommets in them and hung them from hooks. (you can use regular moving blankets, but these are larger by a foot, I believe)

Thanks for the lead! I have consturcted a booth using 3/4 MDF and 2x4's its great for containment but has tons of "slap-back". I used some carpeting on the walls for dampening, but that is just not good enough for me. I did manage to hang some blankets one day and I was quite impressed with the results. These blankets may be perfect for my situation. If not, it will be back to the drawing board.

I did manage to find a site that will price out all of the materials that you will need. You just give them the spec's you are working with and they will do the rest. I priced mine out and it was like $500. They did manage to tell me some of the key components of what kills sound.

MASS KILLS SOUND!!!! Get as close to the density of a brick wall as possible. There are manufacturers that provide "mass loaded vinyl". It has the same density as a plate of lead.

Good luck building your booth!!

Remeber! It can be as expensive or least expensive as you want it to be.

Did you get it professionally mastered - sounds excellent!
No, I did it all myself. Thanks for the kind words and asterisks!

What did you use for mastering? plug-ins, etc.? Sounds very slick - did you compress your drums? What sound modules are you using? Or are you using loops?

drums and loops (and a few synths, I think) with reason using some random loop and the joey kramer drum sounds from eastwest, and yes they are compressed, again within reason. mastering with the Sonic Foundary Wave Hammer, and off hand, I think that's it, but I can't be sure since I am at work now and can't check.

Vocals in my "blanket booth". sound good, huh? so good in fact, that michael jackson asked if he could name his kid after my booth!!!

another thing I didn't mention about the blanket method is that the whole booth fits neatly under my bed. If you are doing home recording with limited space (like say a 1-bedroom apt?) this is another advantage to this method.

What did you use for mastering?

What microphone and pre-amp are you using?

What did you use for mastering?

What microphone and pre-amp are you using?

Sonic Foudary Wave Hammer for mastering. I recorded that with a mackie 1402vlz mixer and the vocals through an autio technica AT4033.

that michael jackson asked if he could name his kid after my booth!!!

michael jackson and kids in the same sentence. i guess as long as he
wasn't asking about your kids everything is ok.