My Home Studio Build Diary

DIY Portable Vocal Booth!

2010-06-22T13:52:00.008-04:00

Hey bloggers! I know it's been a LONG time since my last post, and that's mainly because I've been busy with the band and other projects. Work on the studio did not stop - I simply didn't have time to take pics and post updates.

So as a make-up gesture, here is my latest one-day project, a DIY PORTABLE VOCAL BOOTH!

OK, it took slightly more than one day as I had to order some parts online and wait for the postman to deliver then, but if I had had all the parts in hand, the build itself is certainly a one-day project! THis "vocal booth" is based on the RealTraps design, which you can find here.

It's a simple (and cheap! Yay!) build consisting of::

2 - 8 ft long 1x2's
2 - 24" x 24" x 1/8" particle board
2 - 24" x 24"x 1-1/2 acoustic panels
speaker fabric or other open-weave cloth
1-1/4" nails to hold the particle board to the frame
a box of staples to fasten the fabric
1 roll 1-1/2" black hockey tape
1 - 24" piano hinge and screws
1 - 1"x3"x24" pine board
2 - 10-24 x 2" bolts and T-nuts
2 - mic mounting flanges, one male threaded, one female treaded
1 - surplus mic boom arm
1 - mic stand

OK! Got all that ready? Time to build!

Cut the 1x2x8 into 4 x 24" lengths and 4 x 22.5" lengths. Use two of each length to build a square frame (Make sure the shorter pieces go INSIDE the ends of the longer pieces or your dimensions will not be square!).
Nail the 24" x 24" particle board panels to the back of your 1x2 frames.
Glue your acoustic panels (studio foam, OC703, fibreglass insulation or whatever) to the inside surface of your new absorber panels (inside the 1x2 frame).
Using a staple gun and staples, stretch your speaker fabric over the front of the absorber panel, stapling securely at the rear near the edge. Make sure your staples hit the 1x2 frame and not just the particle board panel or they'll pull right out. Take your time and do a neat job, as the finished product will be at eye level when you use it!
I trimmed the excess fabric from the rear of the panels and dressed off the back edge with the hockey tape to hide the staples and raw fabric edges. It looks neat and professional!
Put the two absorber panels face to face and attach the piano hinge down one edge, making sure it's centred between the panels. Now you've got something that looks like 2 pizza boxes hinged together! Dream about pepperoni while you set this assembly aside for the moment.....
Time to build the support bar! Measure your 1x3 x 24 both lengthwise and across and mark the centre with an X on both top and bottom. Centre the ic flanges over the centre mark and screw them in place. The FEMALE threads attach the bar to the top of your mic stand. The MALE threads will accept the boom arm.
Now the fun part - putting it all together! With your absorber panel opened to about 130 degrees (more than a right angle, but not flat), find the centre of gravity by picking up the panels with both hands. The point at which the panel hangs from your hands level and straight is the centre of gravity. Mark this point and drill a small hole in each panel's edge. These will be the mounting holes for your bolts. Measure the distance between the mountig holes when your panels are in their open position and mark this span on your support bar, being sure to space the holes evenly from the centre. Balance is everything!
Drill holes through your support bar as marked, and insert the t-nuts from the top. Thread the 10-24 bolts thoruhg the t-nuts from underneath and tighten them up. You now have support rods sticking up at either end of your support bar.
PUT TI TOGETHER! Mount the support bar on your mic stand. Screw the mic boom arm to the top of the support bar, being sure to angle the boom downwards so it doesn't interfere with the absorber assembly. Line up the holes in the bottom edge of the absorber assembly with the bolts poking up from the support arm and slide 'er home! If you've done it correctly, the mic stand will not tip over because the weight is balanced and centred over the stand. If you haven't quite found the right spot, drill some new holes, compensating for the tilt, until you get it right. Cover those old holes with a bit more hockey tape and call it a design element, not a mistake!
Hang your mic on the boom and you're ready to record!

See?!?! Easy one-day project! And by positioning the "booth" to exclue those annoying extraneous sounds in your home studio, you can achieve some very clean, dry vocal tracks that you can spice up later when you're mixing!

Total cost on this project for me? $25CAD!!!! That's right - I had acoustic foam and speaker fabric lying around, and if you're making one of these, you already own a mic stand! I had to buy the wood and the mic flanges, period. Retail price fo the RealTraps booth? $299USD!!!! Now that's a DIY Savings!

Enjoy your vocal booth and your extra cash!

Cheers!

--  Charles Lemon info@charleslemon.com 519-573-9540

Nearly There!

2009-09-28T17:20:00.003-04:00

Well, it's taken a lot longer than I had initially hoped, but we're now making major progress towards having the studio build finished!

The drywall is up, walls and ceilings are painted and we're waiting on the flooring order to come in. I'm positively itching to set up the desk, but can't because of the lack of floor..... . Soon!

Here are a few updated pics to show you where it's all headed. I'm still looking for just the right light fixture to hang over the desk, but I've got the wall lights up. With the red end wall, the overall effect is rather dramatic! You'll have to envision with me the eventual sound treatments - picture floor-to-ceiling bass traps up the far corners, a central panel or two, first-reflection panels on the side walls flanking the desk, and an array of cloud absorbers floating over the mix position (you can't really se the bulkheads in this shot, but the cloud will fill the gap between them, over the desk).

The near end of the room I hope to leave relatively "live", with just a bit of absorption/diffusion panels mounted on the doors facing the desk. These should deal with the direct reflection of sound from the monitors bouncing off the doors when I'm working.

I'm hopeful that the flooring will be in by the Thanksgiving weekend in 2 weeks (the CANADIAN Thanksgiving, not that other one......) ;)

Then it;s on to building the bass traps and other panels, and getting back to work!

Cheers for now!

A WWW.CHARLESLEMON.COM ANNOUNCEMENT - Music now available for instant download!

2009-08-15T10:30:00.005-04:00

Hi everyone! This is a bit off topic for the studio build, but I thought all of the fans and other indie musicians out there in cyberland may appreciate this!

I'm very excited to announce that all of my music is now available for purchase and download at www.paywhatyouwantonline.com, a Canadian site (based right here in Kitchener, ON) catering to Canadian independent artists.
This is also a music download site with a difference - YOU set the price! Where other sites dictate the value of song or album download, at paywhatyouwantonline.com, you decide what a download is worth to you! So take a look, get the songs you want and support independent Canadian music while you do it!

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE SITE!

Charles

Ready for Drywall

2009-07-15T13:22:00.004-04:00

Hi folks. Sorry for the lag in posts here - been busy working on the rest of the basement reno, particularly the wet bar rough-in (beer and creativity go together, right?) and wiring for the multitude of recessed lights a basement without windows seems to require! I'll get pics up as soon as I can, but thought I'd at least bring the project up to date now.

Since the last post, I've finished off the bulkhead around HVAC and other impediments, installed ROXUL sound barrier insulation in EVERY interior wall/ceiling and bulkhead space, and installed doors on both the closet/machine room and main studio. As the ventilation and wiring were accomplished before this, we're ready to drywall! This is the one portion of the project I am happy to hire out to others - while I'm not bad at hanging wallboard, I found out long ago that my mudding and taping skills are just not on par with the pros! I'll also be glad to be able to hang the tools up for a few days and let someone else muck about down here for a while, now that you mention it!

With the light glimmering at the end of the renovation tunnel, I can also turn my attention to room finishes and acoustic treatments, which I have to admit is a lot more fun that debating the dubious merits of 1-5/8" drywall screws over their 1-1/2" brethren.....

My plan is to focus much of the acoustic treatment at the "control room" end of the studio space, with bass traps in the front corners, a central absorber/diffuser panel on the end wall and an array of broadband absorbers flown over the control desk/sweet spot. The flown panels will also help take the many angles created by not one but two overhead bulkheads out of play, as they will extend from the front lower corner of the large bulkhead to the lower rear corner of the smaller one.....

I will build most of the broadband/bass absorbers for the room myself, and perhaps look at purchasing a commercial piece for the front wall panel (behind the desk, in front of the producer's chair). This is mainly for the looks, as a DIY absorber would likely work just as well here as it does everywhere else in the room. I'm going to go with the ubiquitous rock-wool-panel-in-a wood-frame-covered-with-burlap absorber design a la John Risch. (A quick Google will turn up a number of useful hits for you folks who would like to follow along.)

With the majority of the acoustic treatment at the desk end of the room, I should end up with a "dead end" here and a "live end" at the opposite end of the room where acoustic guitar and vocals will hopefully sounds more open and natural. These are my main live recording targets, as that's what I play, with most of the other instruments in any given arrangement showing up courtesy of MIDI tracks through Reason and Cubase. Saves a lot of square footage as well - who knew you could fit an entire orchestra in a PC case!

OK, I think that's it for now. I'll try to get updated pics posted soon unless the drywallers show up before I find the darned camera. That thing is around here somewhere...........

Bulkheads Away!

2009-05-26T15:04:00.006-04:00

Progress on the studio build has continued, despite having to wait for an infusion from the Cash Fairy!

The Roxul Safe & Sound noise absorption

insulation has gone into most of the ceiling and interior walls of the room, and I've just finished framing the bulkheads around all the !@#$@$! HVAC. The pics here show the extent of the work - a 5-1/2 foot x 8-1/2 foot box across the entire room to hide the forced-air ducts! I've left at least 2 inches all around the ducting to allow for sound

insulation to be fitted into the framework before the drywall goes up, I'll also fill as much of the open space inside the bulkheads as I can in the process.

There is a second, much smaller bulkhead across

the front end of the room to enclose a DWV pipe and hide a bit of HVAC ducting where it wraps around the bottom of a joist before running upstairs. There is just over 4 feet of space between the smaller and larger bulkheads. My workstation desk will sit more or less under this higher space, but in the end the height difference won't be that noticeable as I plan to fly 3-4 broadband absorbers over the desk area.

Next steps are: complete the sound insulation; install doors on closet & main room; drywall!

A bit more progress

2009-05-10T19:54:00.005-04:00

Not a lot of dramatic visual progress to report here, but I thought I'd give you a look at the rough-in for the home theatre audio rack and other gear destined for the closet in my home studio space aka the machine room!

If you've had a look at the sketch of the floor plan posted earlier, you'll know that the closet door is to the right in this pic, about 16" from the upright stud on the right side of the pic. This shot was taken from what will be the home theatre space outside the studio doors.

The rough-in is quite simple, with vertical studs spaced 20.5" apart and a horizontal member at the bottom of the opening leaving a roughly 39" tall hole in the wall. Once this opening is finished with 3/4" casing, the opening will be the standard 19" rack width we all know and love. The home theatre AV gear will be mounted in the rack, accessible from the HT space. Power for the rack comes from the device box at the left bottom of the rack in the pic. The larger box at top right is a 4-gang box which will house the cable terminations for surround speakers, subwoofer, video cables, etc.

The pic on the right shows a closeup view of the satellite cable feed and phone line I installed in the back of the rack area - gotta get those pay-per-view movies! It's also a good idea to over-build a bit here when planning your wiring connections. It's possible that I may end up moving the wireless home network into this little machine room in the future, so good to get any possible wiring done at this stage in the game before drywall gets hung!

Back on the studio wiring front, I have elected to use surface-mounted cable runs to manage the cable runs from my DAW computer to the studio desk, rather than install in-wall connections. This is partly to make it easier to upgrade my studio components (I have a habit of acquiring new gear!), and partly to keep the costs down a bit - those special-purpose wall plates get pricey!

The Plan

2009-04-26T12:50:00.000-04:00

I probably should have started with this post, but there you have it! Here's a more or less to scale drawing of the new home studio room. Final dimensions will be close to 8.5ft x 14ft x 7.5ft (minus about 9 inches in the bulkhead area). Not a huge space, but sufficient for my needs, and more importantly MINE and not shared with a kids playroom or storage cupboard!

As you can see, the proximity of the furnace is of primary concern as far as noise control goes - I definitely don't need to record that for posterity! The dashed lines across the room indicate the projected final dimensions of the HVAC bulkhead that will enclose and (hopefully) silence the ductwork overhead.

The small boxes on the walls indicate outlets while the half circles show where wall sconces will be mounted -5 in all, plus the track light fixture over the desk area (marked by the circle in the middle of the room about 1/3 from the top end.

One last thing to note is the closet area on the bottom left of the room. The original wall stopped at the corner of the furnace room and jogged 16" left to meet the back of the staircase. I've framed this nook out for a standard 32x80 door, which creates a deep open space under the stairs and a 16" deep upper area in the closet from the stair landing to the ceiling. My plan at the moment is to install shelving on the top half and leave the bottom open to below the stairs where the audio/video rack for the home theatre in the next room will be located. The upper closet area may also become an equipment room for noisy studio gear like my monitor amp, computer tower etc.

As I've already noted last time, I plan to reuse a pair of french doors on the studio - not acoustically ideal for a recording space due to the reflectivity of the glass and the fact that they won't seal airtight to keep sound in. To work around this, I plan to build several mobile go-betweens roughly 3 ft x 6ft and treated with absorptive material on both sides. These will be positioned in front of the doors when recording, mixing, etc and can also be used to form a temporary vocal booth whe needed by making a simple L-shape in a corner. Simple, cheap and flexible!

We are Go for Demolition!

2009-04-23T17:26:00.000-04:00

Well it's finally happened! Our 30-year-old basement family room has reached the end of its useful life, so I've finally been given the green light by my Ever-Loving Wife to trash it and start from scratch (thanks, moldy drywall!). Part of the renovation will be the creation of a new Home Studio space that will finally get me out of the 7x9 room/closet I've been using for the last couple of years -yay! The new space, while not huge by any standard at approximately 8.5' x 14' x 7.5' high, is a marked step up the studio food chain, and will give me enough space to set up my DAW, studio monitors, keyboard, equipment racks and other isntruments in some semblance of order and leave enough room for me and a few buddies to jam, write and record a few tunes.

Unfortunately I don't have a good "Before" shot to post at the moment, as I got down and dirty with the demolition before my ELV changed her mind! We eventually hauled out 1.67 metric tonnes of old drywall, 2x4s and other junk from the basement - I think I'm still sore! Anyway, it's all gone now! I'll try to dig out an old shot that shows what used to be there.....

In the meantime, here's a pic of the room as it stands now.

A fair bit of work has already happened - new

wiring for lights and outlets (separate circuits to keep light dimmer hash away from my audio rack) have been pulled from the breaker panel, and light/outlet boxes have been located. The single bulb in the pic shows where the track lights will go over my desk/DAW. The boxes on the walls indicate where wall sconces will provide the rest of the light for the room.

The new end wall is framed in, as is the closet, and I've rerouted both the cold air return and the HVAC supply vent for the room (more on those later). I have also started installing the ROXUL Safe N Sound noise barrier insulation on the left wall (backs onto the furnace room). Eventally the sound barrier insulation will extend to the entire left wall, HVAC bulkhead in the ceiling, closet and ceiling to keep as much of my moise in my room as I can manage on a "home studio" budget.

The walls with pink fibreglass insulation are exterior walls, so they'll just get vapour barrier and drywall to finish them off. The pair of french doors you see in the pic will eventually separate the studio from the home theatre and the rest of the basment. Not ideal for sound isolation, but I already own them. I'm really only worried about sound isolation between the studio and the furnace room on the basement level and between the studio and the dining room above, as I am fortunate enough to be able to record during the day when the house is quiet. Also, the studio won't be in use when the home theatre is active, so I'll save a few bucks in the build by reusing the doors I have.

The HVAC ducting , shown here, runs straight across the room's ceiling (argh!), about 1/3 of the way down the room. Not much I can do with it except build a bulkhead around it, pack the bulkhead with insulation to isolate the noise, and drywall it in. If budget permits, I'm hoping to wrap the bulkhead with mass loaded vinyl (MLV) to further decrease sound infiltration from the forced air system. You can already see some of the sound barrier insulation in the wall. A cold air return used to be located in this wall as well, but I was able to reroute the return into another wall in the basement. This really cuts down on the furnace fan noise getting into the studio space (the furnace is literally 3 feet away on the other side of the wall!).

I also rerouted the heat/AC duct for the room, as seen in this pic. Starting from the main heat plenum to the right in the pic, there are 20 feet of flexible ducting zigzagged through the joist space here. That may seem like a lot to run a ceiling vent 5 feet away, but all those twists and turns act as sound diffusers along the way. End result - a quiet vent, and a big reduction in the amount of sound escaping the studio through the HVAC as well.

Next steps are to complete the sound insulation and get some vapour barrier up on the exterior walls so I can get drywall hung! Stay tuned!