John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

great, thank you very much!
you're best man.
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Greetings, a lurker here.

I've decided to greenlight building John's design as it seems like it's the best workable booth I've seen that I could get away with building myself, but I'm a bit confused on the materials used for it as in types of wood, insulation, flooring, etc. I've seen it questioned on here before but there was no real reply made on it.

Also, with the ventilation system, the sketchup doesn't really give a description on how that particular part is built. I'm assuming it wouldn't simply be hallow?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Awesome - thanks for putting in the effort for us folk

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Little Rascal Records
'skank'n sounds for bassheads and dubbers...'
www.lrrecords.com.au

I want to build this vocal booth in the corner of a room. The room is a suspended wooden floor with carpet on top. I was planning on using 3 layers of 12.5mm plasterboard (or equivalent thickness with 2 layers). I will be using V-Drums in the same room. Currently the floor is just a single sheet of wood. I would be worried that there was not enough decoupling of the booth from the room floor and i would pick up the bass drum beater in the booth. I would see the floor as the weakest link. How do I uprate/upgrade the floor so that structure bourne noise or flanking from the room doesn't affect it?

put the drums on a platform - 2" (100mm) rigid insulation on the floor, 2x 3/4" (19mm) MDF, 1x 3/4" (19mm) plywood (so you can screw in the drum pedals). trim the edge with 1x4 leaving about 1/2" (12mm) off the floor when loaded. you can also do the same thing (smaller surface size typically) for any amps. this should help significantly. as shown - 2x 6'x3' (1800mm x 900mm) panels per layer creating a 6'x6' (1800x1800mm) riser

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Glenn

Thanks Glenn, makes sense to remove the drums from the equation.

Could I use a similar floor inside the booth aswell to stop sounds coming out?

BTW thanks for the great diagram.

Ian

you can use this approach to make a floor within a booth or room - it's not purely isolation like a concrete floating floor, but certainly does a good job reducing impact transfer and most other direct structural transfer.

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Glenn

This is a great alternative to building an all out 100% isolated professional commercial studio. At least to get started recording privately on a reasonable budget. I like the facts that it's moveable and can be dismantled.

I recently submitted a budget proposal of $150,000 to build the "complete" studio. Alternate plans with budgets of $30,000 and $40,000 (no isolation, mainly gear) include this design, so we have one form of recording in an isolated space.

Thanks John! When the money from advertisers starts to roll in from our podcasts I'm going to make a nice donation!

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-Joel
My studio threads:
Most Recent Thread - Active Design
Design With Isolation - Budget Proposal Denied

Hi Glenn,

I'm trying to conceive a modulable/portable booth and your floor design seems very practical for my situation.

How would you approach integrating this floor in a booth's structure?

putting plates on top to start framing upon it?

Thanks!

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J'apprend, donc je suis.

i would make the walls of the booth decoupled from the floor then put the damped membrane floor inside the booth.

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Glenn

What's your opinion on how this booth would perform for a singer in terms of comb filtering/etc? Obviously having a great room would be preferable, but does a room like this create as many problems as it solves?

Would we run into problems as well with things like guitar amps?

Mike

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I'm in a marching band for adults. This unequivocally makes me a bigger nerd than you.

http://www.kilties.com

Hey guys. I wish I had seen this corner room design before I built my own. I ran into a decent number of problems building it. I must say I did mine on an extreme budget. The frame was built out of salvaged wood that I got for free. I got the old leftover carpet I used for insulation from my parents' basement. I saved all of those newspapers on the outside from my normal newspaper delivery. The only thing I had to buy were the screws and that insulation on top. I literally spent about $25 and it works pretty well. Even when I turn my yamaha receivers up to full blast it is fairly well insulated in there.

Edit: That hole you see in it, there is actually an insulated swinging door that closes.

I'm trying to understand: you isolated your booth with carpet and newspapers? How does that work, acoustically?

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I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

Hi everybody,
It's my first post on this forum.

After i've found this awesome vocal booth designed by Mr Sayers, i'm considering to build one myself, instead of soundproofing an entire room. I have a lot of problems with the noises coming from downstairs and outside.
Of Course i'll follow the design but with bigger dimensions, so that i can shove inside a desk with my small recording gear. (iMac, apogee souncard, Rode mic, two nearfield monitors).
Basically i need to record vocals and some acoustic guitars by myself.

Regards
Luka

When a booth is assembled as a box (room inside a room) like this how do you install the ceiling panels typically?

Are they built first then installed as soon as framing of box is done and then caulked, nailed or bolted to the bare framing prior to further wall build /drywall. etc? Or are these finished panels basically set on top of the finish box and somehow caulked and clamped or bolted?


Thanks for the great design - I think it fits a lot of space and cost budgets for a lot of people.

Post edit: Also - I was wondering about the room or building that a vocal booth like this would be installed into. If the ceilings (or walls for that matter) where a booth like this is to be installed were based on a mass- spring- mass construction and then a booth designed with a independent ceiling similar to this was placed inside the room, would this create a three leaf system? For example - in a basement, wood floor and subfloor above, air space with insulation, drywall ceiling (mass-spring-mass) then the booth with it's independent ceiling panels as the third leaf. My concern here is when the basement ceilings are low and the booth's independent ceiling panels are very close to the building or rooms ceilings (am I over analyzing?). If the booth is going into a bigger room or space constructed using acoustic isolation techniques and that bigger space is not much bigger than the booth itself (on some or all sides) does this become an issue.?