Fishbowl/Aquariums

[Vinny]

So my question is- How effective would one be for drum recording? Because my current situation does not allow me to track real acoustic drums due to volume and the fact I don't have a drum room (despite all my threads about drum mics, haha!), so I am contemplating on building a booth like this for recording drums. The ceilings in the room I am in are about 9 feet. I know several places sell them, but they are very expensive and are mainly for live/practice use, but I want mine to be optimized for recording (obviously). Does anybody who has built one have any plans/instructions they used? And it HAS to be collapsible and able to be transported through a standard size door.

Thanks for any input!

 

[Vinny]

I guess something like this, but a bit more live... http://www.vocalbooth.com/applications/music/drum-isolation.html

 

[~BURNY~]

I don't know how effective they are but I wouldn't want to track drums in one of those because such a small space can only be detrimental to the recorded sound. Comb filter fest at worst and dead tiny sound at best.

 

[Vinny]

I can go bigger than the ones in the examples

 

[C-Martin]

My take on this is you will spend allot of money and time on something that will disappoint you later. Those things are not worth it. For serious drum tracking just rent a room, you need a pretty big room to get drums sounding good and huge. For anything else just stick with samples. That's why they exist, for people with less than ideal drum tracking setups.

If you already have a decent sized room then just build superchuncks and panels and some diffusers to treat the room. If you want it sound proof because of neighbors then be prepared to spend allot of money and collapsible is just asking for much IMO.

 

[Vinny]

Yea I see your point.
I'm doing a small sketch up of the room right now so you can really see what I'm working with.
It has to be transportable because I can't leave it up all the time.
I mean, its a fairly large room, 45x22ft. But there's a catch to it... Haha give me a sec

 

[Vinny]

Ok, here's a rough sketch up I did. First one is a front/back view, second one is an aerial view.
The faded lines in the first one are to show you the angles,
The faded lines in the second one are to show you where the ceiling is.
And the circles in the second one are fans, which are 4ft in diameter.
And the black space at the bottom of the second picture is because there is a pool table there which is unmovable and takes up roughly 13ft (even though it's a 4x8ft table, Haha! So the actual dimensions are 41x22 for the left side, and 45x22 on the right side, but excluding the space for the pool table, it is 28x22 and 32x22, respectively.
I should also add that it is just a furnished attic above the garage, that was raised up 4ft to make a game room/man cave. And I can't change modify the actual house, since it's my parents' haha. The walls are textured sheetrock.

 

[egan.]

Hey Vinny,
I use these all of the time in live pit musician situations. The are very good at keeping high end bleed out of nearby mics and blasting the front row but the overall sound reduction isn't near enough to make the difference between a yes/no volume levels for tracking. You could build a bunch of baffles for half the cost that would be far more effective. A lot of what you pay for with the clearsonics stuff is that it's small, surprisingly durable and portable. It sounds like baffles on wheels would work for you. You could also buy a bunch of these for less than the CS stuff.

 

[Vinny]

Ok I actually updated the pic just now right after you posted that comment.
And yea, I wasn't talking about actually getting one of those from CS, I was just contemplating on building one.
But the more I think about it, the more I think I want it to be an actual booth/temporary room since I have a decent amount of space.
Thank you for the response!

 

[jipchen]

Soundproofing, even a notable amount of volume reduction, is very complicated and not cheap at all. Building it portable seems impossible to me. A lot in soundproofing is about layers (3 in most cases) and mass. And you've got to treat bottom,walls and ceiling with the same effectivity or it will be useless. 90% of the home-made booths you see are a total fail from the beginning, only causing worse acoustics and not actually reducing noise at all (besides some high frequencies).

I've seen a lot of threads and people trying to build a booth (be it for vocals, drums or guitar recording), not really considering the tips they got, and then starting to build .. something without even knowing what the heck they're doing. And then complaining it wouldn't work.
If you are serious about this, go on JohnLSayers forum and read through a few threads on this topic. Then you can create a thread asking for help because there are a lot of competent people (acousticians, studio designers etc). The best thing you could do is to hire a studio designer - who will perhaps tell you it's not gonna work - because you will save A LOT of money in doing so, and the thing you create will most probably actually work.

 

[Vinny]

Thanks for the input guys.
Here's something I sketched up really quick so ya can see what I'm working with.
Again, it's basically just a furnished attic above the garage used as a game room/etc. Drywall on the walls/ceiling and carpet on the floors.
Haha it doesn't have to be completely soundproof, just enough to where I can monitor through my speakers halfway clearly,
And able to be put up/taken down in about an hour or so.
Again, it's 41x22 on the left side, and 45x22 on the right side.
And the black lines are to show where the ceilings are (obviously). 9ft at the top.