Hey guys, I am finally stepping up and buying my first house. It has a very large finished basement that I definitely plan to record in. I'm very worried about noise leaking to the neighbors and not to mention leaking upstairs. So I have started looking at those temporary isolation booths to use. I don't mind recording instrument by instrument, so as long as it would be big enough to fit a drumset in there. There is a very small closet in the basement that I plan on treating and using for vocals so it would not be needed for that use. Basically when I crank up a guitar or bang on drums would I really need to use this thing. So does anyone own one? Comments, good or bad?
Temporary Isolation Booth
- Thread starter booyah14
- Start date
metalkingdom
the kinder, gentler me
- Jan 1, 2005
- 1,634
- 2
- 38
booyah14 said:
The iso booths don't do much in the way of 'soundproofing'. They are also very hot inside, even with the ventilation/air hooked up to it. I personally feel like they are a waste of money. My recommendation - record drums during the day when most of your neighbors aren't home.
True, the temp iso booths are very uncomfortable to work in. You are better off actually building something yourself. The materials aren't *that* pricey, you'd probably be surprised. Besides, you can have an A/C vent in there to cool off whoever is in the space, and make it a much more comfortable environment. What are the dimensions of your basement? You could split the room up with walls, something like...a room with your equipment (DAW, monitors, rackmount gear, etc.) in the corner...this would be one idea, but not too great for mixing unless you treated the space acoustically which would cost some $$$ in order to get it ok for mixing in. Or, you could make a room big enough for a drumset, and a smaller room for guitar cabs. That way you can record drums, guitars, and bass (via direct) at the same time and lay down the vocals afterwards using the drum room. Leaving the rest of the space for your DAW. Isolated from the instruments so that you can track using monitors instead of headphones. If you wanted, you could get some shields, they are made of plexiglass, or you can even find them on sweetware made of wood and have acoustic treatments on them already, and that would isolate somewhat from drums, vocals, guitar cabs, etc. You could do that, using headphones to track, and then once everyone's done, you could use the monitors to mix, etc. There are a lot of options, if you have the dimensions of the basement, post them up, we can help you split it up.
~006
~006
Thanks for the responses already guys. I will hopefully be closing on it this weekend so I will definitely post up the actual dimesions and maybe try to throw a couple of pics as well. Half of the basement is completely underground so I'm thinking that if I can find a way to just not let the music get too loud upstairs I'll be good. I don't think the neighbors will mind if we're full throttle since the ground will help.
The noise issue shouldn't really be that big of a deal, being a basement and all. I mean, you have the GROUND as a noise suppressant for christ's sake, lol. I would block up any windows, like at the ceiling and whatnot, with some insulation and wood. This is probably going to be the only spot where any leakage will come from to your neighbors. As far as upstairs, I'm not too sure, You could always treat the ceiling of the basement with acoustic foam, etc. to help dampen it a lot.
~006
~006
Nebulous
Daniel
Since you only really need to worry about the sound leaking from the ceiling, why not just spend some money on a decent "hanging ceiling". That way you can have the isolation, and you can make it as dead or reflective as you like.
Ahh yes I've been checking out John Sayers board a lot. Just haven't made my mind whether it would hurt too much if I do build in the basement. As for the hanging ceiling, I don't think I could pull off due to the ceiling being fairly low. I'll be going by there tomm, I'll have to check it out more.
