Help with basement closet vocal booth... I-75 traffic noise

[Beneficial]

I posted this over at John Sayer's forum, and I figured I'd give it a shot here too. I've been soaking up knowledge here for a while and I'm finally in a position to post a question. I've recently purchased a home and I'm in the process of setting up a modest basement studio like many people in this community have done before. I would like to convert a closet (dimensions: L 10'6" W 5'10" H 9'4") into a vocal booth. My primary concerns are treating the room to respond as good as possible for use in vocal recording, and eliminating noise that is entering the booth from a near by interstate. I live about one mile from I-75 and two walls of the closet are bordered by concrete and then outside. The long wall bordering the outside is concrete, then studs with insulation between them and no drywall. I think the majority of the sound is coming in through the ceiling which has no insulation on it yet, and is directly below a room with linoleum flooring and a window facing the direction of the interstate. Although the sound of the interstate can be heard from my main large room which has two windows and a sliding glass door. The sound is much more present in this vocal booth with concrete on three sides.


- What steps might I take to eliminate any outside noise pollution from entering the booth (I will start by insulating the ceiling)?

- Based on these dimensions and wall composition, what are some suggestions for taming possible reflections and converting this into a usable vocal booth?

[cwileyriser]

Learn to love it/live with it??

Of course, maybe you really can beat it since you're not talking about a big space. And it depends on what you're recording too, I guess. If you're doing voiceovers, you gotta fix it.

My main problem is chicken trucks, logging trucks and the courthouse clock tower across the street. At first I thought it was going to be bad, but really it hasn't been bad at all. One of the things that got me to quit obsessing about blocking out all outside sound was the Tape Op article from Nov/Dec '02 on Dub Narcotic Studio. Not that I'm a huge K Records or Calvin Johnson fan - I can take or leave most of it - but this quote was cool:

"You gotta walk in right away and know this is not a normal studio, because, first of all, we got rid of concepts like isolation. There's not going to be many recordings that come out of here that don't have seagulls on them, trucks backing up, the guy sawing downstairs or someone making copies."

Sure, it's not for everyone, but sometimes, those things can add be positives rather than negatives. On our new record, we were recording a quiet acoustic guitar intro to a song called "When the Bombs Fall" in the middle of the night, and a few seconds into the take an emergency vehicle went by with siren screaming. It bled into the track a little, but it sounds cool and we kept it. On another song, we had some road noise on a vocal track, but it was cool rhythmically - so cool in fact that we sampled the noise and used it again!

Look at me - I'm Sally Freakin' Sunshine with the whole "make lemonade out of lemons" thing here! But anyway, just wanted to say that if you can't kill the I-75 noise, all isn't lost! Where on I-75 are you?

[Beneficial]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm off of exit 265 in Marietta. I definitely can see how ambient sound like that might work sometimes. Might provide for a unique vibe to a recording. My sound is more of a constant swoosh though... kind of sounds like an airplane is constantly taking off in the distance. I don't know how loud it is in terms of decibals.. it's not THAT loud. I definitely think it's treatable. I've just got to try some different things out. Maybe insulate the ceiling above and cover everything with 4 inch 705. I'd like to not have it be totally dead though if possible. Anyway, any suggestions are appreciate.

[cwileyriser]

Ohhh, yeah, I guess being near I-75 anywhere near Atlanta would suck for constant noise. Unfortunately I don't have a lot to offer, but I'm looking at some options for my space, and if anything interesting or applicable comes up, I'll post it.

[Beneficial]

I can't imagine how it could possibly seem louder in the booth than in the main room unless the sound is resonating because of the concrete or something.