DIY Voiceover Booth Construction: Overview
Find out how I built a low-cost high-quality professional quality voiceover recording booth for my home audio studio using materials available at your local hardware store. Audiobook narrators and voiceover artists with a do-it-yourself leaning - this post is for you!
I set out to build a professional quality audio booth for voiceovers. Before I charged my drill battery, I spent two years researching everything from the science behind audio waves, to room treatments such as diffusion panels and base traps. While this is a how to series of sorts, I am not responsible for any injury, destruction, or loss of any kind including monetary that you may incur while attempting anything inspired by what you see here. By continuing to read this vlog and watch the associated videos you assume all responsibilities for your decisions and actions. I can say that we avoided serious injury despite clumsiness and extremely heavy construction materials. I am not an audio engineer, nor a carpenter. I’m a voiceover artist in pursuit of a quiet place to record audiobooks, content marketing video voice overs, and voice tracks for radio and television advertisements. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes, and make an even better booth. If you do, let me know about it. When my design is inspired by someone else’s design it will be noted in the description.
Before you start building your audiobooth first determine whether you really need one. Many audiobook narrators are able to find a relatively quiet corner of their home, fairly isolated from outside noise and simply treat the walls and ceiling with diffusion panels and materials. If this is all you need, check out my posts on making low-cost diffusion panels and base traps.
You don’t need a booth if:
You are able to find a relatively quiet corner of your home, fairly isolated from outside noise.
If you don’t need a booth:
Treat the walls and ceiling with diffusion panels and reflection reducing materials and appropriately placed base traps. Read my post about making low-cost diffusion panels and bass traps.
You need a booth if:
Your home isn’t well-insulated and outside noise from neighbors and nearby traffic will regularly disrupt your recording.
If you need a booth:
Read and watch my blog series to see how I tackled this problem. Be sure to check out my “Lesson’s Learned” blog post first and then watch the others to get actual construction insights.
If you already own a microphone, headphones, audio interface and DAW, try recording a few lines at various locations around your home. Take a listen to the recorded audio. Do you hear the neighbor’s dog or television? People walking in the apartment above you? The elevator as it ascends? The traffic on your street? If it’s just the occasional sound- a passing truck or motorcycle - you can always pause your recording and wait for it to pass. If you live near a train and it passes once a day on a schedule, you can just work around it. When the neighbor mows his lawn once a week, you take a break from recording and edit the audio you’ve already recorded. If a nearby train passes often, the interruptions may hinder production significantly. An audio booth may not be sufficient to block out the sound of a train. In this case, you might want to look for another recording location in a quiet neighborhood - grandma’s basement or a small rented office space.
Unfortunately, my apartment building is 100 years old and has almost no insulation to speak of. I can hear my upstairs neighbors walking around, my 87 year old neighbor’s television(she has the volume way up), the street sweepers in summer and the snowplows in winter - from 3 blocks away! It’s official, I need a voiceover booth!
I have always had this reflex in me to look at something and say “I could build that!” Then I look at the price tag and I say “Oh, for sure I can build that for cheaper!” This always sets into motion a series of events where my construction skills are wildly surpassed by my creativity and imagination. Thanks to my handy husband, since getting married my projects have turned out better than those of my single years. Would we be able to pull off an audio booth? I was optimistic!
The challenge I set for myself was to see how cheaply I could make a voiceover booth with professional sound characteristics. After extensive research I made it my goal to spend $1200CAD and I am happy to tell you that You can make one for that…I blew my budget on extras…but you can get a decent booth for that. Since I appreciated the well thought out DIY blogs and videos I found, produced by competent people, I documented my own construction process in hopes that my experience could benefit you. This series of blog posts has behind the scenes videos.
A note on voiceover booth size. Voiceover booths are designed to create a very “dead” sound. The only vocal information you want to record is the voice itself and not how it’s reverberating or interacting with the space. This is different than recording vocals for music. If you want to record signing vocals you’ll want to find a room in a quiet location that is fairly sound isolated from outside noise and treat it. Voiceovers on the other hand can be recorded in a tiny booth that is covered in diffusion since the ‘room characteristics’ can be added in post production at the discretion of the audio engineer. Despite this I didn’t want to work in a claustrophobic closet so I started to research optimal size for a booth. From my research I learned that the sin wave of a woman’s voice is much shorter than that of a man’s. (Male voice: 85 to 180 Hz Female voice: 165 to 255 Hz) This is significant because it means that a small space that wouldn’t work as well for a man’s voice would actually work quite well for a woman’s voice. This information helped me settle on a voiceover booth size that was big enough to create a good sound, but still fit into the bedroom closet of our city apartment. (6.5 feet tall, 7 feet long, 4 feet wide)
Actually 90 degree angle corners are quite bad for sound recording environments, but because of space restrictions I couldn’t get around them. Nasty bass will get tangled up in those corners causing a node. When you design your booth go with more of an oblong hexagon. To deal with my 90 degree corners I made bass trap end walls. More on that later.
The Final Design
After many preliminary sketches and revisions, this was the final design.
Despite all my research, and an extensive shopping list, I didn’t really foresee the incredible mess it would make in our two bedroom apartment. Building it in winter after the first rainy snowfall was ill advised! Aside from the cutting, all the assembling had to be done in our dining room. An incredible mess. Additionally, I didn’t accurately predict how long it would take to build. We got the main construction of the walls and door done in 2 days. Creating the diffusion panels and tube bass traps and installing the furniture and audio equipment took another 6 days spread out over 3 weeks.
Was it successful? Yes! I now have an excellent booth. I had an audio engineer analyze recordings made in it and he confirmed the excellent quality. He voluntarily mentioned the low noise floor and low sibilance. Honestly, I did exceed by budget, but you don’t have to if you learn from my mistakes.
Was it worth it? Well, factoring in the time, hassle and mess the construction made in my apartment - NO! I confess that manufactured voiceover audio booths (or those custom made by a specialist) are worth every dollar. They are very well made, easy to assemble and compared to mine, pretty light weight. (August 2019 update: Trust me, the weight factor will become very important in the event you have to move.) That being said, if you still want to follow me down this absurd path I will explain how I essentially built an over-insulated shed weighing hundreds of pounds in my bedroom.
April 2020 update: Be sure to check out my “Lesson’s Learned” blog post to avoid some of my mistakes.
You might be able to get away with a booth like the one found here(I personally haven’t tried them):
http://goodsoundproofing.com/shop/studio/micro-booth-1-5/
Below you’ll find some videos that I found helpful and some that inspired my booth design. Snoop around youtube for insights on where to place the booth in your space. If you are serious about audio recording, take your time to really learn and understand acoustics. Listen to experienced audio engineers, not wannabee’s hoping to be the next Youtuber. You can actually hire a consultant like Tim Tippets or Dan Lenard. They’ll actually save you lots of time and money.
Here’s a great video to start with:
These videos from SOS Magazine explain how to turn a closet or small room into an audio booth. I highly recommend watching them in their entirety. You’ll gain so many insights that will influence your own DIY audio recording studio or booth.
You’ll find some great information on this webpage:
http://www.vocalboothtogo.ru/voice-over/
Here’s some helpful information on acoustics:
Other inspirations taken from:
https://murrant.ca/vocal-booth-design/