Voiceover Booth Finally Completed!!!

After four weeks of stepping over wood and insulation, my in-home voiceover booth is finally finished. Despite researching it for a year it was still a learning experience.

Update: Check out this blog post for a list of “lesson’s learned” before attempting your own voiceover booth construction project.

Recording translations and audiobooks involves long solitary hours in a small space, so I put a lot of thought into making the environment as comfortable as possible. I incorporated as many warm and natural textures as possible. Inside, wood surfaces and coffee bean burlap bags make the booth warm and inviting.

Headphone hooks and custom desks for inside the booth and the editing station were created by Andrea Armenti of Atelier Armenti. I was able to hand pick gorgeous pieces of wood for each item. I appreciate Andrea’s patience as the booth desk design evolved to accommodate equipment realities.

In-home Audio Booth

Space is at a premium in our city apartment(location, location, location) so the booth had to be incorporated into our bedroom. The booth extends out of what was a large closet. Faux suede and cowhide exterior blend well with the wood trim and brick wall.

Recording Space

The 4’ wide, 7’ deep, 6.5’ tall booth features a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and a Blue Spark microphone - particularly suited for female voices like mine. A 23 inch monitor mirrors the display from my iMac editing station that sits outside the booth.

Salon Chair Turned Booth Lounge

Talk about timing, just as I was contemplating chair options, I found this beauty on the side of the road on trash day. What some call ‘dumpster diving’ I like to call recycling/upcycling! This salon chair just needed a little TLC to become the most comfortable booth chair yet. It did have the faintest smell of 10 years of hairspray(barf), so I stripped it down to the wood, put on some new foam and covered it in a beautiful chocolate leather-look upholstry. 400 staples later and voila !

Edit Station Desk

The edit station desk features a teal epoxy river flowing through the live edge of maple. The light captures the glitter in the epoxy. Filling the edge only half way gives the impression of a river passing through canyons.

Script Clipboard

Andrea Armenti gave attention to even the small details such as grooves for my pencil and clipboard.

Beautiful Rustic Headphone Hooks

For the headphone hooks, Andrea epoxied railroad nails into box elder burl with a beautiful red grain.

Diffusion Panels and Base Traps

The DYI diffusion panels and base traps are created using Roxul insulation, furniture batting and upcycled coffee bean burlap bags. I took several trips to a few local roasters to get a variety of bags. The bags retain a natural smell, despite not smelling as much like freshly roasted beans as I had anticipated. March Update: The bags never stopped shedding fibers and dust. I would often bump or brush past them in the tight space of my booth. I didn’t want to breath these particles into my lungs so I removed them. As mentioned before see my Voiceover Booth Upgrade blog post to see my awesome new solution. It’s even more effective and cost effective. I kept a few of these diffusion panels for my studio. They won’t get bumped there.