Constructing My Voice Over Booth

photo by Brian Hart 2010
Ah, the weekend. Time to practice my sheetrocking skills. This morning I’m sanding the first skimcoat of joint compound and applying the second coat in my new voice over booth. Ultimately there will be three coats of joint compound before I’m ready to prime and paint.
The basic application of joint compound is the same in a studio as it is in a home and there’s plenty of information available on the web for you to read. But there are some other considerations you need to keep in mind for a studio project. Whether you’re working on a studio or a sound booth it’s important to make it as airtight as possible (air proof is more sound proof if you will). Without giving away my whole process I will tell you I’ve been through a case of Green Glue in the small VO booth. It goes in between two layers of 5/8″ sheetrock. In addition I’ve gone through a LOT of a quality silicone caulking making sure all the joints are nice and sealed up. Foam backer is your friend here. It saves a lot of caulk and therefore saves a bit of money.
One day I might write a series on booth construction but what I know is limited compared to some of the acoustic geniuses that have been nice enough to lend their expertise to my studio builds over the years.
If you’d like to read more about home studio construction I highly recommend Home Recording Studio: Build It Like the Pros, by Rod Gervais. It’s full of valuable information and Rod makes it easy to understand the concepts. I’ve been lucky enough that he’s offered advice on a couple of my projects now.
For more information online I recommend reading all available information at the following websites. All three have forums you can join and talk to both home recording enthusiasts as well as experts in the field.
www.johnlsayers.com
www.recording.org
www.homerecording.com
If you’ve found this information helpful please leave a comment and let me know. For that matter if you have another great resource you’d like to share I’m always looking for more information.
Tags: booth, construction, joint compound, mudding, sheetrock, studio, vocal, Voice Over, voiceover
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 10:05 am and is filed under General, Voice Over. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
