Building your own vocal booth is not all that difficult! Always remember that the room you are recording vocals in is THE most important thing. Consider this; if you have a Neumann U87 plugged into an Avalon 737 mic pre (about a 5k vocal chain) it’s going to sound terrible if you try to track vocals in a kitchen, bathroom or an empty room with parallel walls. In fact, a higher quality mic will bring out the sound of the room more! This is why it’s so crucial to dedicate a space for tracking vocals.
Your vocal booth does not need to be a dedicated room. Nor do you have to know how to turn a closet into a vocal booth. Although having a dedicated vocal booth is nice, your vocal booth could be just a corner in your room! Here are a few things to consider..
•Ambient Noise: air conditioning, traffic, people, stairs, water (in the walls)
•Renting or owning? You may want to consider less permanent vocal booth options if you are renting
Although you may not want to completely stop all reflections in the space, it’s ideal to at least control the reflections. What I typically do is cover most surfaces with absorbent material.
Since I also want to soundproof my vocal booth, the first thing I did was to cover the walls with soundproof underlayment.
Ive also found that packing blankets work extremely well for both soundproofing and absorbing sound.
Lastly, for both aesthetics and absorption, I used soundproofing foam to cover the walls.
Leaving the hardwood floor exposed to still get some natural reflections in the booth.