need a little help with my portable vocal booth trap

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versuviusx

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 12, 2004
Messages
227
Location
Wilmington,NC
i'm gonna try to make my own vocal trap booth. but i need a little help.
1. i have this PVC pipe that i'm using that is 1 and 1/4 in diameter. so i need some feet for them. now imaging the PVC is going to be in the air vertically and is going to connect to my Fiberglass sheets. the fiberglass sheets will be attached to eachother in the center by hinges. so the next thing i need are hinges that are going to help me attach the two sheets of fiberglass. then on each side of the fiberglass i will have the PVC pipes connected on the ends. any help would be awesome. if you need me to clear somethings up i will. i can maybe send a drawing.

i need hinges that realtraps has used like this:
http://www.realtraps.com/p_pvb.htm

see instead of using that metal fram to attach to the stand i want to use PVC pipe and not use the mic stand at all. i tried it and the weight of the vocal trap is too heavy for the mic stand. mine tipped over last night. could you imagine that happening in a real recording session.
so i need to find a way to make it more stabalized.
 
How about if you don't hinge the panels together...

I assume you will be making 4ft high, 2 ft wide panels. Mount the fiberglass to 1/8 hardboard with glue and wrap with black "landscaping fabric". Attach thin strips of wood oriented horizontally on the back of the panels. Two or maybe three strips. Now cut two or three vertical slots in a line up the pipe...spaced out to fit the spacing on the panel.

Find some kind of flange to allow you to mount the PVC pipe to a piece of 1/2 inch plywood to use as a base. Mount the PVC uprights to the plywood after you have inserted the panels in the slots. That should be it!

Maybe you need a pic of my crazy idea?? I think I have seen something like this out on the net before.

HTH!
Charlie
 
I'm the last guy to talk someone out of DIYing something like this, but you must be aware that SM Pro Audio and SE make inexpensive versions of what you're trying to make.

Just had to mention it. I thought about building my own as well, but when it came down to it, we went with the SE Reflexion Filter.

Roger
 
I have 4 realtraps and mount 3 of them with velcro onto mic stands and end up with a supersized version of the SE.
 
[quote author="Bryson"][quote author="chingon"]I have 4 realtraps and mount 3 of them with velcro onto mic stands and end up with a supersized version of the SE.[/quote]
That's some heavy duty velcro![/quote]

lol.. I use the thin velcro straps I get at home depot. It's the kind I buy to wrap up all my cables with. I had a few extras around so I gave it a go. Turns out 2 velcro straps was all I needed per panel.
 
how well do you think the space array would work for vocal booths.


http://www.auralex.com/partscience/spacearray.asp

this looks like something simple to make but i wonder if it would be superior to using the 703 or 705 material. does anyone know?
 
the only reason i ask is that i have noticed that when i use something like realtrap portable vocal booth i feel that it kind of sucks the engery out of things. if the space array does not suck the engergy out of the performance but still has good seperation than that would be the ticket.
 
hi versuviusx,
you have to consider that traps are just that...they trap and absorb frequencies that the material is rated for. the space array is for diffusion purposes and at such short distances behind the mic i do not think it would produce the desired 'natural' effect of diffusion, especially if you have very strong sound energy hitting it at close proximity (ie. screaming loud vocals). the space array, i'm sure, does have some absorption properties because of the wood material used, but not much.
if placing the portable vocal booth directly behind the mic, absorbtion of lower resonant frequencies might be good. home depot 'acoustic' insulation material has very limited reflective and more absorptive properties, but pro-sumer types like auralex, etc. will do better. the proper type is really necessary to get the right balance of diffusion and absorption.
there's a lot of research done to produce the commercial versions of what you are trying to achieve that is why they are so expensive. are they worth the cost? only the person who purchases one can answer that. :wink:
difintely try different materials, but in short pure absorption on the opposite side of the singer (for less instrument bleed) and less absorption, more diffusion on the singer side (for more natural sounding vocals).
just my $0.02.

kind regards,
grant
 
hi charlie,
seems like a logical idea you have that would work and be portable.
possibly add padding around the plywood like carpet, cover the entire thing so that you don't get too much creaky and crunchy sounds from the wood
if the singer is to stand on it. for more isolation from the floor you could mount some of that foam rubber floor padding (the kind from the hardware store that looks like a big puzzle) on the bottom of the plywood, but it may be too 'squishy' feeling and possibly unstable. just a thought. maybe just carpet the bottom too.
regards,
grant
 
Another alternate way to use panels like this would be to put hooks in the ceiling so that you could hang these panels only when you are cutting vocal tracks. You could use fishing line or some other string.

Just an idea that popped into my head at the time.
 
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