Hello there you guys, what’s up!
I need to sing a lot lately cos of a project in course. I’ve noticed that I was singing in a fairly strange way when I came to sing high pitch notes. I didn’t realise that it was me being self-conscious about neighbours, till a couple of days ago, it came as a surprise to discover it. The walls are unfortunately not very thick between flats. New constructions seem to be cheaper even if you pay the same rent to live in... Well... that said, I can’t sing freely that way, that’s impossible because I cannot feel freely! I need to lower the decibels I produce singing, as I tend to sing with an open voice, (high volume).
In the case there are some of you having better acoustic isolation ideas than myself under the conditions I’m talking about, I’m going to post what I’m planning to do here for you to read. If you know about any material that can be cheap or even free to do it, please, let me know.
I guess that could easily become a useful thread to many of you under the same circumstances.
What is it the micro-room for exactly?
I want to build a super small recording room to be used at home, within the room where my studio lies, most of all, to sing freely without upsetting anybody around, particularly, the neighbours. It never happened yet, but I don’t want to give the chances either...
In the other side, it will end the problem of noises coming from the computers noisy elements and also passing cars, loud conversations, children playing in the garden, and any other external sound not belonging to the recording I’m doing.
Do I have any restrictions in the way of doing it?
Yes, two of them: the first one is “money” and the second one “space”. The second one, is a problem to most people in big cities I guess. The first one, is a problem to people in small countries, and this is not a guess, I know... I want to spend as little money and space as possible. Usability is the first thing for me and not the looking of the box. I’m going to decorate it later, now what it counts is to get the work done.
Feel free to advice or contradict me in any way please. Here it is my full construction idea:
Using cheap laminated wood, the one used much in building constructions and low level furniture and shelves, like this one:
First, I will build four “double” filled up walls of 2mts5ctm x 1m. One of them, of course, will also be the door, which will have a small transparent area, made up with a double glass, so you can see the guy inside. In the roof of the micro-room, there will be two small lights for you to read if needed, and also a fan to pull some air out now and then.
Each wall will be filled up with fluffed up second hand cloth, (after a wash of course he), to damp as much as possible the arriving and outgoing sounds. I imagine that fluffed up cloth could be very effective indeed.
The thickness of every wall will be of 10ctm. That is, every laminated piece of wood is about 1ctm, so there will be 8ctm of cloth well packet in between the two laminated pieces, pushing them with a piece of wood to the very bottom of the wall, till it is absolutely full, and then closing its top with a piece of wood as well, used as its external structure.
I guess you are getting the picture: first, I have two laminated pieces of wood, then I join them together with three pieces of wood which will be at both sides and at the bottom, I fill up the space created in between with cloth, and then close the top with another piece of wood similar to the one there is at the bottom of the wall. Then I repeat the process for the other walls, except for one of them, which will be the door as well, the one with the window, which will be a little different.
I will do exactly the same with the roof and the floor of the micro-room, except that the floor will have many more pieces of wood in between, to walk on top of it without braking.
After I have all these matching pieces, I will screw them all together, forming the room, and then will add four tight hinges to the left of the door, a two simple hook to tightly close the door, one up and one down, and finally a small handle both sides.
When this first part is finished, with the door closed, I will build some extra absorbing surfaces onto the up side front of the door, where my voice is going to bound most, putting some wood daces in between, screwing three pieces of soft material. It could be a carton-like type, I don’t know yet, but something very soft and absorbing.
Then I will cover the room and walls with pieces of carpet, for extra absorbance, putting several of them in the floor to condense the floor a bit more, which I believe is important as well.
Well, I think this is all; I perhaps am forgetting something, not sure. But basically, this is the micro-recording-room I’m planning to build. It will comfortably be within the same room I work, this will also end the never ending going and coming from another room, which sometimes is quite enjoying if you need so sing a lot.
That’s it, Cheers to you all!
