DIY isobooth

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Building the floor

The floor design comes straight out of Rob Gervais' book (for cheap alternatives that don't involve floating a concrete floor). I went with OSB again, (two sheets with Big Stretch glue between) over a layer of Safe-n-Sound Rockwool. For the topping, I put down a layer of laminate flooring. The finished floor It did seem to help with the overall deadness of the space which prior-to had just been carpet floor.

Building the ceiling.

The basic idea for the ceiling was simple. Two interlocking tongue-in-groove slabs of Oriented Strong Board (OSB) with abutting sections of PSA-backed soundproofing composite attached to the underside. However, the PSA was a pain to work with, sticking to everything but the OSB (now the sheepish owner of a pair of inconveniently ass-less jeans). PSA is messy to work with. The finished ceiling.

Building the front

The front was fairly challenging, in that to keep things semi-airtight, my usual slapdash construction wouldn't do. But what the hell, it had gotten me this far. The main pickle was the fact that I needed a solid core door, and I couldn't find one less than 80” high and all the space I had to play with was 76". However, I did find one that could have two inches trimmed from there top, and two from the bottom without damaging the core. This was cutting it close, but I figured I could make up the difference, by cutting out a door-shaped hole in the bottom of the frame. As it was thoroughly summer by this time, I wasn't worried about disturbing any groundhogs, their shadow should've been vanquished by now. I opted for a variation of the superdoor design mentioned in Rod's book , but using a soundproofing composite instead of the lead sheet since this is mostly for vocals/acoustic guitar, and shouldn't have that many low frequencies to worry about. ...

Making the sides

As previously mentioned, the general idea called for a 2x6 base with 2x4 studs, creating a 3 1/2 the inch separating air gap between the 3/8 sheetrock and the Safe 'n Sound. The frames of two sides bolted together. However, there were a couple problems with this exquizitely detailed plan. One, as it turns out, much like everything else with construction, the only sizes the Safe 'n Sound pieces came in weren't either the broad definition of 16" or the translated measurement of 15 1/4". I'm I think they were under 15" (on average) because three pieces side-by-side couldn't span the 45 3/4" frame. I also meant the isolating batt kept falling between the supports which at 15 1/4 apart (on center) were exactly the wrong spacing to keep them in place. No matter, I decided to shorten the sides by the width of a stud, and replace the cedar shims with a few stylishly placed pieces of carpet. Carefully placed strips of leftover carpet keep ...

Making the bass-trap back

Copying from the Sound on Sound article (https ://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/studio-sos-building-diy-vocal-booth ), I decided to make the back of the booth a bass-trap. Basically, a 2x8 box, four feet wide and 76 inches high (inside). Back to front Standard fire-code 3/8 sheetrock Safe 'n Sound between the vertical supports Hung carpet Hung mass-loaded vinyl Hung carpet Acoustic fabric front This back would be anchored by 4x4 posts that would bolt to the booth walls. Namely because I'd already bought them (while possibly intoxicated), I decided to use tee nuts into the posts and have the side bolts anchor into them. Base layer of carpet anchored by a 2x2. Mass-loaded vinyl (folded back to show the 2x2) is attached to the top of the 2x2 for extra support Plan A was to use a 2x1 to attach the carpet, etc too. However, once wielding the mass-loaded vinyl, I decided there was no way it would be strong enough and swapped i...

Location, design, location

Working within the bounds of the fire code meant that the iso booth couldn't be placed anywhere that obstructs egress. This is not just a formality but also important, given the severity of the consequences driven home by the deadly "Ghost Ship" fire in San Francisco where fire inspectors described the makeshift homes inside the warehouse as an accident waiting to happen. Luckily, I have one such nook in the back room although it's a bit smaller than I would like. But since I was aiming for a modular design, has the advantage of having sound isolation batt above the ceiling tiles. A small, 7 X 5-1/2 nook not blocking egress seems an okay location for the booth. The small size means that while free-standing, the structure would gain stability from the snug confines of the building walls. Not touching, but enough to prevent the walls bowing outward enough to allow the ceiling perched on top fall in. The plan was to build four 3-3/4 feet wide sections which...