How To Build Your Own Vocal Booth

How To Build Your Own Vocal Booth

Vocal Booth Materials

Filmcraft Studio Sound Blanket: https://amzn.to/40AWdgr
Spring Clamps: https://amzn.to/49scf0d
Wall Hooks: ​https://amzn.to/49vmMHT

Transcript: "hey what's going on guys patrick here back today with a quick little video for you today we are talking vocal boots how to make one on a budget how to make one without a ton of fancy equipment and using a lot of stuff that you probably have lying around the studio or around the house i've used this setup or some version of this setup to record both of the singles that i have out as well as vocals for other artists and other projects setup and tear down is super easy so you can set this up and leave it there or you can set it up before each vocal session super easy and depending on what you already have lying around to use your all-in costs should come in under 100 which is great news do keep in mind this is just how i did it i just want to show you guys what i did and you can do kind of your own version but there are some essential pieces to this build that i definitely recommend first and most importantly are the blankets i picked up two of these industrial grommeted blankets and i'm also using as you'll see in a second here one of my own quilts just that was lying around the house now the grommets are really important because these are what are going to allow you to hang these from the wall but the reason why i chose these particular blankets is because they're super dense super heavy a lot of the reviews were coming from people that were using these blankets for soundproofing or sound dampening and they've worked out great for me i will obviously link these particular ones in the description below now next up you're going to need a way to hang these blankets i'm going to show you all of this in a minute here but you're going to need some hooks you can use a curtain rod and hang it in a doorway but even that might slip down so i just used hooks that i can actually drill into the wall and i found just these little black metal hooks on amazon again linked below they were like 10 bucks for a pack of well a lot of them these have worked great for me so i will link those below i also recommend picking up some of these clamps these are super heavy duty you can get away with only using four of these and i say that because they come in a pack of four i bought two packs just in case i do find myself sometimes wanting to really secure stuff down and i'll use maybe a fifth clamp but you don't need it at all you can get by with four so definitely pick up some of these clamps and then the last thing you're going to need is either a lighting c-stand or a mic stand the mic stand i'm using definitely does the job but it's also not ideal either you want something with a strong base and you want something that's not going to have a whole lot of wobble i definitely recommend trying whatever you've got lying around the studio spare mic stand whatever and then you can assess if you need to upgrade to something a little bit stronger but that's it that's everything that you need so let's get into the build and then we'll do a sound test the first thing you're going to want to do is pick your spot where you're going to set up your vocal booth best case scenario you'll have a closet like this where you can use a door as one of the walls of the vocal booth if you don't have a closet like this i recommend just using a corner of your room and then instead of using a door you can just double up on the mic stand or lighting stand whatever you decide to use now for my particular build i start by draping a quilt over the door this does not need to be one of those grommeted blankets so as you can see i'm just using a spare quilt that i had around my house this will give us our first wall of the vocal booth next you're going to want to take one of your grommeted blankets use the holes to measure out your hook placement and then drill four hooks into the wall next you're going to want to hang the curtain blanket i'll call this so you're basically going to take the four holes that you used to measure the hooks and hang the blanket from your four hooks you can leave the second half of your blanket hanging for right now this portion of the blanket will come into use later on next you wanna take your stand in my case i'm using a mic stand and you wanna line it up with the corner of the open door and the corner of the closet doorway if you are using a stand that's a little bit more lightweight doesn't have a weighted bottom or anything like that you can grab some books or some five to ten pound weighted dumbbells really anything that you have lying around the house that will just secure the base of that stand a little bit more and then you're going to want to extend your stand to reach the height of the door or the doorway that you're using or whatever height that you've set for your vocal booth now for the next step you want to fold your second grommeted blanket in half once you've got your blanket folded in half you're going to hang the blanket from your hooks and then drape the blanket over your door and stand or over your two stands and this drape will create the roof of your vocal booth as well as a third wall now this is where you're going to want to grab those clamps and start securing things in place i like to take one clamp and secure that front wall to the mic stand and then i take two other clamps and secure the top two front corners in place and then when you're ready to record you can take that second portion of the first blanket that we hung up wrap it around and clamp it in place for your fourth wall when i'm not using my vocal booth and i want to have access to my closet i'll just wrap that blanket up and clamp it together kind of making a little curtain but this way i can have easy access to my closet all right so just for demonstration purposes i've got this little shotgun mic here you'll have to forgive me in advance for any of that handling noise sorry but this isn't some fancy condenser mic just a pretty inexpensive shotgun mic so you can probably as i get further away from the mic you can start to hear a lot of that room noise again i don't have a ton of acoustic treatment in here i've got some but certainly nothing that makes it any sort of proper recording environment for recording live mics so you can hear there's just like a lot of gross room noise but if i take a couple steps and enter the vocal booth it should already sound a whole lot better and i don't even have this last little curtain closed if you will if i angle myself this way you should already hear now that my voice is projecting into these blankets that helps deaden the sound it helps deaden those room reflections let me just grab this curtain here you won't be able to see me but you'll be able to hear me boom totally isolated and that's really all you need i mean you could do vocals in here you could do voice over work anything where you need a super clean vocal sound this just helps you start with a cleaner source vocal recording that's just going to make your life easier in post when you're editing it's going to make your life easier when you're eq'ing trying to get that vocal that sounds just right for your mix and you can already hear out here we're back into the room we've got all that room noise we've got a less than desirable sounding vocal this costs less than 100 bucks to set up can't recommend it enough but let's take a quick listen to my friend javi he co-wrote morning light with me he's the featured artist on morning light beautiful vocals take a quick listen if you wanna stay you don't gotta walk away i'd give it all to you if you want me to do all the things you couldn't do then you should stay right here if it's over don't look over your shoulder but grab what you're leaving behind the night's colder don't mean it's really over we fade in the morning light in the morning light don't look over your shoulders [Music] don't mean [Music] all right guys so that's gonna wrap up today's video i know i definitely get plenty of questions from you guys asking how to get better vocals this has been a great solution for me so i hope it really helps you guys out but listen guys until next time my name is patrick i'll catch you real soon alright peace.