Here's the idea. I'd like to scream out the God save the Queen at 3 am, without any of my neighbours hearing a thing.
Found a company on the Web selling these booths and prices start at £1999. Please, if you got one of these or perhaps know about it, tell me about the results. If you are about the suggest the diy route think twice. I did once in past, spent about £300 and s.....d up completely. Two major faults were the door didn't fit properly and one couldn't breath inside (it was tiny) so would have come out every 5 mins or so, well to stay alive. (did I mention that the sweating was profuse)
Please advice!
Thanks

deve

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news, but- as a music techonology student, I highly doubt that you'll be able to buy a vocal booth that will block out a great deal of noise. A properly designed studio wall will have several layers of foam/air gaps/air bricks etc- up to about 2/3 metres To block out sound.
Whereas Vocal booths in my experiance, are more designed for maximising the vocal sound, rather than to block it from the outside world. These products may be able to do this, but only if they are very thickly designed. I'm research deeper, and dont believe what the blurb tells you.
Trum

There are things that you can do to help with sound isolation, but without bringing in some HVAC vents, you are always going to have the issues with heat and air circulation. I have heard of folks making DIY coolers with fans and ice chests, but if the room is truly sealed air-tight, you fan will burn out quickly, and you will eventually suffocate!

I am going on 2nd hand knowledge here, so excuse me for hi-jacking your thread without true experience, but from what I hear, most of those pre-made booths are not true isolation booths, but certainly cut down on the noise entering/escaping. The other benefit is that you can make the booth acoustically dead, which is *sometimes* beneficial for vocals (not sure if I totally agree personally with that statement...).

Sorry for the hijack, and hopefully you get some better answers from someone who has actually ordered one of these things.

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James
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" ~Napoleon Bonaparte~

I had one (about 1m x 2m) in my last studio, built by IAC. The space it sat in was about 40cm wider in each dimension, i.e. that was the distance from the apparent internal walls to the real walls surrounding it. It sat on a floating rubber floor. The door was solid steel and took about 3 people to lift it. We got about 60db noise reduction from the thing - not total soundproofing - there's no such thing - but pretty impressive. The door had a smallish double glazed porthole, without which we'd have got slightly better sound isolation. You also need to think once and for all about how many cables you want going in an out, and then seal up the gaps round the cable entry very tight with some sort of foam spray which then hardens up.

By the time we'd dealt with some complex ventilation issues (which I agree is essential!) we'd probably spent about £6k on the thing.

It had a very dead sound which had its uses, but is a bit of a mixed blessing as compared with a good live room, which I've got now. So I won't be going down that route again. But you could probably sing your heart out in the middle of the night without frightening the neighbours!

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Thank you all for your input! I'll have to think carefully before deciding. (money is an issue). Anyway here's what I'm considering http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/d2/page/shop/news_story/a/news_id/e/73
cheers

deve