Why Vocal Booths Make Vocals Sound Bad

You read that right, vocal booth, the hallmark of any legitimate studio actually are bad for vocals. How you ask? In this article I will dive deep into the science, cite multiple reputable books and teach you what a vocal booth is really for.

1) What Are Vocal Booths Used For?
To record vocals, right? No, they are used to separate the singer from the band when live tracking. Our modern notion of sticking singers in a dead small claustrophobic room with a terrible foldback system (headphone system) is not how final vocals are supposed to be recorded. Don't believe me?

Richard Hilton who has recorded Diana Ross, Michael Bolton, SImon Le Bon, Tina Arena and many others will record the final vocals in the control room. Everyone wears headphones and can easily communicate and the room itself is way better sounding than a booth (more on that to come)(“RealTraps - Vocal Booths”). Moreover, some producers will even play the music softly over the speakers and forgo headphones all together to get a great vocal recording.

Another thing to realize is that professional "vocal booths" actually are usually live rooms or fairly large neutral rooms. When you see an artist through the glass in a mulit-million dollar studio they are usually in a fairly large space, and if not it is to the deficit of the acoustics. Let's talk more about that.

2) Small Rooms Do Not Sound Good
Physics cannot be changed. Small rooms, no matter how much acoustic treatment you put in them will always sound worse than a large room. Why? The first reason is that small rooms cannot support the massive wave lengths of low frequencies. This leads to the bass frequencies getting trapped (especially when the room is soundproof). This leads to a boomy boxing sounding room. You can add as much fiberglass panelling as you like, but those will not fix the low end. Bass traps, sure they can help a little, but they are not very effective below 100 Hz.

Here is what the Master Handbook of Acoustics says about small vocal booths: "provide very little low frequency absorption. Thus important voice frequencies may be overly absorbed, whereas low frequency room modes are untreated" (Everest and Pohlmann, 480). The smaller rooms make it impossible to absorb low frequencies because you don't have the space for true low frequency absorption, plus room modes occur higher up in the frequency spectrum which means the bottom end of voices will ring out more than the higher end of the voice leading to a boomier and boxier vocal tone. You can spend $10,000 on your vocal chain, but if you record it in a bad sounding room then the vocal will always sound cheap.

Just to drive this point home, here is an excerpt from Recording Studio Design by Philip Newell:

"Simple attempts at absorption by placing of acoustically absorbent tiles on the walls and ceiling will not suffice. These will tend to absorb the higher frequencies but leave the lower-mid and low frequency modes largely untouched, yielding a room with a heavily coloured ambience which will lack life and add a thickness to the sound, robbing it of much clarity" (Philip Richard Newell, 153).

Conclusion
This is the argument against vocal booths and really small rooms in general. This is not to say you should never use a vocal booth. If you are tracking live bands then vocal booth are a useful for isolating the vocalist from the band. However, for most situations vocals should be tracked in a larger room. This could be the control room or a live room in a large studio.

Works Cited
Everest, Frederick A., and Ken C. Pohlmann. “Acoustics of Audio/Video Rooms.” Master Handbook of Acoustics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2015.

Philip Richard Newell. Recording Studio Design. New York ; London, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

[sandersonstunes]

I think you got the reason backwards. Nobody was worried about vocal bleed into the drum recordings and it was about having everything bleed in the vocal mic. The amount of processing done to vocals requires a clean recording.

[Witherfall]

Booths are useful when recording in a room that isn’t treated.

[officialcisko]

Soundproof vocal booth is only necessary if the environment calls for it. I have one since my home studio requires it to avoid capturing barking dogs. It does give me some 300hz build up, but, knowing that makes it easy to fix with an eq cut

[NormanTiner]

I think it's important to take into account environmental sounds that you have in non-ideal recording environments, as well as the desire to control your own volume in shared spaces. The whole point of an isolation booth is isolation. As a performer I'm way more comfortable screaming and belting in a box knowing I'm not getting snickering from the next room over. Also not having AC or dog barks in the recordings is really helpful. The bass buildup is why it's helpful to have a low frequency rolloff. I've never had a vocal performance diminished by rolling of frequencies under 120, especially within the context of a mix.

Have I recorded in an open environment to hear the difference? Yes, it's a much more open sound with natural reverb, but it's also harder to edit and less versatile than a clean recording that just needs a little bass rolloff.

[scottnelle]

The easiest solution I've found for my home studio is a blanket draped over a T stand behind the vocalist and a little absorption in front of the vocalist. I think the absorption knocks down some of the early reflections, the blanket knocks down some reflections coming off the back wall, and the room sounds pretty open overall. I get pretty good takes with this setup and it takes about a minute to put together when I need it!

[johnbecker]

I've been building my studio for just over a year now, and the number of times people have asked "No vocal booth?" is astounding. No, I'm going to record vocals in either the live or control room. But explaining why does take a little time, so often I just leave it at that. Thanks for a clear and concise explanation. Now I can just hit the share button to explain!

[TheAmazingRoxy]

Does this apply to mainly to singers or voiceover artist as well ?

[metart]

Do you have any thoughts on using a sort of make-shift spot to record vocals by using sound absorbing blankets and making a little booth out of them and using that setup in an untreated room. Will that do anything to help mitigate an untreated room or just make things worse?

[illnoyz]

Bought a booth to record vocals in and omg it sounds like I have my nose held shut its terrible but recording out in the open leaves to much reverb picking up in my vocals to use either.

[Syntiont]

I went a decade without a booth. Built a new one last year. Old clients missed the privacy of the booth. I also like being able to lower the volume of my monitors and not have to put headphones on. I also do vocals better in a booth myself knowing im isolated . But I agree. Acoustically it can be negative. I notice the booth acoustically once a vocal goes beyond a foot away from the mic. Within a foot it’s pleasant in my booth. Something about feeling like I can’t take a drink or move in my chair during a recording is annoying.

[officialWWM]

I had a vocal booth in my home studio and I could never get a good sound out of it. I ended up tearing it down and now I just record in my control room. It sound much more open and natural to my ears.

[rome]

Okay, but what's the best solution for someone who wants to record vocals NOW and doesn't want to spend five years saving up $10, 000 to properly treat their room? For literally every other part of the recording and mixing process there's a good cheap solution. You can record guitar use amp sims. You can do the same for bass. You can use MIDI drums. You can mix on headphones. But if you want to get quality vocals, the only solution is 20 acoustic panels and dozens of hours of experimentation for something that might not even work?

I mean, some rooms have unsolvable problems. For example, when I play an E at 80 HZ in my room, it's literally three times as loud as the notes around it. That tells me I have a massive standing wave. You just said bass traps don't go down that low. So why would I bother filling up my room with panels if I'm still going to have that frequency piling up? I've learned to mix on headphones, and I do it quite well, regardless of the BS out there about how you can't do it. But I guess I just have to rent out a studio to sing?

[Lionise]

❗️Note for all voice artists (ie not singers): He Doesn’t Mean You.
Vocal booths are industry standard for voice artists. As you were.

[jeremythornton]

My little home studio is in a low ceilinged room. It's about 2" above my head. 12' by 15'. I've got a lot of rockwool in between the joists with some open weave cloth to cover it so that the ceiling isn't ugly and fibers don't fall out. I do have some acoustic panels on the wall behind my monitors and bass traps in the corners. I record vocals right here in the room. It's pretty much teh best I can do with what I have but I manage to get pretty decent sounds.
What do you think about things like the Kaotica Eyeball foam thingy for your microphone? What about high passing EQ for your vocals?

[BenedictRoffMarsh]

I read all of this in a magazine in about 1990 from a professional studio treating dude. I have been saying this myself for decades, often to howls of protest that how dare I not tow the fantasy line of wall padding, led lighting, and analog noise makers. Still, the right reality to carry when doing it DIY. A few couches in a normal room + a dynamic mic will outperform a condensation mic in a cupboard every time. And once that weird cupboard sound is printed, it is not coming out.
🙂

[n_dogg]

Well Id rather record in a treated tiny room and cut out the lows in the mix instead of trying to record something in the middle of my non-treated room. I think its also about the echoes and reflections that you dont want in your recording

[Celticsaint]

What about se electronics vocal shields?

[whoTFisyoungkat]

I’ve gotten really good results with prime 11 quadratic diffusion 2’ behind the mic with diaphragmatic absorbers behind the diffusers tuned to the lower end of the vocal frequencies. Then on the side, back, and ceiling, standard insulation absorption to reduce mid and high frequency reflection into the mic. It seems to be just the right balance to reduce the need for a ton of eq, reverb, and delay. Before I just had the insulation everywhere and it made the vocals bass heavy, stuffy, and unpleasant to start mixing with. For sure gotta stay away from just putting standard fiberglass/rockwool absorption everywhere. The vocal booth is 4’w x 5’l x 8’h. It was A LOT of math and planning for the diaphragmatic absorber tuning, quadratic diffusion frequency and distance calculation, and what air gaps were needed behind the absorption panels. Definitely not something to just guess at and throw things up everywhere because it looks cool or because that’s what everyone else has said or done. I think vocal booths can be very useful when treated properly. I used the information from this channel to calculate the values for the diaphragmatic absorbers and what my needs were probably going to be using your information about AMROC. I very much appreciate the help I’ve received from your hard work producing these excellent videos. Thank you

[LenardKentVillanueva-tf]

WHat about the AC noise? are there any treatment options for that?

[xchump]

Very interesting. What about those smaller types (half moons) that only cover the back and sides of the microphone? Like the ones from SE Electronics for example. Are those helping with the sound or should those be avoided?