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Old 06-16-2014, 11:18 PM
Joseph Hanna Joseph Hanna is offline
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Default Whisper Room

So this weekend we had a Whisper Room installed on the far side of our facility. Since all 4 of us have vocal booths this would ostensibly be for some project coming down the pike that's not part of our daily work load. It may well be an independent crew coming in for development work or it may be...who knows?!? Historically there's a lot at stake with these kinds of projects and it's important things are kept close to the vest.

Anyway I had an opportunity to spend about 15 minutes with a Breedlove 000R (with embarrassingly old strings) and a Zoom H4n in the booth tonight. The Zoom was set precariously on an upside down trash basket. I kinda sat kneeling-ish.I didn't even bring in a pair of headphones for reference. I set input sensitivity and commenced.

Now I'm a grand fan of great rooms and during my time with Digi I was in some unworldly great rooms. I've worked a few here in town that were stellar as well. If I had several million laying around I'd build a great room. But so far I'm several million shy of several million.

However and that said tonight, after haplessly recording in the Whisper Room, I brought the H4n into my bay and loaded the files into Pro Tools. I was just simply floored at what a great sound I was able to coax (without any setup) out of this room. A wonderfully great acoustic guitar sound.

It's dead for sure but not dead in an awful, home-made, too much Auralex, suck the life outta my sound kinda way. When you shut the door on the booth there's a moment of weirdness as your ears adjust to the deadness. But it's a pleasing and pleasant dead. There is no weirdness on either the E or the A string. There's no, zero, none, inherent resonance. At a distance of 6-8 inches there's no room noise and the recorded guitar sounds exactly how I envision it sounding in my head. Dynamics are off the chart. Play at a whisper you'll still hear it. Dig in and it's still believable.

To be sure these things aren't cheap. I think they start about $3000.00. I can tell you beyond any shadow of any doubt, if I were primarily recording acoustic guitar as a Pro or a home guy/gal, I'd throw all the fancy converters, pre-amps, compressors and expensive mics out the window and buy a Whisper Room and go from there. I think most of what we all struggle with would be solved from the get go. The rest would be icing.

Honestly, with almost no setup, no headphone reference, zero eq, zero compression, zero reverb, this is one of the best (if not the best) recorded acoustic guitar sounds I've ever done. I'm gonna try to sneak in this coming weekend and record something I can post here. Until then I'm trying to figure out how I can afford and fit one of these things in my home!
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Old 06-16-2014, 11:50 PM
slewis slewis is offline
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What's a "whisper room?"
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Old 06-16-2014, 11:57 PM
Joseph Hanna Joseph Hanna is offline
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What's a "whisper room?"
http://www.whisperroom.com/
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Old 06-17-2014, 04:59 AM
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Bob Womack Bob Womack is offline
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Congrats! We are pretty happy with ours. A couple of pics of the black booth in a darkened soundstage:




You can read my posts about the room on a prior AGF discussion, HERE.

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Old 06-17-2014, 05:51 AM
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That would be great to hear. Do share a recording with us.

Here are price lists (standard and enhanced models)

http://www.whisperroom.com/sound-boo...rd-pricing.php

http://www.whisperroom.com/sound-boo...ed-pricing.php
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Old 06-17-2014, 08:07 AM
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So Joseph couple of questions do you know which size room you were in and was there any feeling of claustrophobia ?

Just asking because it looks like by the time you get up to say a 5X7 base model you are into $6k

And then the other question is I'm guessing your also saying that compared to trying to have a big pro designed room (big bucks). That something like this and some good plugins for reverb delay etc would be a viable alternative that you yourself would use ?
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Old 06-17-2014, 09:13 AM
Joseph Hanna Joseph Hanna is offline
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Originally Posted by KevWind View Post
So Joseph couple of questions do you know which size room you were in and was there any feeling of claustrophobia ?

Just asking because it looks like by the time you get up to say a 5X7 base model you are into $6k
Yes I know these things can get expensive. I had a brief discussion with the head of our tech department and he mentioned the price jumped pretty dramatically once they figured out all of the options they felt they needed. I'll see if I can get some details while not seemingly prying into whatever top-secret project the booth is actually intended for. I dunno yet what size this thing is. I'll certainly find out and let you know. That said I didn't feel squeezed at all. It is currently however an empty booth. I know there was some local studio carpenters at the facility measuring for a podium, so it will get smaller.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KevWind View Post
And then the other question is I'm guessing your also saying that compared to trying to have a big pro designed room (big bucks). That something like this and some good plugins for reverb delay etc would be a viable alternative that you yourself would use ?
Yes. I guess all things considered and since I don't have a massive amount of disposable money for a million dollar room, this is the absolute best solution I've run across. Understand however I'm a big fan of way, way upfront guitar sounds and although this pulls the guitar up close and personal it is also bone dry. I love good reverbs and will always have my Lexicons somewhere in the mix of things. I do not however think the reverbs (even great ones) will ever replace the sound of a great room. They are (reverbs-vs-rooms) two very different beasts for me. I suspect the recording will end up sounding "bone dry" with reverb. That's ok by me though. Still and for the home guy this solves so many nasty problems it's just difficult to ignore and in the face of all the talk of expensive mic's, pre-amps, converters ect I wanted to note that this booth makes for (at least for me) a massive leap forward in tone.
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Old 06-17-2014, 10:04 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna View Post
Yes I know these things can get expensive. I had a brief discussion with the head of our tech department and he mentioned the price jumped pretty dramatically once they figured out all of the options they felt they needed. I'll see if I can get some details while not seemingly prying into whatever top-secret project the booth is actually intended for. I dunno yet what size this thing is. I'll certainly find out and let you know. That said I didn't feel squeezed at all. It is currently however an empty booth. I know there was some local studio carpenters at the facility measuring for a podium, so it will get smaller.



Yes. I guess all things considered and since I don't have a massive amount of disposable money for a million dollar room, this is the absolute best solution I've run across. Understand however I'm a big fan of way, way upfront guitar sounds and although this pulls the guitar up close and personal it is also bone dry. I love good reverbs and will always have my Lexicons somewhere in the mix of things. I do not however think the reverbs (even great ones) will ever replace the sound of a great room. They are (reverbs-vs-rooms) two very different beasts for me. I suspect the recording will end up sounding "bone dry" with reverb. That's ok by me though. Still and for the home guy this solves so many nasty problems it's just difficult to ignore and in the face of all the talk of expensive mic's, pre-amps, converters ect I wanted to note that this booth makes for (at least for me) a massive leap forward in tone.
Fortunately I am in a position of being able to afford the costs listed and for sure it is a pittance compared to a good size pro acoustically engineered room . You have piqued my interest because even though I have reasonable acoustics for mixing it is still a one room set up and for tracking there is still a lot of ambient noise.
I would think most of us are the same boat as far not going to have a really top flight tracking room and also not really able to significantly change the walls ceiling etc. This indeed sounds like a possible alternative and I agree in terms of money well spent good acoustics are at the top. And am I correct in assuming you are referring to tracking and not mixing?
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Old 06-17-2014, 10:14 AM
Joseph Hanna Joseph Hanna is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KevWind View Post
Fortunately I am in a position of being able to afford the costs listed and for sure it is a pittance compared to a good size pro acoustically engineered room . You have piqued my interest because even though I have reasonable acoustics for mixing it is still a one room set up and for tracking there is still a lot of ambient noise.
I would think most of us are the same boat as far not going to have a really top flight tracking room and also not really able to significantly change the walls ceiling etc. This indeed sounds like a possible alternative and I agree in terms of money well spent good acoustics are at the top. And am I correct in assuming you are referring to tracking and not mixing?
Yes Kev, tracking, not mixing. My personal feeling is tracking environments are much more critical than mixing. Too be sure a great mixing environment is important but critical problems can be (by and large) worked around. Not so much with tracking. The compromises and consequences are always significant. Like I said I'll try to sneak in this weekend and record a snippet of something. Maybe that'll shed some sonic light on things!
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Old 06-17-2014, 10:17 AM
Legolas1971 Legolas1971 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna View Post
Yes I know these things can get expensive. I had a brief discussion with the head of our tech department and he mentioned the price jumped pretty dramatically once they figured out all of the options they felt they needed. I'll see if I can get some details while not seemingly prying into whatever top-secret project the booth is actually intended for. I dunno yet what size this thing is. I'll certainly find out and let you know. That said I didn't feel squeezed at all. It is currently however an empty booth. I know there was some local studio carpenters at the facility measuring for a podium, so it will get smaller.



Yes. I guess all things considered and since I don't have a massive amount of disposable money for a million dollar room, this is the absolute best solution I've run across. Understand however I'm a big fan of way, way upfront guitar sounds and although this pulls the guitar up close and personal it is also bone dry. I love good reverbs and will always have my Lexicons somewhere in the mix of things. I do not however think the reverbs (even great ones) will ever replace the sound of a great room. They are (reverbs-vs-rooms) two very different beasts for me. I suspect the recording will end up sounding "bone dry" with reverb. That's ok by me though. Still and for the home guy this solves so many nasty problems it's just difficult to ignore and in the face of all the talk of expensive mic's, pre-amps, converters ect I wanted to note that this booth makes for (at least for me) a massive leap forward in tone.
I've seen those being advertised for years but never actually knew anyone that had one. I'm glad to hear you're having good results......I built an iso-booth in my basement that works very well for what I paid (about $600). I built basically a room inside of a room and put wood floor down with a rug. It's about 8x8 and I have it hardwired to my interface and then into Pro Tools. I treated the walls with rock wool panels and they do a nice job of
swallowing the low end.

Having said that, if I had the money, I would definitely have taken a hard look at the whisper room.
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Old 06-17-2014, 02:42 PM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Legolas1971 View Post
I've seen those being advertised for years but never actually knew anyone that had one. I'm glad to hear you're having good results......I built an iso-booth in my basement that works very well for what I paid (about $600). I built basically a room inside of a room and put wood floor down with a rug. It's about 8x8 and I have it hardwired to my interface and then into Pro Tools. I treated the walls with rock wool panels and they do a nice job of
swallowing the low end.

Having said that, if I had the money, I would definitely have taken a hard look at the whisper room.
An 8'x8' rockwool-treated tracking room is pretty good, most home recordists just don't have the space for an iso booth, or try to do it in a closet or in a 3'x4' foam-lined box, which doesn't work well
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Old 06-18-2014, 11:08 AM
Ivan Lee Ivan Lee is offline
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I used a similar type room many moons ago in college with a full band (8X12 or so!). It is truly amazing how much isolation you get both from inside noise getting out and outside noise getting in!

To compare with acoustic panels---

If we use $80 per 2X4 acoustic panel = $10/sq ft.

and a room size of 5X7X 8 feet tall is
Walls = 2X5X8 + 2X7X8 = 248 sq ft
Ceiling = 5X7 = 35sq ft
283 sq ft

So for acoustic panels would be ~$2830. There is much more that goes into a whisper room though so price wise not horribly off the mark...

That said - I think for many basement studios (mine included) there is just not enough height for one of these critters (those 7' 5" ceilings are a problem). I have something like 25 panels in 9X12 tracking room with many concentrated in one corner for a reflection free zone. For places where they work though the Whisper rooms are an excellent choice!
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Old 06-18-2014, 01:28 PM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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Ivan - I think your calculations for 2x4 acoustic panels must be if you buy them premade. I built 6 for less than $250, and $50 of that was shipping of the insulation to me as I couldn't find it locally.
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Old 06-18-2014, 05:01 PM
Ivan Lee Ivan Lee is offline
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One can certainly build them for less (than $80 each) or have them built for more :-)

I assumed Guilford of Maine fabric - very nice and fireproof rated but pricey
Also went with 4" of the no formaldehyde ECOSE fiberglass. not the cheapest. (GIK is $90 each for these + shipping!)
Almost everyone has to pay shipping to get this stuff - though you can scrounge and find deals if you hunt.....

FWIW - I also bought 16 beautiful panels made with great fabric and 4" Ecose + two 6 footers on wheels - from a local guy moving out of town for ~$40 each -- what a deal!!!

Always a way to spend more - or less -

Whisper room and premade panels are a way to have things show up on your doorstep in a weeks time with no more effort than... :-) Paying for it!
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Old 06-18-2014, 05:04 PM
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We have an anechoic chamber for our microphone R&D...it's so weird in there.

One of these days when no one is around I want to bring a guitar in there and see what it sounds like
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