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A SAMPLING OF INSTANT AUDIO ENVIRONMENTS

When four walls, a ceiling, a floor and a door just won't do, and those dreams of floating the floors and triple-walling the new studio can't happen yet,

When four walls, a ceiling, a floor and a door just won’t do,
and those dreams of floating the floors and triple-walling the new
studio can’t happen yet, it’s time to bring in a box. Be it a
12-inch box for muffling your hard drive or a 12×12-foot iso
booth big enough for a Bonham-sized kit, fully enclosed isolation
devices create sound environments where once there were none.
Listed below are but a few of the many firms offering sound iso
environments. To find more and surf to more than 500 sites of
consultants, manufacturers and distributors of various acoustical
products and services, point your browser to http://home.att.net/~rcp-conseaco/links.htm.

In addition to its acoustical materials, Acoustic
Systems
offers a range of sound-isolating rooms designed for
recording, medical, industrial and broadcast applications. The
company’s stock voice-over booths are modular, pre-engineered iso
rooms that include options like fully floating floors, silenced
ventilation, canted windows and a cable management package. Modular
panels can be taken apart and relocated easily, and each room
— with STC ratings up to 59 and acoustically certified doors
and windows — has a 6½-foot-tall ceiling. Prices start
at $4,195.

Folded Space Technology markets both acoustical
materials and a sound isolation solution. The Micro Room Silent
Speaker System allows any amplified instrumentalist to crank it
beyond “11” without withering everyone else in the
room. Lined in 2-inch-thick Auralex StudioFoam, the Micro Room has
a built-in Shure SM57 mic, adjustable power attenuator and a
“vintage-type” speaker inside; just connect the Micro
Room to the speaker output of an amplifier, connect the lo-Z mic
output from the Micro Room to a console and turn it up. Also great
for reamplifying tracks during mixdown, the Micro Room has a power
handling rating of 15- to 100-watts RMS. Weight is 35 pounds, and
the unit is made of ¾-inch hardwood ply (finished in textured
epoxy) and measures 12×12×22 inches.

Two other sound enclosures that use Auralex acoustic foam are
Isobox and Isomac from Sound Construction & Supply.
Isobox ($1,295 for a 12-space unit, $1,395 for a 16-space and
$1,695 for the 20-space unit) quiets the noisiest rack gear, and
offers a choice of maple or oak door and a left- or right-swinging
door at no extra charge. Options include a veneer or varnish finish
on the front door, low-profile or huge 4¾-inch pro caster
wheel sets, a premium surge suppressor, fan and even a Formica
counter top with wood-matched edges to match the kitchen decor. As
the name suggests, the company’s Isomac (starting at $600) is a
“micro-computer acoustic containment device” that lets
hard drives and vocals live in the same room. Available in Pro and
Mastering models, the Isomac has a built-in micro-processor,
shock-mounted rails and an electrostatic filter, and it includes
safety features like an audible default alarm and thermostatically
controlled fans.

VocalBooth.com‘s name says it all. The company’s Calvin
Mann Sound Rooms come in a wide variety of configurations, with
construction details and features designed for any number of audio
applications. Foam core doors with window, cable tubing, barrier
walls, ventilation systems, lights, 2-inch-thick acoustic foam and
sub floor foam are found in each Sound Room. Pricing starts at
$1,999 for the 4×4-foot Sound Booth Standard with one
ventilation system and extends up to the $5,875 8×8-foot Sound
Room with dual ventilation. Caster wheel base, door, window,
ventilation and subfloored options are available.

A range of Sound-Isolating Rooms from Wenger
Corporation
($8,500 and up) offer ways to create controlled
audio environments in a snap. These modular, pre-engineered rooms
are easy to open and install, and they offer optional horizontal
and vertical windows and double doors. They range in size from
4’5″×5’8″×8′ to a whopping 14’5″×25’×8′
enclosure.

With 15 sizes available that start at $1,520,
WhisperRoom‘s SE Series of sound-isolation enclosures can
fit most any sound need. Each component is completely finished and
ready to install out of the box, has a three-year warranty, and
comes in standard and enhanced sound-isolation versions. (Standard
packages can later be upgraded to an enhanced, double-walled system
by installing one of WhisperRoom’s appropriate Isolation
Enhancement Packages.) An 8.5×15.5-foot, preconfigured room
with two lights, a door window, 10 cable passages and 15 foam
sheets (standard pyramid foam) is $8,495. There are also optional
wall windows, caster plates with five wheels, a variety of
ventilation packages and upgrade paths for expanding a basic
WhisperRoom.

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