Portable Vocal Booth Review: Vocal Booth To Go’s AVB
I’ve already posted about mobile acoustic vocal booths. I explained what they are and explored why you need them as a singer. This time, I’m going to review one of the most sought after booths in the market, the All Black Mobile Acoustic Vocal Booth from Vocal Booth To Go.
Specs
The AVB or All Black Mobile Acoustic Vocal Booth comes in three sizes:
- 3′ x 3′: Ideal for a single person recording inside a booth.
- 4′ x 4′: Ideal for a single person with an instrument recording inside a booth.
- 6′ x 3′: Ideal for two people recording inside a booth.
The lowest point inside the booth is 6’5″ and the highest point is 7′. You can basically install it anywhere in your home as long as it’s up to code.
What It Is
For those who haven’t read my post about mobile acoustic booths, you can either read this section or go to the article itself.
Anyway, a mobile acoustic vocal booth is an inexpensive, quick, and easy acoustic solution. It’s made for singers who want to record and practice without the means and budget to perform a complete acoustic treatment in any room they wish to record or practice in.
The way it works is that it creates a small 4-walled booth that will act to isolate your voice, sound, or music within the confines of the said booth. It also minorly prevents outside noises and ambient sound from getting into the microphone.
The walls are made of soft and durable materials that perform sound absorption. Unlike a typical bathroom cubicle with solid walls, mobile booth walls don’t reflect sound and it keeps your natural vocal quality intact.
If you’re having a difficult time visualizing what I mean, try singing in an open room and then sing inside your bathroom. You will notice the differences between the sounds you make in a spacious area and a bathroom. Inside a bathroom, you’ll detect some high-pitched echoes, which can either sound delightful or dreadful. In an open space, you don’t hear that, that’s the kind of sound you want when doing a recording.
Recording in open space or room
poses some problems, such as ambient sounds and noise. Because of those two factors, most singers opt to record in a professional recording studio wherein echoes are not produced.
However, not all can afford that. And of course, it would be highly expensive to turn one of your rooms into one. In case that you do have the budget, but you’re living in temporary dwelling space, your choice will be limited.
That’s where the mobile booth comes in. With it, you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars renovating a room. You don’t need to plaster a room with acoustic panels that can easily reach thousands of dollars, This product can easily be, shipped at your doorstep, and it only takes about an hour to setup. If you need the space, you can fold the frame and walls to put them away. That’s how simple it is to reclaim the used space.
Of course, it’s not limited to allowing you to create high-quality vocal recordings on a budget. You can also use it as a small office space. You can also do voice work, podcasts, and voice-over narrations or dubbing in it.
What This Booth Offers
I’ve mentioned the walls of this booth, but what are they made of? They are actually acoustic blankets that can perform 80% sound absorption. It can block out at least 10 decibels of sound. Material wise, it’s mostly made from polyester and cotton.
Note that a normal conversation is around 50 decibels loud. A typical wall can reduce at least 25 to 35 decibels. If people are talking in the other room and you’re inside the mobile booth, you can hardly hear them, and your mic won’t pick up their chatter either.
Even if they get louder, the transmission loss through the air contained between your booth and the walls can further lower the noise of those chatterboxes.
On the other hand, if you can’t hear them, they can’t tell when you’re singing as well. Of course, these explanations are oversimplified. Acoustic science and its applications are wildly complicated.
The frame of the mobile booth, alternatively, is made from lightweight aluminum. When installing, you don’t need any special tools. When dismantled, you can fit the blankets and frame in two huge duffel bags. The product comes with these storage bags. And of course, they can fit in your car.
Common Questions
If you’ve done your research before getting here, you might have read that most mobile booth blankets tend to generate some unpleasant smell. Vocal Booth To Go has already resolved that issue on their products by using recycled cotton as filler material. It doesn’t smell unless it’s exposed and absorbs obnoxious odors inside the room it’s installed.
It means that they still can get dirty and smelly. To clean it, you can just send it to your local laundromat. Unfortunately, these blankets can’t fit regular-sized washing machines.
When washing, use a regular detergent and dry it on a high setting. After the drying process, some fluff may appear since some of the cotton materials can get out of the blanket.
When it comes to blocking sound, it can’t completely eliminate loud noises like cars and a busy street filled with people. Still, it can dampen those sounds to a much lower level.
If you want to achieve higher soundproofing (this isn’t a complete soundproofing solution, by the way), you can place it in a corner far away from the sound source, and shield it with acoustic panels.
It’s an added cost, true, but it’s needed in extreme situations. Not to mention that those panels are worthwhile investments you can still use in the future if you treat your room.
Conclusion
In the end, it’s a good product to have, but your career doesn’t crucially ask for it. However, if you have some songs you want to record and publish, then it’s an investment that you should definitely consider. You can take a closer inspection here in Vocal Booth To Go’s AVB product page.
If price is the problem and you have no need for it to be portable, you have the option to slash a huge amount off the price tag by just ordering the blanket alone. The price ranges from $50 to $200. Here’s one of them: Sound Absorption Blankets.
