[Frank Farmlett]

Hello Gary,

The best book I’ve seen on the subject is “Sound Studio Construction on a Budget” by F. Alton Everest. I think it’s available on Amazon. There are eight designs included, one of which is the “Small announce booth” specifically aimed at voiceovers. Also Ethan Winer’s website has lots of great info. https://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

How much background noise do you have to deal with? Is it audible on your recordings? As Ty mentioned, you have to address the background noise, as well as the sound treatment of your space. My experience is the easiest and cheapest way is to find a really, really, quiet place to record. Sometimes choosing the right time of day (or night) helps. My best working hours are usually from midnight to dawn. You may have to do things like unplug the refrigerator, turn off the furnace, and as mentioned before, place your mic well away from noise makers like computers. Baffles like the one mentioned by SM Audio can be helpful, and you can make your own out of rigid fiberglass insulation. The websites of the companies that manufacture fiberglass have lots of helpful info on this. https://www.owenscorning.com/around/sound/commercial_acoustics/
https://www.owenscorning.com/comminsul/products.asp?product=1 https://www.jm.com/insulation/performance_materials/2685.htm https://www.armstrong.com/commceilingsna/browse_perf_acoustics.jsp You will see on their websites that 4 inches thick with an air space behind works best. I have also hung thick blankets from clothes lines, but as mentioned earlier, it is possible to make your voice sound too “dead” by absorbing too much high frequency and early lateral reflections. If you make your own baffles you could improve the sound treatment by facing them with masonite,so as to reflect more highs and mids. (Again, as mentioned earlier, avoiding parallel surfaces.) Sweetwater has some nice information in their buying guide: https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/studio/acoustic-treatment/buying-guide.php

All this does little to eliminate low frequency noise. Ethan Winer details how to build bass traps, but this is more aimed at treating the modal resonance of your space. The Sweetwater article also talks about bass traps. It seems to me that the ready-made commercial products aimed at sound treatment are often very expensive. Building your own is a reasonable alternative but you have to read up on it to know what you are doing. Low frequency background noise is simply best avoided in the first place.

If the background noise in your recordings is constant, you could try cleaning it up with noise removal programs or plugins such as Bias Sound Soap. https://xserve1.bias-inc.com:16080/products/soundsoap2/ I’ve never used Audition, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it includes some noise removal features. For this you will probably have to record a few seconds of background noise with nothing else happening, and use that section to “train” your noise removal software.

Good luck,

Frank Farmlett