The Blessing and Curse of a Basement Voice Acting Studio

Having built my voice acting studio in the basement, there are a lot of things I learned through the process, and continue to learn. For one thing, I learned how to build a studio with my own two hands. Laying cement blocks is tough, but mixing up all that concrete with your hands to fill in those blocks, is kind of a nightmare, but I am glad to have had that experience.

Lets start with the blessings. Here are some pics of my studio in progress:

Having a studio in your basement is great for so many reasons! Basically all of the noise from the outside world is blocked out like airplanes, construction work, storms, and noisy things in general. I am lucky enough to have purchased a house with my husband that has a big basement. This little cement room was half-built when we moved in, and we thought it would be the perfect place for a studio room. I had to extend the walls to the ceiling and put its own ceiling on. It is so incredibly quiet in there, its almost spooky.

Now, lets talk about the curse. As many of us with basements know, they can be a damp environment, which isn't great for a closed off space with zero airflow. I think we all know where this is headed. Here are a few pics of the mold I found in the studio. :(

That little dehumidifier just wasn't getting the job done unfortunately. It also didn't help that the door was mostly closed when I wasn't in the booth. The other problem was my use of all natural materials. While I love the idea of having cotton walls and wool rugs, those things take a long time to dry out, especially when a little water happens to leak in with a torrential rainfall. Well, I had no choice but to pull everything out and get it back down to bare walls so I could cut out the mold and make different choices with the fabric covering the rock wool and the floor.

My new and improved studio now has the capacity to stay bone dry with a bigger dehumidifier and better fabrics. I unrolled all the rock wool and re-covered it with thick weed blocking polyester fabric. The floor now has a layer of the light-weight rubber mats that fit together like puzzle pieces and lightly covered with thin poly rugs. The crazy background is my way of breaking up all the soundwaves that are bound to stick around in a small-ish space, plus its super colorful and makes me happy! All the layers of rockwool on the inside and outside keep the noise floor very low. The HVAC unit is about 15' from the studio, and even when its on, and my levels are normal, my RMS reading is still below -60dB! And the fact that I have an extremely sensitive microphone, Neumann TLM 103, its almost a miracle.

Here are some pics of my newly designed studio in all of its glory and wackiness! I love it! The lessions learned here were tough, but manageable. I am just so happy to have this space to record whatever I want!