Anyone who records voiceovers at home knows what a nightmare a leaf blower can be. Not only is the noise just downright annoying, it makes it impossible to record in a typical home. Even worse, your neighbors only seem to run their leaf blowers when it’s time for you to voice something. Either that, or you have an OCD neighbor with a clean fetish who runs his leaf blower every day.
As a voice talent, I will plead guilty to contributing to the noise problem. Because of my allergies, I have to hire someone to mow my yard and blow the leaves. And no, the irony of a VO talent who adds to the leaf blower noise problem doesn’t escape me.
There are several ways to beat the leaf blower blues. The cheapest is to just wait for them to quit, or record at night, when sane people don’t run their leaf blowers. But sometimes clients need something NOW, and it’s embarrassing to have to tell them that they have to wait for the noise to go away.
You can also professionally soundproof your recording space. That can consume a lot time and money, and it often has a low spousal approval rating.
Or, you can do what I did, and buy a booth.
I bought a double walled, 5 sided, Diamond Platinum Vocalbooth. These retail for over $12,000 plus shipping from Oregon, but I was lucky enough to find a used one on Craigslist for less than half of that. I had to rent a U-Haul truck and drive 5 hours each way to get it, but it was well worth the trip.
I didn’t buy a booth because I had a leaf blower noise problem. I bought it because the stucco-covered wood frame house where I was living at the time backed up to a busy 4 lane road, and the traffic noise came in at all hours of the day and night. Much to my delight, however, I discovered the booth also keeps out the leaf blower noise. (And my neighbor’s lawn mower, too.)
As you can see from the picture below, I’ve added a lot of additional treatment to the inside of the booth. The 2 inch pyramid foam that came glued to the walls left the booth much too reverberant for voiceover use. It’s now nice and dead.
So what sort of a job does my booth do of keeping the leaf blower noise out? Fabulous! Here’s a recording I made the last time the lawn guy was here.
I started recording with the booth door open. The mic is a Michael Joly mod V250, which is a Neumann U 87 clone, and is so sensitive that it picks up the sounds of grass growing and paint drying.
The recording starts with the door to the booth open. About 10 seconds into it, the guy gets really close to the house with the blower. At about 16 seconds, you can hear me walk towards the door. At 22 seconds, you’ll hear the door close, and the leaf blower noise is GONE.
The noise level with the door open is between -40 and -45db on my VU meter. With the door shut, it drops to about -60db. Needless to say, I’m thrilled with how well it keeps out the leaf blower noise. It also did a great job of keeping out the traffic noise in my old house, and does a superb job of keeping out the sound of the psycho dog who barks at all hours of the day and night behind my new house. It also keeps out the sound of propeller-driven aircraft and military jets.
I can’t say how this booth compares to other brands because I’ve never owned or recorded in any other booth than this one. I do know that it won’t keep out the sound of Harleys, low flying helicopters, the rumble of the UPS truck, or the punk driving by with a trunk full of subwoofers. But no booth is going to do that. Not even if you add mass loaded vinyl between the booth panels like I did. It requires much more mass than any booth can provide to stop those bass frequencies.
If you are considering a booth, be aware that booths come with their own set of problems. They become little sweat boxes in the Texas heat, and if they aren’t treated properly, they are too reverberant and sound “boothy.” But if you need a consistently reliable recording space, a properly treated booth is a great way to go.
And you don’t have to tell your spouse to turn the TV down, either.
