Vocal Booths: Why they are needed, when they should be avoided, and how ro do them right

In my acoustics work, when clients send me sketches and drawings with their initial ideas for studio layout and setup, their plans often include a vocal booth.

I always urge caution with vocal booths. Tiny spaces such as these can be boomy and fraught with severe comb filtering—sonic defects that will need to be dealt with in mixdown. Generally, larger rooms yield better recordings, since early re-flections are less of an issue. However, larger rooms can often impart too much space to your tracks, among other issues.