From Bathroom to Booth: Samara Meers' Ingenious Studio Setup

History. Welcome my name to the pro audio suite. Those guys a professional and motivated thanks to try Booth, the best vocal booth for home or on the road voice recording and Austrian audio Making Passion Hurd introducing Robert Marshall from Source Elements and Someone Audio Post Chicago, Aaron Robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging six to the video stars, George the Tech Whittam from LA and Me, Andrew Peters Voyaber Talent and Home Studio Guy Out and welcome to another pro audio suite thanks to try Booth. Don't forget the code t ri I P A P two hundred that will get you two hundred dollars off your try booth. They're getting early because I think they're a bit of a waiting list. It is for travel after all, it is the traveler. We're not down here. This is the hibernation season down here. I can tell by the number of bookings in my calendars. I can tell by looking at Facebook there's still revenge traveling there. Yeah, and of course Austrian Audio Making Passion Heard. Now for a bit of shameless promotion, Robot is going to make himself heard. What have you got robot? Well, it's kind of self promotion, but it's also something that I found really interesting. I was working doing a voiceover demo for a client the other day a lady called Samara Mears and she's here in Australia as she's actually out in rural New South Wales from about three hundred kilometers west of where I am. But the thing really wasn't about her demo, but what really got me was her room. In fact, I've got a bit of a cold sample here and I want you guys to tell me if you can pick where she might have recorded this. Oh, okay, this is cold, this is unprocessed. For the past sixty five years, Mazda has been one of Australia's most trusted brands. We've traveled together, celebrated milestones and never go life's twists and turns. So tell me, boys, what room in her house do you reckon that was recorded in? Does the room have plumbing in it? It does? It's her bathroom. Yeah, so she actually built her studio in their old en suite, which didn't work. In fact, she said it leaks like a sieve. Sounds great. Well, the good thing about that is if the script is giving you the shits, at least you can take one. Well, that's the problem, she said, there's actually no toilet in there. And the other problem that she has, she said, every three or four months she's got to lift up the carpet on the floor and pour boiling water down the floor drain because it dries out and starts to stink. But other than that, that's that's her voice booth. I thought that was incredible. She could use the shower roses of mic stand as well. She could exactly. Oh my gosh, so there you go. It just it occurred to me that, you know, we talk on this show about you can you know, you need to have the perfect space and all the rest of it, but you can actually make the perfect space out of something that's completely imperfect as well, which is which is why I thought that was an interesting thing to talk about. And what Mike was she on If I missed that, as I understand it, she's on a KSM thirty two. I think, as sure, all the better. I mean, that was that was yeah, I mean it sounded it sounded great. I mean, yeah, it's the acoustics are like the black Art. I always say that. It's there's just no real straight up plans for doing every space. But it's not harder than soundproofing. Soundproofing is way way harder stopping noise from getting in, and that's that's the hard part, right. Yeah, Well, she's even got that nile because she's all the way out in western New South Wales, so it's just her and the shape. Really yeah, well, I mean location, location, location, So she's got a quiet spot. It's it's isolated. Like in my apartment. If I really was trying to find the quietest ambient room in the whole place, it's going to be the on suite bathroom in my bedroom because it has no windows. Yeah, it's the only space in our apartment it has no does. It is the quietest room in the place. I would have to do all that stuff, but trust me, my girlfriend would not be thrilled having the shower and everything in that room rendered useless. But you know, if I had no choice at all, and I didn't have a booth like I have already, that would be that would be my choice, because it is definitely quieter in there than anywhere else in the house or in the apartment. Anyway. If the neighbor downstairs is in their bathroom or if they're playing music, I might hear that. But singing in a shower quiet spot, Yes, singing in the shower. Yeah, thankfully she doesn't do that. My neighbor downstairs snores. That's about the only thing. What I'm curious about if she's having the western region of New South Wales. Is she in a town or is she on a property? Uh? Cara from Memory was saying with what's her internet like? We had no problems. We recorded via source connect for two hours and then another two hour our session a couple of days later. Not an issue. Strong, perfect. I wonder what she's want, what she's using. I don't know, to be honest, I didn't ask. It could be one of the situations where she's it's a very low density area and not too long ago they did some kind of network improvements to the area, so she's not sharing her connection with thousands of neighbors, you know, and that could make it super stable, right yeah, yeah, No, it held up perfectly. So yeah, no, she was great. You guys don't have starlink down there yet? No, not yet. Well, actually it's not starlink. I think we do. Yeah, because I was talking to you when we were doing a show a couple of weeks ago. You were talking about your incident and I was looking it up. You can get starlink, so yeah, we must have it here. I would not get starlink, no principal, but you could well in principle and cost too. It's pretty damn expensive, is it, really, But if you have no choice, it can make all the difference between you know, having connectivity and working or not and you live. We would choose to live. Australian broadband is so rubbish, it really is. Well. I mean the other thing is like I've sort of been quiet about getting fiber to the house and that's sorry, not available in your area, mate. Yeah, oh that's how La is La only has fiber and like very specific areas. I'm just super lucky that this area along the coast does have fiber because it was run to the homes many you know, years ago by Verizon and that was you know, they had an initiative. Their plan was to get everybody on fiber until they realized they just can't afford it and it was too expensive. Yeah, and they just stopped. So if you're in the right areas your gold and if not, you ain't got fiber. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that happened. Yeah, well we've only just started it here. Well, I got a thing in the mail the other day at my place. I'm sort of I don't know, twenty five thirty k's out of the Sydney CBD. I got a message in the day saying we can finally get fiber to the premises. But yeah, now going back to that studio, will the setup she on suite I'm assuming being an en suite, the walls were tiled in part, maybe not to the ceiling, but there will certainly be some tiles in there. And then she's got moving blankets around the walls. How far off the walls were those blankets? I want I'm gonna she sent me. She actually sent me a message because I'm just kind of thinking, if they're really close to the wall, the blanket's not going to do a huge amount, do a huge amount. No, hang on a second, I think she said something about carpet on the wall as well. Okayik, hang on, let me go. Things get interesting when people just start improvising and layering, you know, because then it's like impossible to really predict what's going to happen. And a lot of people just do that because they just take whatever they have, handy, whatever they can get, and you just start adding more and adding more and layering. Yeah, here we go, Samara, here we go. I'll give you a quick rundown. I made this studio in twenty nineteen. It was an on suite bathroom, just basing it on a shower, no toilet that wasn't being you because the waterproofing was dodgy. It's about three meters by two meters. I had previously bought moving blankets and eggshell acoustic foam for the previous iterations of my studio and in a cupboard under the stairs. So six moving blankets and two boxes of phone that all cost me maybe two hundred dollars. I bought two millimeter by sorry two meter by one zero point five meter acoustic panel from an old theater for ten dollars on marketplace. We had to seal up the drains, shower and basin to keep moisture and smells out. We removed the shower walls but left the basin because plumbing used a staple gun just to cover all the walls and ceiling with moving blankets, went around the basin and a towel rail, and there's a structural pillar against one wall as well, so the blanket walls are odd shapes, which probably helps to be fair. Added the foam in all corners and the door, and plunked the panel in the corner where the mic goes. It took a bit of experimenting with where to put foam and how to place my desk and microphone to get rido verkos and noise. Added foam on the flat side panel of my desk because it was bouncing sound. And the kitchen is above me, so we had to put a rubber mat under the fridge because the fridge noise was vibrating down here. Wow, they've put some real effort into this. This isn't just like a quickie slap stash thing, you know. I had an old foam mattress against another wall to reduce room noise. An off cut of carpet for the floor was about one hundred dollars from a following place, so maybe three to four hundred dollars all together. I do have photos that she sent me, so check out the show notes and I'll upload dolls up there. There's actually some photos of them building it and what it looks like now. So yeah, she's done a great job. She really has, and as you say, a lot of thought. If it sounds good, it is good, absolutely totally. That's it. Did you say it was three meters across three meters by two meters. I think she set up the top there. That's pretty big. That's a pretty big bathroom. I'm used by my standards. I mean, that's probably the size of a lot of people's in you know, walking closets, but that that's a pretty good size. So because of the volume of that room, you know, it's not going to have a lot of low end response. It's not going to have a lot of low end resonance, I should say. So with her voice, she's not gonna have to worry too much about base trapping or boominess, and she just has to deal with the mid range keeping it from ringing and resonating. And then of course reverb which all the blankets is going to kill the reverb. So sounds like a little bit of time, patience and listening. She got enough of the treatment in the right places, and the mic in the right spot and Bob's around. I think that's the trick, isn't it. I mean, you know, we always say that mic in the right spot. Don't just plunk it in one spot and go, oh, well that sounds crappy. I'll I'll have to deal with that. Move it around, see where it's waving it around? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, you have enough space to move your mic to. You know, moving at six ten centimeters left, right, front and back can make an audible difference, really noticeable difference. So don't don't skip that when you're trying to find the sweet spot. And if it's a really small booth like a four by four foot four by four foot or a one point two meter by one point booth, it's even more critical finding this week. And I've got the ideal bike for her thing, which I'll show you because we're looking at each other on camera. We'll explain after. But there you go. A microphone sap. Well, don't listen to seriously, that's hilarious. Great job, great job. Sent the pro audio. Sweet and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Voodoo Radio Imaging takes the pot. George the check don't forget to subscribe to the show and joining the conversation on our Facebook cord to leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just sake, drop us a note at our website audio suites dot com. Mhmm.