From the outside, it looks as if a shanty town has gone up inside my apartment. ACTUALLY, I had to construct my own sound booth. I am using it to record foley — reproducing sounds one would expect to hear in the world of the film.
My booth is pieced together from various cardboard boxes I found in my apartment’s recycling room. It measures 45″x45″x60″. I’ve lined the bottom with towels so that when I need to record footsteps I can easily access the floor.
The inside walls and ceiling are lined with foam kitchen liner I purchased from Dollarama. The perforated kitchen liner does a good job at killing/absorbing high-end reverb. Sound is not completely absorbed inside (I have to turn off the A/C in my apartment when recording) but the materials do a good job at limiting reverb — at a total cost of only about $50.
I’m satisfied with what I’m hearing so far — and honestly, the process of reproducing sound is kind of fun and provokes another part of my creative mind; making me have to use unconventional means to produce the effect that I think best represents a particular sound. For example, instead of recording the actual sound of coffee grind being dumped into a basket filter, I used panko breading instead, for a more coarse, crunchy effect.
Seriously, I’m having a lot of fun!
Andrew
