I received my StudioBricks One XXL in November 2022. It took me 48 minutes to haul it into the house from the curb. Although there are many videos on TH-cam of one person putting a StudioBricks booth together, once you get to the size of the One XXL, it is a two person job. I hired a guy on Taskrabbit to help me put it together. Fortunately, the guy was podcasting from his closet and was just as anxious to put this beast together. It took 38 minutes from start to finish to get it fully assembled, some of the parts were downstairs because they were too heavy for me to carry upstairs by myself, so that took extra time. There is no question, the door is the most difficult piece. It is extremely heavy though beautifully crafted. The StudioBricks booth is amazing, I love it.
I bet my wife that if we had all the pieces laying out in a big room, it would’ve been an under 1-hour job, but man, 38 minutes?! You guys must’ve been hauling it!!! That’s awesome to hear that you had a good setup experience. I totally agree, the craftsmanship is simply next level. The door is something I never hope to move again lol! Thanks for the comment!
Really cool! Glad you had happy with it! The shelf doesn’t look tooooooo hard to move, ideally you could get some squares of the treatment to replace the part underneath where the shelf brackets are. Or perhaps add another shelf and keep the lower level shelf! In any case super awesome. I only do VO recording every blue moon and have a pretty streamlined blanket fort setup (using my boom poles to construct a cube with sound blankets) but as a day to day thing I can imagine how tough it would be. Happy you are happy!
Thanks so much for the kind words! Honestly the blanket Fort setups sound great and in a lot of ways, better. They are almost free of modes that compete in the vocal range. These booths are inherently boxy sounding and take some considerations to avoid. The isolation is the big draw for sure! I think you’re right about the shelf. They send some extra foam squares as well, so it should be as simple as drilling new pilot holes at the desired height. We ordered a 3M keyboard raiser that drills into the bottom of the desk and comes up about 10” or so. I’ll see if that does the trick!
That's a "Mika" mic arm from Yellowtec, it's the standard arm in the broadcast industry; OC White use to be the standard, I prefer them too. This is just "normal" for radio station, anything else would be cheaping out.
Great video! You mention having some height issues with the assembly. My ceiling is borderline acceptable according to SB. What was your ceiling height, and what would have been the minimum to have assembled it without problems? My ceiling height is exactly 90 inches.
Great video, Randy. As a voice actor myself I'm exploring the booth purchase option now. I'd love to hear a 'real world' sound test. As in, sound of kid upstairs dropping toys about the booth, jet flying overhead. Not sure if that's possible but would be really cool if you could.
That’s a great suggestion! I just asked my wife about both of these, and she said the only thing she can sometimes hear is the dog barking, but not even loud enough to ruin a take. Planes and such are completely inaudible as ours is in the basement as well. Results may vary slightly. Our little guy walks around with his push-walker thing right above her head and she doesn’t hear that at all. Hope this helps!
Great review! I want a vocal booth for privacy as well as avoiding sounds coming in from the outside, so it looks like this works wonders for both. Did you get the double wall or triple? Looks like the double wall works fine and there's only -3dB difference between double and triple. Also, you can't beat the look and quality! I'm a synthpop artist/vocalist, so I'm trying to decide between this vocal booth or L.A. Vocal booth and a local custom builder. Looks like a double wall is gonna come dear no matter what.
I'm so sorry for the late reply, somehow I missed this entirely. Ours is the double-wall. We figured because Bailey will be in a basement, in a relatively quiet neighbourhood, it's more than enough. The look and quality was totally a selling point for us! Just looks and feels so pro. Good luck wth the hunt my friend!
Such a great review! Love the details! Forgive me if you mentioned this, but can you tell me what size this is? I definitely want the VO Edition, but is there a specific size? Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the kind words! I believe you can get the VO edition in any size! Ours is 150x189 or something like that. The VO edition (as far as I remember) includes the vent, copy stand, mic stand, and desk. I believe you can order it in just about any size :)
Are there advantages to an acoustically treated room with bigger bass traps, acoustic panelling, etc? How would Studiobricks compare to a properly treated room?
Ahh this is a great question! So without nerding out too hard, small rooms like this have one major problem, and that's that the room modes, or standing waves that fit in a space like this tend to overlap the dialogue range. In a much larger booth, say 12x14 or something, the room modes would be a much lower frequency, which makes them less of a concern for recording dialogue. Now Studiobricks does an awesome job of outfitting these with proper bass traps for the space! But in my opinion, you can likely make a room sound better by building into an existing space, but it will likely be hard to match the level of isolation. They are fantastic for isolating (about 45dB). Also by the time you get all of the materials, ventilation system, bass traps, acoustic paneling, and build it, you may be close to the price of a Studiobricks anyways. Long winded answer, I know.
This was such a great video! Very great really helpful so many of my questions were answered! Also I still have my AKG P 420 along with my other mics. It does sound so good!
@@randyrektor Gotcha that's fair. How's it holding up? Does it really weigh a ton? Wonder what the weight limit is in my modular home idk if it would even support it lol. Looks cozy as heck though, jealous of that work space!
It’s been holding up great! Some of the blocks have shifted slightly but I think that’s because we didn’t level it properly to begin with. We’ve debated re-levelling but it’s just not worth it for our needs. It weighs a lot, I’m not sure the total weight though, but it’s heavy as heck
It's fantastic. There's a fan that screws into the side wall on the inside. When you customize the booth, you can choose where it vents. We chose under the desk as it will be a blind spot on the mic (hopefully). It has setting to control the speed and is quite good! Pulls fresh air in and vents air through a chamber out the top.
Of course soundproofing a room can be much more effective than any company's custom booth. And of course, that's not gonna cost 4k, not even double of that...
For sure there are ways to do it way cheaper. To get something with similar effectiveness (in Canada) building materials would be $4k-6k. The acoustic treatment in this booth is not just insulation, it’s professionally rated treatment tuned to the dimensions of the space. But yes, if you want to do it for $1k, you sure can
@@randyrektor there isn't "a little" or "a lot" soundproofed. There is only soundproofed or not soundproofed. Soundproofed is only achieve with a room-in-a-room approach and this is not 1k for sure.
To everyone here looking at buying something like this: if you’re handy with tools and get a few days off, you can build something more effective at a fraction of the cost of solutions like this. However, if purchases like this don’t hurt too much and you’re not good with tools, go for it
You may be slightly underestimating how much -45dB of soundproofing is. It requires a floating room and decoupling layers. Not to mention, the sound treatment is professionally designed for a balanced frequency response, which you can’t just build with materials from the hardware store. It would be very difficult to match this level of soundproofing in a space equally as small. But you’re right, you can achieve similar for less, but you won’t get the same results.
@@randyrektor On one hand, you’re right. -45db is not bad. I built 2 recording studios and studied acoustics and recording/mixing engineering, so for me it’s clear that I would build something like that by myself as I have the tools and knowledge. However, without that, i can see how something like this is not possible. However, I’m pretty sure it handles low frequencies pretty bad considering there is not much for bass absorption, in your case this doesn’t seem to be necessary tho. There are still flaws in this booth that would make it a no go for me, but in comparison to similar products, this seems to be a pretty solid choice.
Ahhh okay, you having a background in acoustics adds a lot of context to your comment haha. I see a lot of people saying “it’s easy, just build a room with lots of fibreglass insulation” so my mind instantly jumps there when people say it would be easy to replicate. Yeah, you’re totally right, the low-end performance isn’t stellar. For Bailey’s VO work, it’s not an issue at all. Even for acoustic guitar and such, it’s not bad, but it does get noticable if you’re using it as an iso box for cabs. I tried double bass too and it was just okay.
I've never seen a StudioBricks room assembled with bass traps that run vertically from floor to ceiling. Can they be installed either horizontally wall to wall or vertically? Does the VO package come with 2 bass traps?
They test assemble them before shipping, so it shows up with a space missing acoustic treatment that is perfectly sized to fit the bass traps. Because low end moves spherically, it really won’t make much of a difference where they are in the space, especially if the mic isn’t close to any of the walls. I think it came with 2 but we opted for 4 and paid extra for them. They are super heavy duty!
Well after seeing your test with speaker the fact you can still hear music very audibly in the booth shows its not sound proof ! As you said a professional build would be cheaper for a 1 person booth build and i guarantee you if done correctly you should not hear that music leaking into the booth. Way to expensive for the level of soundproofing it provides.
You may have missed the part right after where I pointed out that I didn’t install the cable pass. Once it was put on, it’s giving the ~45db of reduction they advertise on their site. My wife can’t hear me yelling her name from the doorway when it’s time for lunch lol
@@randyrektor Thanks for your reply, I actually went into one of their showrooms today and i went into the booth and asked the salesman to talk and to my surprise i could hear him very loudly, which is very disappointing when paying such a high price for a soundproof booth. So i was very interested when you played your music which was at a higher level than him talking and yes you an hear it......its crazy how much entered. Trust me your little cable inlet at the bottom of booth is not allowing all that music to spill into the booth !! You can hear allot of bass entering which is happening from all areas of the booth. I think it looks great but for that price you want it sound proof which it is not.
I’ve used this one for guitar before! I wouldn’t recommend going too much smaller than this unit, but it definitely works and it’s quite comfortable with a chair and a small mic stand
@@randyrektor thanks you! i am thinking about buying one and i am really interested on One PLus wich i think is the one of your video, if you say it works and it's comfortable for guitarrist i'll not search anymore, just save some money and buy Studio Bricks One Plus. 😁😁
@@randyrektor thanks you! i am thinking about buying The One Plus. Do you think it would be a good option? or i must buy the XXL? i have a limited space at home and i dont want to spend too much
@@randyrektor thanks you a lot, really, i apreciate your soon response and your honesty, i'll study a bit the sizes, maby order one of them but and if i had any hesitation about xxl will not fix on my room but one plus would be too small i'll order a custom one... hope not being too expensive jajaj Thanks. The most important thing is that they works and i will be able to record with better quality and with out disturb my neighbors XD THANKS. PS: Very good video!
Aww man this video was very good until you did the isolation test. Since this is by far the most important information for most viewers, it would have been great if you could have tested it with actual voice or at least base heavy music (like hip hop) because your speakers and the music were just playing in the upper mids and highs which are naturally very easily to isolate from. Base is were the money is...
Thanks but there are plenty of isolation videos online, even on their site you can watch a bunch of videos that clearly show what 43dB reduction sounds like with various sources. It’s important for my reviews to be relevant to my own workflow so they are authentic and accurate. Hope you understand my perspective. 🙌🏻🙌🏻
I received my StudioBricks One XXL in November 2022. It took me 48 minutes to haul it into the house from the curb. Although there are many videos on TH-cam of one person putting a StudioBricks booth together, once you get to the size of the One XXL, it is a two person job. I hired a guy on Taskrabbit to help me put it together. Fortunately, the guy was podcasting from his closet and was just as anxious to put this beast together. It took 38 minutes from start to finish to get it fully assembled, some of the parts were downstairs because they were too heavy for me to carry upstairs by myself, so that took extra time. There is no question, the door is the most difficult piece. It is extremely heavy though beautifully crafted. The StudioBricks booth is amazing, I love it.
I bet my wife that if we had all the pieces laying out in a big room, it would’ve been an under 1-hour job, but man, 38 minutes?! You guys must’ve been hauling it!!! That’s awesome to hear that you had a good setup experience. I totally agree, the craftsmanship is simply next level. The door is something I never hope to move again lol! Thanks for the comment!
Really cool! Glad you had happy with it! The shelf doesn’t look tooooooo hard to move, ideally you could get some squares of the treatment to replace the part underneath where the shelf brackets are. Or perhaps add another shelf and keep the lower level shelf! In any case super awesome. I only do VO recording every blue moon and have a pretty streamlined blanket fort setup (using my boom poles to construct a cube with sound blankets) but as a day to day thing I can imagine how tough it would be. Happy you are happy!
Thanks so much for the kind words! Honestly the blanket Fort setups sound great and in a lot of ways, better. They are almost free of modes that compete in the vocal range. These booths are inherently boxy sounding and take some considerations to avoid. The isolation is the big draw for sure! I think you’re right about the shelf. They send some extra foam squares as well, so it should be as simple as drilling new pilot holes at the desired height. We ordered a 3M keyboard raiser that drills into the bottom of the desk and comes up about 10” or so. I’ll see if that does the trick!
I love that I can channel my inner Ace Ventura now
I was always wondering what you do in there all day..
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I’m coming over to belt my face off.
Um, yes. Please do.
That's a "Mika" mic arm from Yellowtec, it's the standard arm in the broadcast industry; OC White use to be the standard, I prefer them too. This is just "normal" for radio station, anything else would be cheaping out.
Great video! You mention having some height issues with the assembly. My ceiling is borderline acceptable according to SB. What was your ceiling height, and what would have been the minimum to have assembled it without problems? My ceiling height is exactly 90 inches.
Looking to get one of these, thanks for the great insight and breakdown. Very helpful. 😊
Awesome! Glad it was helpful
素敵な映像ありがとうございました✨
またよろしくお願い致します‼️
Thank you so much for watching.
Great video, Randy. As a voice actor myself I'm exploring the booth purchase option now. I'd love to hear a 'real world' sound test. As in, sound of kid upstairs dropping toys about the booth, jet flying overhead. Not sure if that's possible but would be really cool if you could.
That’s a great suggestion! I just asked my wife about both of these, and she said the only thing she can sometimes hear is the dog barking, but not even loud enough to ruin a take. Planes and such are completely inaudible as ours is in the basement as well. Results may vary slightly. Our little guy walks around with his push-walker thing right above her head and she doesn’t hear that at all. Hope this helps!
@@randyrektori
Great review! I want a vocal booth for privacy as well as avoiding sounds coming in from the outside, so it looks like this works wonders for both. Did you get the double wall or triple? Looks like the double wall works fine and there's only -3dB difference between double and triple. Also, you can't beat the look and quality!
I'm a synthpop artist/vocalist, so I'm trying to decide between this vocal booth or L.A. Vocal booth and a local custom builder. Looks like a double wall is gonna come dear no matter what.
I'm so sorry for the late reply, somehow I missed this entirely. Ours is the double-wall. We figured because Bailey will be in a basement, in a relatively quiet neighbourhood, it's more than enough. The look and quality was totally a selling point for us! Just looks and feels so pro. Good luck wth the hunt my friend!
@@randyrektor Thanks!
Subscribed to support the channel and you! Thanks for all your guidance on Voices!
Thanks so much for stopping by! It's my pleasure :)
Such a great review! Love the details! Forgive me if you mentioned this, but can you tell me what size this is? I definitely want the VO Edition, but is there a specific size? Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the kind words! I believe you can get the VO edition in any size! Ours is 150x189 or something like that. The VO edition (as far as I remember) includes the vent, copy stand, mic stand, and desk. I believe you can order it in just about any size :)
Are there advantages to an acoustically treated room with bigger bass traps, acoustic panelling, etc? How would Studiobricks compare to a properly treated room?
Ahh this is a great question! So without nerding out too hard, small rooms like this have one major problem, and that's that the room modes, or standing waves that fit in a space like this tend to overlap the dialogue range. In a much larger booth, say 12x14 or something, the room modes would be a much lower frequency, which makes them less of a concern for recording dialogue. Now Studiobricks does an awesome job of outfitting these with proper bass traps for the space! But in my opinion, you can likely make a room sound better by building into an existing space, but it will likely be hard to match the level of isolation. They are fantastic for isolating (about 45dB). Also by the time you get all of the materials, ventilation system, bass traps, acoustic paneling, and build it, you may be close to the price of a Studiobricks anyways. Long winded answer, I know.
That was a great answer! Thank you for covering these important points Randy.@@randyrektor
This was such a great video! Very great really helpful so many of my questions were answered! Also I still have my AKG P 420 along with my other mics. It does sound so good!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the comment.
Not throwing in a few voiceover examples of something being recorded in there is crazy lol
Lots of those videos online already. I wanted to highlight the buying experience. Plenty of examples on my channel as well.
@@randyrektor Gotcha that's fair. How's it holding up? Does it really weigh a ton? Wonder what the weight limit is in my modular home idk if it would even support it lol. Looks cozy as heck though, jealous of that work space!
It’s been holding up great! Some of the blocks have shifted slightly but I think that’s because we didn’t level it properly to begin with. We’ve debated re-levelling but it’s just not worth it for our needs. It weighs a lot, I’m not sure the total weight though, but it’s heavy as heck
Howd the ventilation in there? Whisperrooms have super powerful fans, how does this hold up
It's fantastic. There's a fan that screws into the side wall on the inside. When you customize the booth, you can choose where it vents. We chose under the desk as it will be a blind spot on the mic (hopefully). It has setting to control the speed and is quite good! Pulls fresh air in and vents air through a chamber out the top.
Very interesting. Well explained!
Thank you!!
It's weird how hard it is to buy one of these things.
Weird, I had a great experience. Maybe find a local dealer, that’s what I did. It was great!
Of course soundproofing a room can be much more effective than any company's custom booth. And of course, that's not gonna cost 4k, not even double of that...
For sure there are ways to do it way cheaper. To get something with similar effectiveness (in Canada) building materials would be $4k-6k. The acoustic treatment in this booth is not just insulation, it’s professionally rated treatment tuned to the dimensions of the space. But yes, if you want to do it for $1k, you sure can
@@randyrektor there isn't "a little" or "a lot" soundproofed. There is only soundproofed or not soundproofed. Soundproofed is only achieve with a room-in-a-room approach and this is not 1k for sure.
I need one!!
Yea buddyyyyy
I wish they made every kids bedrooms like this 😂
Hahaha the amount of sleepless night we had with our little guy… I hear you lol
To everyone here looking at buying something like this: if you’re handy with tools and get a few days off, you can build something more effective at a fraction of the cost of solutions like this. However, if purchases like this don’t hurt too much and you’re not good with tools, go for it
You may be slightly underestimating how much -45dB of soundproofing is. It requires a floating room and decoupling layers. Not to mention, the sound treatment is professionally designed for a balanced frequency response, which you can’t just build with materials from the hardware store. It would be very difficult to match this level of soundproofing in a space equally as small. But you’re right, you can achieve similar for less, but you won’t get the same results.
@@randyrektor On one hand, you’re right. -45db is not bad. I built 2 recording studios and studied acoustics and recording/mixing engineering, so for me it’s clear that I would build something like that by myself as I have the tools and knowledge. However, without that, i can see how something like this is not possible. However, I’m pretty sure it handles low frequencies pretty bad considering there is not much for bass absorption, in your case this doesn’t seem to be necessary tho. There are still flaws in this booth that would make it a no go for me, but in comparison to similar products, this seems to be a pretty solid choice.
Ahhh okay, you having a background in acoustics adds a lot of context to your comment haha. I see a lot of people saying “it’s easy, just build a room with lots of fibreglass insulation” so my mind instantly jumps there when people say it would be easy to replicate. Yeah, you’re totally right, the low-end performance isn’t stellar. For Bailey’s VO work, it’s not an issue at all. Even for acoustic guitar and such, it’s not bad, but it does get noticable if you’re using it as an iso box for cabs. I tried double bass too and it was just okay.
@@randyrektor haha yeahh I get that, that’s the internet… Another point tho: it looks really really good, like a piece of furniture, so yeah
Can I ask how tall your garage door is? I'm curious what kind of clearance you needed for the larger box.
Hey there, it’s 8’ from the concrete to the lip of the door.
If the wife wants it higher, you will make it higher 🤪
Great video man - well done
Thank you kindly
I've never seen a StudioBricks room assembled with bass traps that run vertically from floor to ceiling. Can they be installed either horizontally wall to wall or vertically? Does the VO package come with 2 bass traps?
They test assemble them before shipping, so it shows up with a space missing acoustic treatment that is perfectly sized to fit the bass traps. Because low end moves spherically, it really won’t make much of a difference where they are in the space, especially if the mic isn’t close to any of the walls. I think it came with 2 but we opted for 4 and paid extra for them. They are super heavy duty!
How much is the XXL model?
how about space? there are enough space for a guitarrist?
Totally! I wouldn’t go much smaller than this unit though. It would get cozy quickly
@@randyrektor thanks you!
Well after seeing your test with speaker the fact you can still hear music very audibly in the booth shows its not sound proof !
As you said a professional build would be cheaper for a 1 person booth build and i guarantee you if done correctly you should not hear that music leaking into the booth.
Way to expensive for the level of soundproofing it provides.
You may have missed the part right after where I pointed out that I didn’t install the cable pass. Once it was put on, it’s giving the ~45db of reduction they advertise on their site. My wife can’t hear me yelling her name from the doorway when it’s time for lunch lol
@@randyrektor Thanks for your reply,
I actually went into one of their showrooms today and i went into the booth and asked the salesman to talk and to my surprise i could hear him very loudly, which is very disappointing when paying such a high price for a soundproof booth.
So i was very interested when you played your music which was at a higher level than him talking and yes you an hear it......its crazy how much entered.
Trust me your little cable inlet at the bottom of booth is not allowing all that music to spill into the booth !! You can hear allot of bass entering which is happening from all areas of the booth.
I think it looks great but for that price you want it sound proof which it is not.
What is the Build Height?
How much was the Studiobricks VO Edition???
It all depends on the size you get. I believe the smallest unit is around $7k plus shipping and duties.
So coooool
Thanks man!
I would think for that kind of money u wouldn't be able to hear any thing
It’s much better with the cable duct installed. We ended up pulling it out and adding it later.
@randyrektor o ok
is it apropiate for guitarrist? do you think a man with a guitar would have enough space to record there?
I’ve used this one for guitar before! I wouldn’t recommend going too much smaller than this unit, but it definitely works and it’s quite comfortable with a chair and a small mic stand
@@randyrektor thanks you! i am thinking about buying one and i am really interested on One PLus wich i think is the one of your video, if you say it works and it's comfortable for guitarrist i'll not search anymore, just save some money and buy Studio Bricks One Plus. 😁😁
@@randyrektor thanks you! i am thinking about buying The One Plus. Do you think it would be a good option? or i must buy the XXL? i have a limited space at home and i dont want to spend too much
@@pablocantero8077I’m not sure of the size of the One Plus
@@randyrektor thanks you a lot, really, i apreciate your soon response and your honesty, i'll study a bit the sizes, maby order one of them but and if i had any hesitation about xxl will not fix on my room but one plus would be too small i'll order a custom one... hope not being too expensive jajaj Thanks. The most important thing is that they works and i will be able to record with better quality and with out disturb my neighbors XD THANKS.
PS: Very good video!
Aww man this video was very good until you did the isolation test. Since this is by far the most important information for most viewers, it would have been great if you could have tested it with actual voice or at least base heavy music (like hip hop) because your speakers and the music were just playing in the upper mids and highs which are naturally very easily to isolate from. Base is were the money is...
Thanks but there are plenty of isolation videos online, even on their site you can watch a bunch of videos that clearly show what 43dB reduction sounds like with various sources. It’s important for my reviews to be relevant to my own workflow so they are authentic and accurate. Hope you understand my perspective. 🙌🏻🙌🏻
anyone is using one to isolate guitar amps ? I know, I could use virtual amps, I’m old school 😂