Sound On Sound magazine has published a detailed review of GIK Acoustics’ PIB Vocal Booth Pro (formerly named the PIB Pack), offering an in-depth, practical look at a product that addresses one of the most persistent challenges in modern recording: capturing clean, controlled vocal takes in real-world spaces that are far from acoustically ideal.
A Practical Solution to a Real Acoustic Problem
The solutions the PIB Vocal Booth Pro provides are not theoretical. Many musicians, producers, and engineers today are working in bedrooms, apartments, rented spaces, or multipurpose rooms where permanent construction or panel mounting is either impractical or impossible. In these environments, the problem is rarely background noise alone. More often, it’s uncontrolled early reflections, short-path room coloration, and uneven decay times that make vocals sound boxy, brittle, or inconsistent.
As Sound On Sound correctly points out in their review, the PIB system is not a soundproof booth. It is not designed to block external noise or to completely isolate a performer from the outside world. Instead, it focuses on what matters most once sound is already inside the room: controlling reflections and decay around the microphone so that the recorded signal is cleaner, drier, and easier to work with in a mix.
The PIB Vocal Booth Pro is engineered to manage the early reflection field and reduce reverb/decay times around a vocalist, solving the room’s influence on the recorded sound without introducing the unnatural, claustrophobic character that smaller foam-based solutions often create.
The PIB VOCAL BOOTH PRO can also be used to reduce bleed in ensemble tracking scenarios, with multiple performers and microphones.
Modular Design, Serious Performance
The PIB Vocal Booth Pro is built around the same design principles that underpin GIK’s larger room treatment systems: depth, broadband performance, and balance. The multi-panel structure places thick absorption strategically around the performer, addressing midrange and treble reflections while extending meaningfully into the upper bass. This is critical for vocals, where chest resonance, proximity effect, and room modes often overlap in the 100–300 Hz range.
Sound On Sound’s review highlights the system’s modular nature and ease of setup, but the more important takeaway is what that modularity enables acoustically. Because the PIB Vocal Booth Pro uses real, broadband absorptive devices rather than thin surface treatments, it avoids the common pitfall of “over-deadening” the highs while leaving the low-mid range untouched. The result is a more natural vocal capture that still sits forward and present in a mix, with fewer technical problems to fix in the recording.
Designed for Real Rooms and Real Workflows
Another point the review reinforces is flexibility. The PIB Vocal Booth Pro is not locked into a single use case. While it’s optimized for vocal recording, it can just as easily be used for voiceover, acoustic instruments, or as part of a larger room treatment strategy. In many studios, it becomes one component in a balanced acoustic plan rather than a standalone fix.
That flexibility reflects a broader GIK philosophy: rooms change, workflows evolve, and acoustic solutions should be able to adapt without forcing costly rebuilds. The PIB Vocal Booth Pro fits naturally into that modular approach.
A Tool, Not a Gimmick
Sound On Sound’s review treats the PIB system as what it is: a practical tool for improving recording quality in compromised spaces. That aligns closely with how we designed it. The PIB Vocal Booth Pro is not about chasing isolation myths or promising impossible results. It’s about giving engineers and artists more control over what the microphone hears, so creative decisions are based on performance rather than fighting the room.
For readers of Sound On Sound and for anyone recording vocals outside of a purpose-built studio, the takeaway is simple: the PIB Vocal Booth Pro offers a serious, acoustically grounded solution where it matters most — at the microphone.
You can read the full Sound On Sound review here.
And learn more about the PIB Vocal Booth Pro here.
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