The quiet window is 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Hollywood Burbank Airport has had a voluntary curfew since the 1980s under which airlines do not schedule departures or arrivals in those hours, and the airport reports compliance above 99 percent (Hollywood Burbank Airport). The room I work in on North Catalina Street sits about a mile from the field, close enough that the Metrolink station on the airport's edge is a 13-minute walk. Between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. quiet vocal takes get scheduled around departures. After 10 p.m. the airport stops being the noise floor, and the room's own floor takes over.
Where is the airport relative to the room, and what flies where?
At 2627 North Hollywood Way, in Burbank, three miles northwest of downtown. The field opened on 30 May 1930, sits at 778 feet above sea level and has two asphalt runways: 15/33 at 6,886 feet and 8/26 at 5,802 feet (Wikipedia). Airliners take off to the south on Runway 15 because of the prevailing wind, and land crosswind on Runway 8, the only runway with an instrument landing system and clear terrain on the approach.
Burbank is its own city, and the airport has been owned by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority since Lockheed sold it in 1978. The name is marketing: Hollywood, the neighbourhood of Los Angeles, is about seven miles south as the crow flies, and the only part of the airport inside Los Angeles city limits is the extended north end of Runway 15/33. The building I work in dates from 1938, eight years after the field opened; the Burbank Airport-South Metrolink station at 3750 Empire Avenue is 0.7 miles from the door, and the southeast corner of the airfield, where the Runway 15 takeoff roll ends, is under a mile.
What exactly is the curfew, and why is it voluntary?
Because a mandatory one was struck down. In 1973 the Supreme Court, in City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, overturned the city's 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew on the grounds that airports are federally regulated under the Noise Control Act of 1972 (Wikipedia). What survived is an agreement: scheduled carriers keep their arrivals and departures between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. The airport authority asked the FAA under Part 161 to convert it into a mandatory curfew and was refused in November 2009; it still supports a change in federal law that would allow one.
Two other rules have teeth. Takeoffs and landings by aircraft the airport classifies as noisy are prohibited between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., with exceptions for emergencies, weather diversions and air traffic control delays, under noise rules that predate the 1990 Airport Noise and Capacity Act and are therefore still enforceable (Hollywood Burbank Airport). And the authority has insulated more than 1,800 homes and acoustically treated nearby schools; by its own figures the state-defined noise impact area shrank from 403 acres in 1978 to under 20 acres, a 95 percent reduction.
What does a departure do to a vocal take?
It raises the floor under the vowels. A jet climb-out arrives at a house as broadband noise with most of its energy below 1 kHz, and a wall built in 1938 with the windows shut takes roughly 20 to 25 dB off it. The FAA's residential sound insulation guidance works to an interior goal of 45 dB DNL and treats 20 dB of outdoor-to-indoor reduction at the 65 dB contour as the point where interference becomes minimal (FAA AC 150/5000-9B).
At the microphone: a singer 15 cm from a large-diaphragm condenser puts 90 to 100 dB SPL into the capsule on a chorus. If the room floor sits near 30 dBA between flights and rises into the 40s during a climb-out, the signal-to-noise ratio drops by 10 to 15 dB for roughly a minute. On a loud chorus that still leaves 50 dB of margin. On a whispered verse, sung at 70 dB SPL with the compressor bringing up 6 to 8 dB of gain reduction afterwards, the low rumble becomes audible in the gaps between words. A gate does not fix it, because the noise sits at 100 to 400 Hz under the fundamentals of the voice, and a high-pass filter at 80 Hz removes only the bottom of it. The tool that works is a clock.
How does the session get scheduled around it?
By reading the airport's own data. The authority publishes live flight tracks on WebTrak. Departures on Runway 15 bunch into banks, and the gaps between banks are where quiet verses get recorded. The practical rules in this room: takes of 60 to 90 seconds instead of full passes, a take sheet with the clock time next to each one, and a 10-second room-tone print recorded before the first take so a spectral denoiser has a reference if a flyover sneaks under a keeper.
The last two scheduled hours of the day are the cleanest for quiet material, because traffic thins toward 10 p.m. and stops at it. A residential building has neighbours, so late sessions run at conversation level in the control room, fine for a vocal and wrong for a drum mix. Noisy material such as doubles, ad-libs and shouted choruses goes in the daytime, where a climb-out under a 100 dB SPL vocal changes nothing anyone will hear.
What does the curfew not cover?
General aviation and helicopters. The voluntary curfew binds scheduled commercial operations; a private jet after 10 p.m. is outside it, and the airport authority's police helicopters are based on the field. The curfew also does not touch the railway. The Ventura County Line carries Metrolink and Amtrak trains past the station 0.7 miles away, and the horn a locomotive sounds at a grade crossing sits between 300 Hz and 1 kHz, where no de-esser reaches. The point of the curfew for a vocal session is that the largest and most regular source becomes predictable.
The other half of the floor is the building. Air conditioning, a refrigerator through a wall and the neighbour's television are all closer than any aircraft. My notes on treating a residential production room in Burbank cover the isolation side, and the monitor calibration note covers the listening level that floor is heard against.
What does this mean for a singer coming from downtown?
That the train fits the daytime session and not the late one. Metrolink's Ventura County Line runs from Union Station to Burbank Airport-South, the only airport in the area with a direct rail link to downtown, and the platform is a 13-minute walk from the door (Hollywood Burbank Airport). Weekend service is thin and evening service ends before the curfew's quiet hours begin, so a session that runs to 10 p.m. ends with a rideshare; there is street parking outside. Full credit list with sources at /credits.
Frequently asked
Is Hollywood Burbank Airport in Hollywood? No. It is in Burbank, a separate city with its own government, at 2627 North Hollywood Way. Hollywood is a neighbourhood of the City of Los Angeles about seven miles south. The name was adopted in 2017 for recognition; only the north end of one runway crosses into Los Angeles.
What are the curfew hours at Hollywood Burbank Airport? Airlines do not schedule arrivals or departures between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. under a voluntary curfew that dates from the 1980s, and the airport reports compliance above 99 percent. Emergencies, weather diversions and air traffic control delays are permitted, and the curfew does not bind general aviation.
Can you record a clean vocal a mile from an airport? Yes, with scheduling rather than processing. Between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. takes are placed in the gaps between departures, which the airport's public WebTrak tracker shows in near real time. After 10 p.m. the airport stops being the noise floor of the room.
If a track needs a quiet lead vocal
Send the song and the singer's availability. Quiet verses go in the evening block, doubles and loud choruses in the daytime gaps, and the take sheet comes back with the clock time on every comp choice. Background and contact at /about.