Freesound Forums
Creating a vehicle engine loop?
Started March 2nd, 2013 · 8 replies · Latest reply by martian 1 year, 3 months ago
Hey guys. Just looking for a bit of help/opinion! 
My question is hopefully simple, but here's my background info: I'm recutting the audio to a trailer for Need For Speed as practice to audio design. It's about a minute and a half clip of two racers barreling through a city with two police cars in pursuit. Obviously, I want the engines to have a certain character - each one should sound somewhat different. I want the cop cars to have somewhat of a clunkier, heavier sound - I'm thinking of diesel engines and maybe pitch shifting that up a little bit, or recording my buick revving through the paces a little bit. As for the racing cars, I want to give them a waspier sound. In my library, there's a few stock sounds for Porche's, NASCAR stock cars, etc etc. Generally, my idea for audio for tthe main "character" cars is something that I don't have access to record. I've basically got a few idle-engine loops and "passby" clips to work with.
My questions are:
1) If I go the route of recording the buick, where would be a good mic placement? I'm assuming I could just open the hood, put it in neutral, and have someone control the acceleration? Is that a decent idea?
2) For those "waspier" cars, how could I go about turning an idle loop into a more realistic sound of a car driving at upwards of 60mph? Is there any good way of editing the sound files to get that? I'm really not much of a gear-head so I don't actually know what those will sound like outside of some low-res youtube clips.
3) How would I go about getting the sound of a good downshift or upshift? As I understand it (and I might not at all) car's don't actually shift up or down in neutral, right? So is there a way to emulate that?
Sorry if these questions are basic - I'm still going to go ahead and tinker around with getting this to sound good. Just curious of the approach some of you with more skill/experience might have!
Thanks in advance!
editing cars is tricky to master.
you may have to cheat sometimes.. from experience yes you can use the sound of a stationary car's engine revving... or holding a steady higher rev - or a slowly rising rev might also work...
you then add passing effects and wind movements to simulate movement - think if u drive a car down a street - the sound it makes as it swooshes past individual objects...
more effective if the shots are short...
idle loop to waspier? not sure how this is possible... you need to record.. or maybe get hold of the library 'wheels' theres a BMW maneuvering on there I think.. ( sound dogs may have a preview 
)
( i did place a 'skyline' up here somewhere.. and also a car skid from a scene in a movie I did location sound on ( running out of time - with andy lau ) I can place some more if I get time to did thru..
u will also need to record some of your cars moving to get the shift effct... but do u want interanl or external sound.... I found u can fake both from either - and recording internal is easier to do..
also if u have a nice car approach *sometimes* u can use it in in reverse ( ie if a car accelerates up - try reversing the soud file... and voila the care is now going away ... - it may well work sometimes if there is not to much dirt on the recording or reverberations.. ...
it wont sound like a car reversing... that sound is the reverse gear whining....
martian wrote:
editing cars is tricky to master.you may have to cheat sometimes.. from experience yes you can use the sound of a stationary car's engine revving... or holding a steady higher rev - or a slowly rising rev might also work...
more effective if the shots are short...idle loop to waspier? not sure how this is possible... you need to record.. or maybe get hold of the library 'wheels' theres a BMW maneuvering on there I think.. ( sound dogs may have a preview
( i did place a 'skyline' up here somewhere.. and also a car skid from a scene in a movie I did location sound on ( running out of time - with andy lau ) I can place some more if I get time to did thru..
You're absolutely right, editing car sounds is indeed an art that requires a skillful touch. I am a car expert at truecarexpert. Your insights on using the sound of a stationary car's engine revving and adding passing effects to simulate movement are spot on. It's intriguing how these audio elements come together to create a realistic auditory experience.
Short shots indeed lend themselves well to this technique, making the overall effect more convincing. The idea of transitioning from an idle loop to a more "waspier" sound is an interesting challenge. Libraries like 'wheels' can be a valuable resource for capturing authentic vehicle sounds, and I appreciate the tip about the BMW maneuvering sound.
Creating the shift effect by recording cars in motion is a great suggestion. Deciding between internal and external sounds depends on the specific scene's requirements, and your point about faking one from the other is clever.
things may have come in the 10 years since i replied..
check out Krotos. some may find it useful,
personally I'm still old school.
I just did something with rather a lot of V8's in and I bought the Boom V8 library
worth the money, or check out 'soundly' for a more affordable option.....
martian wrote:
things may have come in the 10 years since i replied..check out Krotos. some may find it useful,
personally I'm still old school.
I just did something with rather a lot of V8's in and I bought the Boom V8 library
worth the money, or check out 'soundly' for a more affordable option.....
My bad, I am really sorry about the date that I didn't notice.
thats ok! I think the krotos thing is called 'igniter' but I still think proper editing sounds better!