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Sound Design of Electric Cars

DavidY

Active Member
In the news here in the UK is that new models of electric cars from tomorrow in the EU must have a sound generator so people can hear them at low speeds:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48815968
With some possible sounds here:


It seems the car manufacturers have got various famous musicians on the job, including composing superstar (and occasional VI-Control contributor) Hans Zimmer and the band Linkin Park.

However I'm wondering what the traffic jams of the future will sound like, when these things become common?

If all the cars are moving at 10mph but playing pitched notes in different keys and on a different algorithm, I'm not sure it will make a nice sound. On the other hand, will cars of the same make be able to coordinate to make a chord - eg whatever speed difference means the notes are a 3rd apart?

And will it be possible to literally "tune" your car in a very different way to what that's meant for years...?
 
How about they go with the trends and make the cars sound like those hybrid braaahms? Traffic would be truly "epic".

But more importantly, will those cars run at 440hz or 432hz?


They've had sound designers design every aspect of a car for ages, from how it sounds to close a door to how the engine sounds, I somehow doubt that they bring in entirely new talent to re-invent the wheel (no pun intended) and go for something entirely different. I think they mostly want the strong brand names for marketing and the result will still sound very much like a car.
 
Pretty soon we'll be downloading car tones from an app store and there will be a market for vintage "analog" engine emulations. And there will be purists who argue online about they don't compare to the real thing. And there will be a debate between scripted revving and true, deep-sampled engine noise. And then the old folks will complain about how the post-gen-Z kids don't even know what a real car is anymore.

I reckon the forum could be called VehI-Control
 
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Pretty soon we'll be downloading car tones from an app store and there will be a market for vintage "analog" engine emulations.

Indeed - that's pretty much what I was getting at with this:
And will it be possible to literally "tune" your car in a very different way to what that's meant for years...?
 
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