This is a commercial Ferrari and Shell did together to promote Shell gasoline...the car sounds amazing...what mic(s) , audio equipment would you have to use to achieve this? I notice that every car commercial or car show (like BBC's "Top Gear") makes the car sound so good....how do they do that?
This sounds amazing...How do you achieve this sound?
- Thread starter Wcast
- Start date
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Don't know what commercial your talking about since you don't have a link, but I have done a number of car commercials so I can guess.
The first thing is layers and coverage. First if at all possible you go out and record the hell out of the car. Then you find out how "accurate" they want the sound. As a rule they want the foundation to be THE car but they also want that Bond/ Action Film sound so...
Once you cut in the basic track you add layers, to get it to where you want it (usually bigger). Then you add layers of specifics. Such as if there is a 2 sec shot of the tire you add tire on pavement (usually a bunch of tracks like grit some real tire, maybe some tape peel (to get that sticky tire on road), maybe a touch of squeel, if your in a turn, etc). If you see it you hear it and then some.
We usually end up with between 50 to 90 tracks of FX. Some of that is backgrounds and Foley but mostly it is just a lot of layers of car.
Now the BBC probably isn't using that many tracks because of crew and time constraints but the basic idea is the same. You put so much detail in the track it gets sort of three dimensional.
So
1 good recordings
2 a big library
3 use a lot of 1 & 2
The first thing is layers and coverage. First if at all possible you go out and record the hell out of the car. Then you find out how "accurate" they want the sound. As a rule they want the foundation to be THE car but they also want that Bond/ Action Film sound so...
Once you cut in the basic track you add layers, to get it to where you want it (usually bigger). Then you add layers of specifics. Such as if there is a 2 sec shot of the tire you add tire on pavement (usually a bunch of tracks like grit some real tire, maybe some tape peel (to get that sticky tire on road), maybe a touch of squeel, if your in a turn, etc). If you see it you hear it and then some.
We usually end up with between 50 to 90 tracks of FX. Some of that is backgrounds and Foley but mostly it is just a lot of layers of car.
Now the BBC probably isn't using that many tracks because of crew and time constraints but the basic idea is the same. You put so much detail in the track it gets sort of three dimensional.
So
1 good recordings
2 a big library
3 use a lot of 1 & 2
Oops, my fault. There are a couple of examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hiAhLStjAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUuokOOdRpU
Did they overlap the video with audio they took from somewhere else? What technique did they use?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hiAhLStjAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUuokOOdRpU
Did they overlap the video with audio they took from somewhere else? What technique did they use?
From what it seems, it's going to be a ton of work in order to achieve this sound. All I want is for the viewer to experience raw, monstrous sound of the car. It doesn't have to be exactly like those in the video clips above, but decently close to it. What kind of mic would you recommend for this type of shoot? I would assume some sort of shotgun mic would be best?
I think that a big part of it is the lack of sound from the city. The car might have been recorded in every way possible at a track far from urban areas and when the track was closed. Then you get the real exterior isolated sounds. But you also need to spend a ton of time in post and make them match perfectly. There are a few ways to achieve this.
Also, Ferraris sound awesome... so it helps to start with a good subject.
Also, Ferraris sound awesome... so it helps to start with a good subject.
Humanwire
Active member
I'd have to agree, that it starts with a good subject. The way I would do it is to mic several different parts of the car for different sounds. A mic at the tip of the exhaust would sound nice and bassy. A mic near the engine for the nice crisp high whine of the engine. Maybe a few mics by the wheels to get some of the squealing.
Noiz2, does that sound right?
Noiz2, does that sound right?
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Ironically enough, the subject we are going to shoot is a Lamborghini Murcielago, with the upgraded factory exhaust. My question is, what kind of mic would be best to use here? How would I even get a mic on the tip of the exhaust, etc? Sorry for being a newbie guys, I really appreciate all the help.
Spartacus
Veteran
Sth that can handle a high SPL (=dynamic mic) I guess, for recording close to the exhaust.
But maybe also a shotgun from further away...
And probably some extreme noise cancelling headphones for judging sound near the running engine...
But from there it´s probably 90% post...
MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
The car already sounds great... trust me on that. Then get a good shotgun and explore the car with it sonically. A 416, cs3e, etc. would get that sound. The peaks are totally blowing before the 1 minute mark... but just like shaky-cam can heighten the tension visually, they've blown the levels to good effect. I suspect that the levels were possibly blown in post... with a distortion filter and an exaggerated spike added to the middle frequencies... like 800hz or so.
I don't think it would be all that hard to get that soundtrack.
FTR I got goosebumps too... stuff like that makes me love sound.
I don't think it would be all that hard to get that soundtrack.
FTR I got goosebumps too... stuff like that makes me love sound.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
As I said it's mostly layers.
This spot
Which I worked on is somewhat similar, though obviously not as sexy a car. It was put together exactly as outlined above except we only had limited access to the actual car and no track. All the recordings of the car were done on streets and we never seriously broke the speed limit. How fast a car sounds has very little to do with how fast it is actually going. They didn't record any sound during the shoot so nothing is from the footage.
This spot
Which I worked on is somewhat similar, though obviously not as sexy a car. It was put together exactly as outlined above except we only had limited access to the actual car and no track. All the recordings of the car were done on streets and we never seriously broke the speed limit. How fast a car sounds has very little to do with how fast it is actually going. They didn't record any sound during the shoot so nothing is from the footage.
Alan H. Chang
Veteran
LAYERS!
Noiz2, I love Nürburgring. That's one of the most challenging tracks to most folks. Good recordings is almost always the start of any soundtrack.
Noiz2, I love Nürburgring. That's one of the most challenging tracks to most folks. Good recordings is almost always the start of any soundtrack.
The cockpit will be easy to mic. You can probably figure something out for the engine compartment but it will take some thinking and failure... try to get a good mount and a mic that is not prone to accepting lots of vibration into the signal. The baby ball gag is probably the smallest wind protection you can get and should give you a few options in terms of placement. What I am taking about is trying to figure out a way to record road noise (tire noise) and possibly some wind noise some how... they are a big part of the driving experience and feedback. Any driving enthusiast will tell you that.
All of the shots where the camera is on the car use sound that can be recorded with the car parked. Like Noiz said, the sound of the engine is not relative to the speed of the car, it is only relative to the speed of the engine. Not sure if you want to redline a 350k more than a few times... what you could do is put it on a dyno but that wouldn't work cause of the room. So you will have to redline it a bunch of times or at least raise the back end off the ground to load some mass onto the engine... just make sure you do something that won't hurt the car is what Iam saying especially since pull power shifts are a must. The problem is that the car will rev way too fast if it has no load and that would be just like telling a lie You could rent one of those mobile dynos and park it in a field.
Once you figure that out what's good is that those takes will be easy as heck to record with excellent isolation thanks to the strong signal you will get.
I agree on walking the car with the mic and headphones on, that way you'll quickly find placements you like.
I am nowhere near good enough to know just what you can do in post but I'd certainly get some doppler effect stuff with power shifts... don't forget about the down shifts! And of course what Noiz said about the layers: "Once you cut in the basic track you add layers, to get it to where you want it (usually bigger). Then you add layers of specifics. Such as if there is a 2 sec shot of the tire you add tire on pavement (usually a bunch of tracks like grit some real tire, maybe some tape peel (to get that sticky tire on road), maybe a touch of squeel, if your in a turn, etc). If you see it you hear it and then some." But it will be a BIG post job to get it to match loads like these guys did for the corners bumps and straights... and that was also part of the magic. If you go out and record the car doing a bunch of things as opposed to knowing what you want and getting options for those specifics then you will have a very hard time in post.
Any way you look at it, it is a BIG sound job. But man! What a spot!
All of the shots where the camera is on the car use sound that can be recorded with the car parked. Like Noiz said, the sound of the engine is not relative to the speed of the car, it is only relative to the speed of the engine. Not sure if you want to redline a 350k more than a few times... what you could do is put it on a dyno
but that wouldn't work cause of the room. So you will have to redline it a bunch of times or at least raise the back end off the ground to load some mass onto the engine... just make sure you do something that won't hurt the car is what Iam saying especially since pull power shifts are a must. The problem is that the car will rev way too fast if it has no load and that would be just like telling a lie You could rent one of those mobile dynos and park it in a field.Once you figure that out what's good is that those takes will be easy as heck to record with excellent isolation thanks to the strong signal you will get.
I agree on walking the car with the mic and headphones on, that way you'll quickly find placements you like.
I am nowhere near good enough to know just what you can do in post but I'd certainly get some doppler effect stuff with power shifts... don't forget about the down shifts! And of course what Noiz said about the layers: "Once you cut in the basic track you add layers, to get it to where you want it (usually bigger). Then you add layers of specifics. Such as if there is a 2 sec shot of the tire you add tire on pavement (usually a bunch of tracks like grit some real tire, maybe some tape peel (to get that sticky tire on road), maybe a touch of squeel, if your in a turn, etc). If you see it you hear it and then some." But it will be a BIG post job to get it to match loads like these guys did for the corners bumps and straights... and that was also part of the magic. If you go out and record the car doing a bunch of things as opposed to knowing what you want and getting options for those specifics then you will have a very hard time in post.
Any way you look at it, it is a BIG sound job. But man! What a spot!
I see what you guys are saying, thanks for all the help so far. Well, I found out we wont be shooting on a track, but on regular streets and roads. I found this video to be the closest example of what I am going to be doing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWwy0G_NKbU
It sounds like it would be easier to shoot (audio-wise), but now my concern is those side to side driving shots...where the camera crew's car is moving at the same speed as the subject car (in this case, an orange lamborghini. My concern is that all the wind noise will drown out that awesome sounding v12. How would I capture that engine noise without the wind drowning it out like they do in the video example above? Also, are there any specific on camera mics under $400 that will do the trick? Thanks again guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWwy0G_NKbU
It sounds like it would be easier to shoot (audio-wise), but now my concern is those side to side driving shots...where the camera crew's car is moving at the same speed as the subject car (in this case, an orange lamborghini. My concern is that all the wind noise will drown out that awesome sounding v12. How would I capture that engine noise without the wind drowning it out like they do in the video example above? Also, are there any specific on camera mics under $400 that will do the trick? Thanks again guys.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Wcast,
I'll say this again. The sounds were NOT recorded while the footage was shot. You need to record the car separately. If you think they just used recording that were done in sync while shooting your missing some fundamental understanding of what audio post is all about. Having done maybe 60+ car commercials we have NEVER used any sync sound. In most cases they didn't record any. What sound needs is very different from what picture needs and you are not going to get them at the same time.
I'll say this again. The sounds were NOT recorded while the footage was shot. You need to record the car separately. If you think they just used recording that were done in sync while shooting your missing some fundamental understanding of what audio post is all about. Having done maybe 60+ car commercials we have NEVER used any sync sound. In most cases they didn't record any. What sound needs is very different from what picture needs and you are not going to get them at the same time.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Ick. I hate it when they have a really good opportunity to do a dramatic sound track and they bail out to the safety net of the usual car ad music, just awful!
But, I suspect that all of the, very little, sound used in the spot was out of a commercial library, probably Sound Ideas. I would bet money that it wasn't recorded in that location and might well not have even been the right car. I have a bunch of Lamborghini recordings including some of the Murcielago and they don't sound very close to the stuff in the ad. The Murcielago in particular has a much throatier sound.