Suggestions on capturing exhaust note

[redshft]

Hey guys. The team and I are experimenting with different ways of capturing the exhaust note of a sports car under full throttle acceleration. Our equipment includes two Zoom H4N recorders with Redhead Windscreens and a Sennheiser wireless lav mic kit.

Now we have taken one of the H4Ns and mounted it in the engine bay and on the bumper. The audio turned out surprisingly well...but we still want crisper as there starts to be a bit of wind noise. I don't want to take any credit away from the Redhead Windscreens, they are WONDERFUL! Although at speeds of 120+ mph there is only so much wind that can be blocked. In fact, some of our best results came from the set-up pictured below!

Any suggestions for recording or post-production? I'm not to familiar with audio editing, but I'm willing to try some options.

 

[Starshine Video]

Find a rolling road Dyno and strap the car down eliminate the wind altogether but still get the sound of the engine under load.

 

[gpforet]

Nice, thanks for the pics. I guess one question is why do you need the sound at 120mph?

I've read that the rolling dyno is the way to go, but another option would be to find a long hill, and record on the climb. The car will be under load, and sound great even at 60 when put in a lower gear.

 

[redshft]

We have a dyno at our facilities, but the problem is reducing the echoes from the reverb. Maybe we can experiment with this though and try hanging some fabric to absorb some of the sound stop it from bouncing everywhere. There is also a big problem with the sound of the rollers at high speed.

gpforet, the cars we shoot with are highly modified and reach the speeds of 100+ very quickly. We want to catch a crisp recording of a car accelerating hard through 3-4 gears.

Thanks.

 

[Noiz2]

I've done a lot of cars and speed is not your friend. Your recording the engine so it's RPMs that count. I have a bunch of very fast by's of sports cars that someone else did and they are near useless because they are too short. Anyway you want a nice not too steep hill where nobody is around. Up hill with high revs and nice shifts. As long as the RPM's are about right it will fit the picture really well. On the way back down you can get some tire chirps and some skids. It is VERY important that the driver know how to handle a car in unusual circumstances to do the skids or you can get hurt so...

Usually we have a mic under the hood, often a dynamic, one in or near a wheel well (for those important tire sounds), and a dynamic with LOTS of foam close to the exhaust (but not in line with it. Pretty much where you have the Zoom but probably pointed at the exhaust pipe. We also try to cover the inside with a mic or two. AND while you have the car get the rest of the coverage. Get some by's and in&stops, fast aways, doors O/C, blinkers, windows,glove box, key in lock door open alarm, seatbelt, etc. It's easy to just get what you think you need but if they change the picture ... Also it is much more useful in your library if you have good coverage for future projects.

As a post note, unless it is important for some reason to be completely authentic we will often use sounds from other cars if they sound like we thought the star car should have sounded like. Some of the high end cars have great engines but everything else sounds like a toy.

 

[redshft]

Great Stuff Noiz! I'll have to see what we can do with the hill trick. Tire noises aren't really a priority right now. We are just worried about capturing the authentic noise that our product makes.

Thanks!