commodore
I'm not looking for a tutorial or anything, just some basic hints. What kind of software do you use? Do people actually make engine sounds from youtube videos?
mianiak
There is pro software like Protools, Wavelab, Adobe Soundbooth, etc, but they are pretty pricey. There is free software called Audacity.
Sourcing the sound is touchy, youtube is not very good quality, even with a HD mp4 the sound is compressed, much like a jpg is compressed. The final sound is wav which is uncompressed so if you source the sound from youtube you will not end up with the correct end product.
The right way to source the sound is take a decent fullrange microphone and record the car twice, once inside and once outside, revving from idle to redline then back to idle. Then you take that sound file and break it up, say it redlines at 6000, you cut it at 2000 and 4000, so you have 3 parts, idle to 2000, 2000 to 4000, 4000 to 6000. *(that value is not concrete, it depends on a few different factors, ie, there is a powerband where the pitch will change faster, so you want to cut it at the point it changes)*. Then you take a pitch shifter and from the middle point bend the sound up from the low end and down from the high end so you end up with a flat pitch in the middle.
Then you need to set up the sfx file, but I have nfi how that works, I'll let someone else explain that bit
Sourcing the sound is touchy, youtube is not very good quality, even with a HD mp4 the sound is compressed, much like a jpg is compressed. The final sound is wav which is uncompressed so if you source the sound from youtube you will not end up with the correct end product.
The right way to source the sound is take a decent fullrange microphone and record the car twice, once inside and once outside, revving from idle to redline then back to idle. Then you take that sound file and break it up, say it redlines at 6000, you cut it at 2000 and 4000, so you have 3 parts, idle to 2000, 2000 to 4000, 4000 to 6000. *(that value is not concrete, it depends on a few different factors, ie, there is a powerband where the pitch will change faster, so you want to cut it at the point it changes)*. Then you take a pitch shifter and from the middle point bend the sound up from the low end and down from the high end so you end up with a flat pitch in the middle.
Then you need to set up the sfx file, but I have nfi how that works, I'll let someone else explain that bit
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commodore
Thank you that was exactly what I needed. I'm not interested in the sfx file.
mianiak
yw.
One more thing i forgot to mention, you want inside to be stereo, so you need 2 mics.
Seven Smiles
Don't you need to record the car revving from idle to redline under load? It makes the job more difficult but surely the engine sounds different?
mianiak
I suppose it all depends on how far you want to go. From a business side, the most economical way to do it is just rev it in neutral. It would take no time at all to setup the mics, find the sweet spot and record it. Then in the studio you have a clean sound and it would take next to no time to finalise it.
When you start recording it under load you have other sounds involved like wind noise, dyno noise, road noise from the tires, etc. Then you have to remove those sounds from the mix which can lead to bad quality once it's all done and in truth, it goes against all the principles of sound recording with the main principle being to record the sound as perfect as possible.
To a point, the engine is under load when you just rev it in neutral anyway, when accelerating you have the weight of the flywheel resisting it and when decelerating, you have the weight of the flywheel trying to keep it spinning.
I am mainly referring to street cars. You will probably run into problems doing it this way when you have very powerful engines like F1 etc, if you think how fast they would go from idle to redline it would leave you with hardly any room to edit it.
MaXyM
there should be no problem to record engine sound using roller dynamo-meter (I think you referred to it by 'dyno').
In case or racing cars, engine yelling is x-times louder than rollers noise. Additionally you may record dyno+tires noise alone, and subtract it from engine recording.
It will work for inside sounds very well.
harder is to record real sounding external sounds. For static close-positioned camera - it is not a problem. But in real live there are a lot of reverbs/echoes (including phase shifted). It makes finall sound very specific. Recording car from a distance when moving is quite impossible. So probably there must be done a lot of post-recording work mostly by adding effects. On the other side, most mods just uses plain external sound.
At the end, personally I'm against making sounds from YT movies. Such sound is so flat. But I understand that some times there is no other way.
In case or racing cars, engine yelling is x-times louder than rollers noise. Additionally you may record dyno+tires noise alone, and subtract it from engine recording.
It will work for inside sounds very well.
harder is to record real sounding external sounds. For static close-positioned camera - it is not a problem. But in real live there are a lot of reverbs/echoes (including phase shifted). It makes finall sound very specific. Recording car from a distance when moving is quite impossible. So probably there must be done a lot of post-recording work mostly by adding effects. On the other side, most mods just uses plain external sound.
At the end, personally I'm against making sounds from YT movies. Such sound is so flat. But I understand that some times there is no other way.