Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
to the ocean, those sounds need to be reshaped to feel grounded. How do you approach fictional or hybrid vehicles, where you might be blending real-world sources with more stylized or futuristic elements? Charles Deenen: In games, this is fairly easy actually, as you know the exact RPM, speed, torque, and more. It's just another sound which follows those curves with modifiers. But for commercials and films, it's a whole other problem. I've used pitch trackers, vocoders, pitch mappers, granular mapping, but also good old tedious frequency matching using Pitch'n'Time (which often still has the best result). Due to this, and shorter allowed timelines, we're often just "reprocessing" the original sound to be more race-oriented, futuristic, or whatever is desired and add that as a layer. It tends to also give a more realistic feel. That said, one can always create a second layer similar to how a transmission whine is a second layer to a motor. As long as speed and torque adhesion to the road is mapped, it can sound very convincing. Source Sound Inc. & TORQ What inspired you to join Source Sound, and how did you initially position it within the game and trailer audio space? Charles Deenen: Source Sound has been a staple for trailer sound for more than 25 years. Tom Brewer and Tim Gedemer started it with the purpose of providing theatrical-quality sound for trailers. Tim and I knew each other from EFX and continued to work together for Can you walk us through your typical process when working on vehicle sound design? Where do you start, and how do you build a system that feels both grounded and thrilling? Charles Deenen: It's been a few years since I've worked on the interactive part of cars in a game, but the concepts and execution haven't really changed. More processing and more RAM have enabled even greater detail. Either way, recreating—and enhancing—the experience is absolutely key, especially at low listening volumes. So, I start by learning what the voice of the car is. What makes it unique? What is the key which listeners will use to identify a car? It could be the steps in a VTEC system, the artifacts some BMWs make, the flat ramps in CVTs, the howl of the electric motor vs. regen, etc. But often we'll find a unique additional sound which only true car fanatics would appreciate. Plus, the car prep folks are often asked to remove or replace mufflers or more, with my sincere apologies. Once captured for the game, the creation of the playable sounds would be done. Microphones can capture the sound, but often not the experience. So, during this phase, recordings get cleaned up, layered, re-distorted, octave-stacked, etc. Basically, whatever is needed to recreate the experience one has when driving the car. Similar methods were used, for example, for the cars in the Gran Turismo film. For games, this means multiple layers of torque, multiple layers of engine braking, and more. One additional aspect in games is grounding them in the world. Air density and travel speed will affect the frequency spectrum reaching your ears. This, in turn, interacts with reflections and more. All that needs to be recreated to make the sound feel "grounded." If the physics engine of the game can't provide the exact road coupling and traction, some additional "faking" is needed during shift sequences, traction control, diff loads, and more. It's a fun undertaking. What are some of your favorite techniques for sweetening or designing custom vehicle sounds? Charles Deenen: For years, I've tried virtually every de-noising, tonal generation, pitch shift, tracking, or other plugins to make the car's voice come out cleaner and clearer. Now our car team is also on the hunt for the same. It sometimes is a big undertaking but creates a satisfying experience once completed. Most have now become routine as we work with so many recordings and car projects. Using sub-synths and octave stackers to add to low end, using frequency- tracking EQs to reshape an exhaust, using harmonic separation plug-ins to extract and reshape tonality, etc. Using bluster winds to "mix minus" on cars to create additional movement. EQs to create air density extractions, etc. Lots of years ago, lots of experiments were done adding animals to cars. Cool, but in the end often feeling a bit gimmicky. That said, outside of games, it still happens all the time by request. With EVs, it's a whole other ball game. There is a perception that EVs make sound, so it's not about creating reality—it's about creating perception. The experience of speed, enhanced by sound. Even though recordings sound like a dentist's drill combined with a trip "... my hopes are that in five years, we'll still be doing sound for trailers. My gut says that AI will start to take over a great [deal] of not only trailer picture editing, but also the associated sound for it." 100 M PS E . O R G