Interview with Nick Wiswell, Audio director of Turn 10

The vehicle focused Track Time Audio blog has posted an interview with Turn 10’s and ex-Bizarre Creations Creative Audio Director Nick Wiswell,  covering the production of Forza Motorsport 4 and the pipeline of recording sessions to finished in-game audio for the car engines.

TTA: Could you talk a bit about the process a vehicle goes through between recording session and finished in-game? I think the work involved after the recordings are made are under appreciated by gamers because they just don’t know how much work goes on.

NW: It’s a long process, so I’ll break it down into stages like a recipe:

To record a car you will need:
* A car and a chassis dyno, or an engine and an engine dyno
* An 8 – 10 channel recording device with multiple microphones to capture the engine, intake system and each exhaust pipe sound independently
* A dyno operator who understands that “full throttle” means all the way to the floor, and a car owner who won’t freak out when you do that
* An hour or two of time

1. First thing to do is set up the car on the dyno (your dyno operator will usually do this for you) and set up all the recording equipment
2. Then run the engine, do a few throttle snaps and a power run or two, and walk around the car trying to find the spots that have the sound you are looking for
3. Then set up close microphones on the engine, intake, turbo (if fitted) and each exhaust pipe plus microphones at points where you found interesting sounds
4. Press “record”, set levels and ask the dyno operator to run through the following sequence:
·Full throttle power pulls in different gears or at different speeds (depending on the type of dyno)
·Held steady RPMS at 500 RPM intervals from close to idle up to close to redline
·Idle
·Acceleration and deceleration through the gears (if possible on the dyno)
·Simulated track driving (if possible on the dyno)

View the rest of the interview on the Track Time Audio website