Guest Contribution by David Nichols An engine is, in essence, an air pump. Air comes in, gets mixed with fuel, goes bang, and leaves again. When talking about ways to make more power, the most obvious is to make a bigger bang. However, gasoline works best at a very specific ratio of fuel to air, which is roughly 14:1. So, if you want to make a bigger bang, you need 14 times … [Read more...]
Car Engine Approximation In Max
Years ago, when I first started dabbling in the deep and dark world of Max/MSP, I attempted to create the sound of a car engine. This month's theme (which is 'vehicles', if you didn't know) reminded me about it. I opened up the patch after ages and was a bit appalled by the state of it. There are hidden skeletons in every old patch! Instead of digging through a … [Read more...]
Planes, Trains and Automobiles …and tanks and bikes and boats and…
Guest Contribution by Stephan Schütze Why I am not going to tell you which microphone to use The simple answer to this statement is, because we don’t have time. The exact choice of which microphone to use for each situation of recording a vehicle is a detailed exercise and would take more pages than we have space for. Even then, there is a major flaw associated with the … [Read more...]
… Mr. President!!! … (Gen 3 Helicopter Implementation in Frostbite/Battlefield 4)
Guest contribution by Ben Minto and Bence Pajor of DICE … Mr. President!!! ... There we were in The Thirsty Bear, reflecting on the first lot of GDC Audio Sessions, and up walks Mr. Menhorn. He knew what he wanted from us; so after introductions, a few more IPAs and some passionate discussion it was in the bag. So here we are. A “behind the scenes”, warts and all, … [Read more...]
A Brief Tour of Automotive Sound Sources
Guest Contribution by Michael Hermes Modern cars are boring. They’re safe, practical, and quiet to the point of being uninteresting. A passing sedan glides by with a gentle whoosh of air passing over the car and the tires on the pavement. It makes for a pleasant ride to work but a short article on sound. Cars didn’t start out quiet, though. Decades of engineering and … [Read more...]
All those things that get us around…
I held off on the announce post for a few days, because we had a few articles that spilled over from last month's theme. Now that we're caught up, it's time to dive into this month's theme...Vehicles! Do we really need more of an introduction than that? My guess is no. And sure, there's a rail car at a drag race in the image above, but we're not single-minded. There are … [Read more...]