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Fake Engine Noise Is the Auto Industry's Dirty Little Secret
HughPickens.com writes Stomp on the gas in a new Ford Mustang or F-150 and you'll hear a meaty, throaty rumble — the same style of roar that Americans have associated with auto power and performance for decades. Now Drew Harwell reports at the Washington Post that the auto industry's dirty little secret is that the engine growl in some of America's best-selling cars and trucks is actually a finely tuned bit of lip-syncing, boosted through special pipes or digitally faked altogether. "Fake engine noise has become one of the auto industry's dirty little secrets, with automakers from BMW to Volkswagen turning to a sound-boosting bag of tricks," writes Harwell. "Without them, today's more fuel-efficient engines would sound far quieter and, automakers worry, seemingly less powerful, potentially pushing buyers away." For example Ford sound engineers and developers worked on an "Active Noise Control" system on the 2015 Mustang EcoBoost that amplifies the engine's purr through the car speakers. Afterward, the automaker surveyed members of Mustang fan clubs on which processed "sound concepts" they most enjoyed.
Among purists, the trickery has inspired an identity crisis and cut to the heart of American auto legend. The "aural experience" of a car, they argue, is an intangible that's just as priceless as what's revving under the hood. "For a car guy, it's literally music to hear that thing rumble," says Mike Rhynard, "It's a mind-trick. It's something it's not. And no one wants to be deceived." Other drivers ask if it really matters if the sound is fake? A driver who didn't know the difference might enjoy the thrum and thunder of it nonetheless. Is taking the best part of an eight-cylinder rev and cloaking a better engine with it really, for carmakers, so wrong? "It may be a necessary evil in the eyes of Ford," says Andrew Hard, "but it's sad to think that an iconic muscle car like the Mustang, a car famous for its bellowing, guttural soundtrack, has to fake its engine noise in 2015. Welcome to the future."
Among purists, the trickery has inspired an identity crisis and cut to the heart of American auto legend. The "aural experience" of a car, they argue, is an intangible that's just as priceless as what's revving under the hood. "For a car guy, it's literally music to hear that thing rumble," says Mike Rhynard, "It's a mind-trick. It's something it's not. And no one wants to be deceived." Other drivers ask if it really matters if the sound is fake? A driver who didn't know the difference might enjoy the thrum and thunder of it nonetheless. Is taking the best part of an eight-cylinder rev and cloaking a better engine with it really, for carmakers, so wrong? "It may be a necessary evil in the eyes of Ford," says Andrew Hard, "but it's sad to think that an iconic muscle car like the Mustang, a car famous for its bellowing, guttural soundtrack, has to fake its engine noise in 2015. Welcome to the future."
Some guys are in it for the power, and thus the engine noise is wasted energy.
Some guys are in it for the feel, and thus the engine noise is the most important thing about the car.
Can you make my car produce the sound of the Jetson's flying car? I would pay for that!
Unless you're blind, or happen to be looking the other way when the drunk in a prius bears down on you. Which is why some sort of fake engine noise will eventually be mandated (if it hasn't been already).
The "tick tick" of your turn signals has been fake for years, mechanical relays are long past.
Years ago I saw a doc on Harley Davidson and a part of the design process was ensuring that the bikes made the "correct" HD noise*. What was interesting for a technical perspective was seeing a bike in an anechoic chamber, which had a robot arm waving around an array of microphones so that they could localize sounds emanating from different parts of the bike.
While I had no idea that car manufactures were doing this to such an extreme, it's not surprising when you are selling an image rather than just a product.
* what will be more fun in the future is seeing what the HD sound will be if their electric bike takes off. The reviews I have seen from the test riders have been really positive.
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Unless you're blind, or happen to be looking the other way when the drunk in a prius bears down on you. Which is why some sort of fake engine noise will eventually be mandated (if it hasn't been already). The "tick tick" of your turn signals has been fake for years, mechanical relays are long past.
But not on your internal speakers, at worst you have to install an exterior speaker to deliver "engine" noises. In fact, you can probably do active noise cancellation of it internally so you barely hear your own engine. The turn signal on the other hand serves an actual purpose, to remind you that you're still signaling to other people that you're turning as in some curves it won't turn itself off. For driving a manual car the engine noise serves a purpose too, but it's getting more and more rare even here in Europe.
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The click is there as a safety feature so that you don't have to look down to see that your turn signal is still on.
I agree. Acoustic aesthetics are important and worthwhile of engineering attention.
Quiet (or as quiet as possible) is one aesthetic that may be desirable. For other people (or perhaps cars), a good rumble (as long as it not excessively load and obnoxious) is equally a desirable aesthetic. It's not so different, as you note, than choice of paint job.
For a company to put attention into this aspect of the user experience is a positive thing.
There was just a podcast on this very topic, namely the lack of attention that many companies put into the aural experience of their products and how very important that experience is to consumers. http://99percentinvisible.org/...
Here is an excerpt:
'Car companies also consider sound in the design of their product. A Ford Mustang, for instance, will intentionally not sound the same as a Ford Taurus, even if their engines are similar.
In 2008, Ford decided to put out a remake of a Mustang that appeared in the 1968 film, Bullitt. The car sounded like this: [video].
Ford wanted to make the 2008 Bullitt sound akin to the 1968 Bullitt. They were trying, essentially, to make a new car sound old.
This proved especially challenging, because cars made in 1968 were built completely differently; the 1968 Bullitt had a carburetor, for instance, and the new model had a fuel injection system. Plus, the Mustang in the movie was enhanced with sounds recorded from a race car—and it’s actually illegal in most places to drive around in a car as loud as the car from the movie would be if it were real.
With all those factors in mind, Ford identified the key characteristics of the Mustang sounds in the movie. They then figured out how to reverse-engineer those notes as best as they could by tweaking the shapes of the tubes in the car’s exhaust system.
Brands that don’t pay attention to sound may get punished by consumers.'
I used to work for a large auto company from Japan, and at the end of the day most of what makes a car or truck is snake oil, but if we quit doing it people stop buying it. We might intentionally introduce inefficiencies in the exhaust to increase that "rally car" sound. Bucket seats and offset head rests trick you into folding your legs and rolling your shoulders in, making the car seem more spacious. Truck tricks include obese front grills despite the engine being efficient enough not to warrant them. And those big bulgy hoods? nowhere near the engine size. To make up for it, and make you feel like our technology is more advanced, we put plastic guards and bezels on top of the engine. It makes the engine look larger for someone who doesnt know what an engine looks like outside of a car or truck, and that sells.
an we never stopped there. to make up for the gearing required to get that 40mpg, we might program the computer to hold a lower gear longer or shorter to make the car seem "peppier" than it really is. simple things like a vertical indicator on the speedometer can help people associate the product they own with the racecar version they saw in the movie. Making that connection is critical, especially in trucks. Most of our trucks cost upwards of 30 grand, something blue collar could never afford. but if we associate it with blue collar, add splash guards and lift, and run a few ads? instant joe six pack. Actual blue collar construction workers drive, in most cases, an old mid nineties hatchback or 4 door sedan. They have kids to feed.
So grow up. no, your new 4 cylinder mustang wont roar like a bored out foxbody with glass packs, but you know what? it also gets 36 mpg and doesnt require 93 octane. It doesnt spew benzene and MTBE from the tailpipe because we gave it a catalytic converter. and it wont roll over and kill your kids because we added stability control, and govenment mandated roofing that can hold the weight of our car.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Well the thing is, cylingers are a bit like testicles. Real men have 6, not 4.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Car enthusiasts who were also audiophiles were surveyed to find out what they thought about the synthesized engine noise. They all complained that the sound wasn't pure enough without Monster cables delivering the full spectrum of "whooshiness" to the speakers.
I've driven plenty of modern automatics. And modern manuals.
I still can get significantly better gas mileage in a MT than an auto (no matter what the EPA ratings say... those are dumb anyway because they mandate shift points).
And I can look ahead and anticipate what gear I want to be in. Even these manumatics with paddle shifters or whatever feel terrible when you say... approach a curve and want to preemptively downshift for engine braking and pulling out of the curve. They simply don't know your intent, and don't seem to have the wherewithal to do it smoothly.
I'm not a race car driver, but I am someone who likes their car to be responsive, and M/T is still the only option for me AFAIC.
Sam
As a Leaf Electric car driver, I can say that the lack of engine noise is one of the primary benefits of an electric car.
I hear things on my commute that I didn't even know existed prior to my Leaf. I hear birds chirping, walk ways for the blind clicking, subtle details in my music, and occasionally, total silence. It's calming. It's also kinda cool to accelerate hard off the line (faster than most gas cars can do) with near silence.
The car does chirp externally when backing up, but it's not very audible from within the car. Perhaps a similar chirp when driving forward at a slow speed would work.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
My hope is that there'll be a way to define your own fake car noise. I'll want my silent electric car to emit a sound like George Jetson's "car".
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I drive an electric car. At low speeds, say under 20mph, people NEVER hear or see my car coming. These are also the speeds I'm typically driving at when pedestrians are around. People always meander in front of my car or jump in surprise when the turn and see me cruising past them a few feet to the side of them. I sometimes honk. I sometimes pause extra long. There is definitely a need to account for it.
At higher speeds, sure there's tire noise.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
All kids under 10 love to have a playing card clipped into their bicycle spokes. It just sounds so bad ass.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As a cyclist, I can attest a Prius is not a totally silent vehicle. Nor, I am sure, is a Tesla although I've never encountered one on the road. The reason is tire noise.
For a modern car traveling at 20+ MPH and not accelerating, tire noise is the dominant sound. You can easily hear a car traveling at speed from a hundred yards or more away, almost entirely from the tire noise. The engine of a well-maintained car traveling at a constant 30 MPH might as well be totally silent.
At low speeds such as would be encountered in a parking lot or congested city street the engine noise is dominant, particularly because the car is doing a lot of accelerating and decelerating. At those speeds I think a modest synthesized engine sound is a very good idea, especially when you consider blind people and even more especially service dogs, who would have to be re-trained for some other kind of noise. There would be no need for the artificial sound once the car is at cruising speed.
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There is nothing ridiculous about mandating some amount of noise in the meantime.
I completely disagree. If you mandate noise you will never get silence. Plus once you get enough cars close together you almost can't distinguish them anyway because it basically becomes white noise. Just because people have become accustomed to a certain amount of noise is not a credible argument for continuing to emit noise pollution needlessly. And no, I am not at all concerned about blind or inattentive pedestrians crossing the road in front of me. It's MY responsibility as a driver to drive carefully and watch out for possible road hazards. It is also their responsibility to watch out when crossing the road. Hell, people get hit by trains while walking and they make a huge racket and are 100% avoidable by staying off the tracks.
Unless you're blind, or happen to be looking the other way when the drunk in a prius bears down on you.
My Nissan LEAF has a speaker mounted in the driver-side front wheel well which makes noise (a tone that sweeps across the frequency range, to cover people with frequency-limited hearing) whenever the vehicle is moving below 20 mph. It's not fake engine noise, it's better.
As to the article... I have learned to really enjoy the silence of an EV. Engine noise annoys me.
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"Look both ways before crossing" is for streets.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Not like a paint job. You can choose to avert your eyes from a garish paint job. You can't choose to shut off your ears to an obnoxiously noisy car. If you want your car to have a throaty rumble, fine, but pipe it through your internal speakers only. Don't inflict it on the rest of us just to stroke your own ego.