Art by Jon McCormack.
This episode was written and produced by Andrew Anderson.
The sound of a roaring combustion engine is a fixture of modern life. But as electric vehicles become more and more common, these mechanical sounds will gradually be replaced with artificial tones that have been designed from scratch. And once self-driving cars start to take over, there will be an even bigger need for creative and intuitive sound design. In this episode, we explore the future of car sounds with Audio UX Co-Founder Dexter Garcia and Creative Consultant/Futurist John LePore.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Melting Glass by Eden Avery
FasterFasterBrighte by Ray Catcher
As Well by Sound of Picture
A Thought by Sound of Picture
Beyond the Mountains by Experia
As Time Passes by Golden Age Radio
Quadrant Crossings by Martin Landstrom
Hybrid Organism by Philip Ayers
Bye For Now by Roots and Recognition
Lytekevyda by Sound of Picture
In Hand by Cassa
Daisies (with Roary) by Red Licorice
Closer by 12 Palms
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View Transcript ▶︎
You're listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.
[sfx: engine sounds]
If I had to pick the most important sound of the last hundred years, I might choose this.
[sfx: up]
The internal combustion engine. But most likely, over the next 30 years, that sound…
[sfx: up]
will start to fade away.
[sfx out]
[music in]
In 2022, electric vehicles made up more than ten percent of global car sales. And many experts predict that before long, the majority of cars will be electric. Which raises the question: if we won't hear this sound anymore...
[sfx: revs]
...what will we hear instead?
Dexter: So we asked ourselves, "How would Mother Nature solve this problem?"
That's Dexter Garcia.
Dexter: I'm a co-founder of a company called Audio UX. We're an audio branding agency that has a unique specialty in sound design for electric vehicles.
Audio UX was founded in 2017. That was the same year that a US regulation about the sound of hybrid and electric cars went into effect.
[sfx: TV on]
AP Clip: Earlier this year, president Obama signed the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act, giving auto manufacturers until 2017 to come up with a solution to the problem of noiseless cars.
[sfx: TV off]
The law required these cars to make a warning sound when driving at low speeds. These sounds are known as the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System, or AVAS. You've probably heard some of these sounds yourself. Here's one that's used on some Teslas.
[sfx: Tesla model 3 AVAS]
And here's the AVAS sound from a Nissan Leaf.
[sfx: Nissan Leaf]
For Dexter's team, the regulation was a great way to pitch themselves to car companies.
[music in]
Dexter: So like, New York Auto Show, we'd show up there, LA Auto Show, and we'd walk right up to the booth and say, "Hey, do you need help with sound design? There’s this regulation, not sure if you know about it, but, you know, we can help you."
And before long...
Dexter: Folks started calling us back and saying, [sfx, phone processing] "Hey, I remember you. Yeah, let's do something."
Then in 2022, a new company called Rivian reached out to Dexter's team. Rivian wanted them to create an entire suite of sounds for an electric off-road vehicle.
Dexter: The request for us was to develop a holistic soundscape, so anything you hear as part of your driving experience.
These sounds had to reflect Rivian’s brand mission.
Dexter: …which was to preserve the natural world for future generations. That quote was just ringing in our ears constantly. And so we knew that we had to honor mother nature in some way.
[music out]
To begin, Dexter spent a lot of time researching natural environments, and listening to field recordings.
Dexter: Natural spaces like rivers [sfx: river] and beaches [sfx: beach] and lakes [sfx: lake].
And before long...
Dexter: We stumbled upon this topic called Soundscape Ecology.
Soundscape Ecology is the study of the acoustic relationships between animals and their environment. And one of its key ideas is that in any environment, each animal tends to have its own sonic niche.
[sfx: lake sounds]
For example, if you sit by the side of a lake, you might hear the frogs and toads taking up the bass frequencies.
[sfx: frogs]
The birds chirping in the high-mid range.
[sfx: chirping]
And the cicadas buzzing at the high end.
[sfx: buzzing]
Dexter realized they could apply this concept to the sound design of a car, by using different animal calls for different functions.
Dexter: So in a sense, we implemented soundscape ecology into the habitat of the driving experience.
The first thing they worked on was the AVAS sound - that warning sound that, by law, electric cars have to make at low speeds.
Dexter: That was an interesting challenge because it's really designed to be an off road vehicle. It's really supposed to inspire people to reconnect with Mother Nature by building a vehicle that can literally take them there. So we wanted to design a sound that would really honor the relationship between humans and our natural spaces.
While you can make an AVAS sound from whatever you want, there are some rules that have to be followed.
[sfx: 20K AVAS sound]
The sound has to increase in both pitch and volume as the car accelerates.
It has to have a certain amount of bass frequencies, so that it reminds people of the combustion engines that they're used to.
And it also has to include higher frequencies that can cut through city noise.
To meet all of these criteria, Dexter and his team decided to blend multiple sounds together. They started with a recording of the Colorado River.
[sfx: colorado river]
Dexter: So you can hear that that kind of running water sound was going to help us in the lower frequencies.
After that, they added in sound with more mid range.
Dexter: So we used this recording of waves from Laguna Beach.
[sfx: laguna beach]
Dexter: That kind of provides a little bit of warmth, a little bit of width to the sound.
And for the high frequencies...
Dexter: We took a sample of wind from mammoth lakes.
[sfx: mammoth lakes]
Here’s the final AVAS sound.
[sfx: avas accelerates into steady sound]
Dexter: So when you listen to it, it really sounds pretty unassuming, right? It's pretty non intrusive. And that's what its intention really is. It's supposed to blend into the natural spaces.
Next up was the beep that the car makes when you lock it using a key fob. In the automotive industry, this sound is called a lock chirp.
[sfx: lock chirp]
[music in]
Usually lock chirps are made by a single blast from the horn.
[sfx: horn lock chirp]
Or two bursts from the vehicle's alarm siren.
[sfx: lock chirp siren]
Dexter: There never has really been intentional lock chirp design. It's just been a natural product of sounds that have already been on the vehicle and we've just been running with that for many years.
But for the Rivian off roader, Dexter wanted to challenge that status quo.
Dexter: How is the current lock chirp sound not so great? What is challenging? What causes friction about this sound?
Although, it still had to be a sound that people would recognize as a lock chirp.
Dexter: Our population has already grown really attached to it. It's already a familiar sound that they know. And if our job is to make sounds that are intuitive to the user, sometimes we want to lean into that precedent.
[music out]
In nature, the closest analog to a lock chirp would be a bird call.
[sfx: nightingale chirps]
Dexter: A bird chirp is really great at cutting through background noise, and that's how birds are effective communicators.
After listening through hours of sound archives, they found a bird chirp that they really liked: the mountain bluebird.
[sfx: bluebirds call]
Dexter: There was a richness to it and so we isolated just one chirp of this bird in the background.
[sfx: isolated call]
Dexter: And then we pitched it up [sfx: call pitched up] so that it would be better for localization to know where your vehicle was if you were in a big parking lot, or you were out on a campsite.
[sfx: final lock chirp]
They even created a special alternate version.
Dexter: For Halloween, we did a variation of the bird chirp as an owl hoot.
[sfx: owl version]
Dexter: And that's just one of the really interesting parts about electric vehicles today is that they're updatable. And it was something that customers really loved.
[sfx: owl version]
Another sound Dexter's team created is one that you hear all the time when you're driving: the turn signal.
[music in]
Dexter: The original turn signal sound is the literal sound of the bulb flashing on and off. That's what its natural clicking sound on and off, on and off.
[sfx: turn signal up]
Over time, car companies came up with blinker systems that didn't make sound. But since drivers were so used to it...
Dexter: Manufacturers just captured the sound as a recording and then just started playing it through a speaker behind the instrument cluster, which is where the speedometer and the odometer and your fuel indicator is.
[sfx: different turn signal]
Since turn signals are used so often, Dexter wanted a sound that would be really easy to listen to.
Dexter: The most heard sound in your driving experience should really be the best, most pleasant, the most desirable sound.
And that thought led them to another idea.
Dexter: [sfx: turn signal] We started to think the turn signal is really like the heartbeat of the vehicle. [sfx: turn signal morphs into heartbeat] it's one of the only sounds that has like a consistent pace to it.
[music out first, then heartbeat out]
But as for the sound itself, the inspiration for that came from the car's interior.
Dexter: We knew that the Rivian dashboard was going to be made out of natural wood. And so putting together our idea of creating the heartbeat of the vehicle and also thinking about how do we make this sound like it's coming literally from the vehicle itself, we struck a small stump with a mallet [sfx: wood stump] that gave it this kind of more resonant sound that we really liked and thought was appropriate.
[sfx: wood stump]
Dexter: We sampled that one resonant hit of the stump and then we pitched it down to be a little bassier to really feel like it was coming out of the vehicle physically.
[sfx: pitched down]
But the sound still didn't feel finished, so Dexter decided to add an animal call.
Dexter: We wanted to make the turn signal a little bit more resonant, not just a harsh click. So we wanted to pull from something that we felt resonated really well across the forest, a wolf howl.
[sfx: wolf howl]
They chopped that sound up, so they could then pitch it to different notes.
[sfx: synth]
And when that was blended with the wood sound, the turn signal was complete.
[sfx: final turn signal]
Dexter: It sounds a little softer. It's slower. There's only one step to it because that's really all you need as a driver.
[sfx: final turn signal]
Of course, these weren't the only sounds that Dexter’s team designed for Rivian. There were also navigation sounds, which used owl calls.
[sfx: owl]
And there was a sound for a feature called Camp Mode. It included a pitched up cello, and stones knocking together.
[sfx: stones]
Dexter: We created maybe over 500 different variances of different sounds, for moments all across the vehicle experience, and kinda landed around 70. And we've been working with them ever since then.
[music in]
Electric vehicles already sound very different to the gas powered cars that we're used to.
[sfx: electric car]
But this is just the beginning, because there's an even bigger change on the horizon: self-driving cars. So how will cars sound once they drive themselves? When turn signals, horns and navigation sounds are no longer needed?
That's coming up, after the break.
[music out]
MIDROLL
[music in]
At the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, there was one exhibition that really caught the public's imagination. It was called Futurama, and it was supposed to be a glimpse into the futuristic world of 1960.
[music out]
Announcer: New horizons in a restless search for new opportunities. And new ways of living.
The exhibition showed something that seemed like a fantasy: self-driving cars.
Announcer: Traffic moves at unreduced rates of speed. Safe distance between cars is maintained by automatic radio control.
Since then, self-driving cars have been a staple of science fiction. They were even at the center of a cheesy movie about a Volkswagen Beetle that I remember from when I was a kid.
Herbie Movie: It’s the story of Herbie, the screen’s first four-cylinder star. // A mind of his own makes Herbie the sole bug of the love generation.
But it wasn’t until very recently that you could actually buy one. Or at least, one with an autopilot function. Here’s a Tesla commercial from 2016.
Tesla Commercial: Autopilot changes the way you relate to your drive. Designed for highway use, Autopilot assists you with the routines of daily driving, whether you're cruising or crawling.
Today, many experts think the age of self-driving cars is just around the corner. And that means a lot of opportunities for creative sound design.
[music in]
John: I like telling people that my focus is designing the future.
That's John LePore. John's a creative consultant and futurist, although he doesn't take that job title too seriously.
John: It sounds like the kind of garbage you would read in a terrible LinkedIn profile. The one I like the most is my Twitter profile says, "futurist, who hates the word futurist."
When filmmakers want something to look, sound or feel futuristic, they call John. For years, he led a motion graphics team that worked on films like Avengers, Spiderman Homecoming and the new RoboCop. For example, in Iron Man 2, they designed and animated the holographic interface of Tony Stark’s AI computer Jarvis.
[music out]
Tony Stark: Lose the landscaping, the shrubbery, the trees, parking lots, exits, entrances. [beeps]
And when big tech companies see these futuristic graphics, they sometimes ask John to integrate them into their own products.
John: Companies like Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Samsung, and many others.
But while he loves all this work, his real passion is cars.
[music in]
John: When I was a kid I was obsessed with the automobile as a design object.
John: My father taught me at a pretty young age that the Lamborghini Countach is a beautiful object, but that's not the coolest thing about it. The coolest thing about it is that it is beautiful, but that shape that makes it beautiful serves a very specific purpose. It makes it angular so that it can cut through the air and reach a higher top speed. It's narrow at the front and wide at the back to house a large engine.
John: It is this form and function being so intertwined with each other. And that handshake between those two things is this much higher art than just, "Oh, it's a beautiful shape." It becomes almost religious at that point.
[music out]
Lately, John has spent a lot of time thinking about the future of cars.
[music in]
John: The scenario that I always imagine is trying to explain to my grandchildren that: "Yes, well cars were these things that we operated ourselves. And they had an engine inside them that was this metal box that actually contained controlled explosions."
[sfx: kids going "wow!"]
John: And you would drive around and you would control the vehicle yourself. You would use this steering wheel and these pedals to drive it. And then you would put the people you care most about inside that vehicle." And the kids would look at you and they'd be like, "That sounds insane. That's so wild."
[music out]
[music in]
Self driving cars create some interesting challenges for futurists like John. The first one has to do with feedback.
Normally when you're a passenger, there's all sorts of feedback you receive with your ears.
John: [sfx: bus interior] When you're sitting on a bus, you already have that opportunity to start to anticipate. "Oh, I can just tell that the squeak of the breaks is beginning. [sfx: brakes + engine noises indicate slowing] That means, the forces are gonna push me forward a little harder in my seat in a moment. It gives you that opportunity to brace yourself."
But in a self-driving car, some of that feedback could be missing because they're so quiet.
John: At a certain point, once it becomes advanced enough, it becomes the equivalent of almost like an elevator, right?
[sfx: elevator going up, ding]
John: And there's a certain point at which you would just need certain sound cues or things to convey that you're approaching your destination [sfx: UI sound] "Hey, we're gonna be in 30 seconds, transitioning from the seamlessly smooth highway to back country roads and the ride will become a little bit bumpier. You might get jostled about a little more."
John: Not unlike the, [sfx: bing] "Hey, it's time to put your tray tables up and make sure your seatbelt is fastened."
[sfx: table moving, seatbelt click]
[music out]
Sounds like these should keep passengers comfortable in their self-driving cars. But there could be other opportunities to add sonic feedback.
[sfx: acceleration wooshes, dissonant on left and right]
John: Imagine that the sound that your vehicle makes when you're accelerating onto the highway. What if that sound harmonized as a way of saying you have reached cruising speed. You can now stay stable at this speed.
[sfx: left and right panning stop being dissonant and move to the center]
There could even be feedback to indicate how the wheels are performing as you take a corner.
[sfx: car driving, wheel sounds cornering, changing from left to right and back]
John: Why can't I hear that as almost a surround sound stereo mix, so that while the vehicle is cornering, I get a better understanding of what the vehicle is doing underneath me?
So self driving cars could provide an array of sonic feedback. But here's an even more obvious use for sound: entertainment.
[music in]
If you don’t have to drive them, cars could turn into something like a mobile entertainment center. You could watch movies, play video games, or have a video call, all while you’re cruising down the freeway at ninety miles an hour.
But cars could also become a kind of relaxation chamber.
[sfx in: relaxation drone tones]
John: We'll just have pleasing sounds to surround you or keep you calm, or keep you focused on your work or keep you engaged in the conversation that you're now having with your friends instead of focusing on driving the vehicle.
The car could even make you more aware of your surroundings.
John: Maybe there's ways that we can pick up on some of the sounds that are happening outside of the vehicle and bring those inwards.
[sfx: car on a road, bird sounds]
John: And just focusing on, what does this particular region of highway in upstate New York sound like as I'm traversing through the hills and then down past a river and whatnot, [sfx: running water] and bring some of that more into the vehicle.
While it's impossible to predict the future, one thing is for certain: before long, cars are going to sound very different. But with all this opportunity for futuristic sound design, we should remember that sometimes the best choice is silence.
[music in]
John: I get worried that this concept of mandated AVAS sounds that are emanating from cars at parking lot speeds.
[sfx: AVAS sounds build up]
John: Does that mean that the school drop off line with a line of cars all moving at parking lot speeds is going to sound like a swarm of bees?
[sfx: crossfade with bee-like car sounds]
John: Is it going to create some new, unintended kind of noise pollution that we don't want?
And when self-driving cars start to take over, there will be even more challenges.
Dexter: It's really Important to figure out how to communicate to drivers when they're in control and when they're not, and when the vehicle is in control, making them feel safe and secure, leaning into sounds that provide that reassurance because a lot of people are skeptical about autonomous driving. So, one of the things we can do as designers is frame the experience in a level of comfort that helps them adopt to the technology.
And that's why we need to start thinking about the future of car sounds right now.
John: I mean, the experience of a vehicle is, it is a full sensory experience. And so it's really critical for me to figure out at all times, how can each of these ingredients be as paired back or be as spartan as possible? And I find that when you do this well, you can end up with a result that feels not empty or minimalist. It just feels important. It feels serious. It feels tactical.
And if sound designers get these decisions right, that could have a major impact.
Dexter: If we're driving the industry forward, then we're making a great impact on our world. So I feel grateful to be just like one of the teams that's contributing to this larger push for lowering our carbon emissions across the planet and helping humanity adopt a new and helpful technology.
[music out]
[music in]
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defacto sound dot com.
This episode was written and produced by Andrew Anderson. It was story edited by Casey Emmerling. It was sound designed and mixed by Colin DeVarney and Joel Boyter.
Thanks to our guests Dexter Garcia and John LePore. You can learn more about Dexter's work at Aux NYC dot com. That’s A-U-X-N-Y-C dot com. And to learn about how John designs the future, head to black box infinite dot com. There are links to both in the show notes.
I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.
[music out]
