If you haven’t been following the world of LeMans recently, there’s been a big mix up in the world of Prototypes. Peugeot has bowed out after years of playing with Audi. And not a day after Peugeot’s official press release of their departure, Toyota officially release their introduction. Soon after, Toyota’s LMP team twitter account, @Toyota_Hybrid, released a teaser soundclip of the new car. It’s horribly compressed and has quite a bit of high-frequency loss, plus a pretty steep doppler effect, but none of that matters, because the sound is so cool.
Soon after, @Toyota_Hybrid posted up an on-board video featuring the charming sounds of a GoPro HD.
Racecar Engineering also managed to sneak a video of the car leaving pit lane on only its electric system, which gives a very unique sound for auto racing.
For more technical info on the car, be sure to check out Mulsanne Mike’s technical review.
One of the very important things to consider is that while these recording techniques are rather limited in bandwidth and accuracy, this is in many ways the quality most of the public is exposed to the sound of super-powerful cars. (Listen to a TV broadcast, compared to being at the track in person, and you’ll notice a few differences!) It’s a significant challenge for say a game designer to decide if using the “broadcasted” compressed and/or distorted sound is what the general public would consider the “real” sound of the vehicle, because often times that is the case. That’s why features such as the live distortion effects in Forza 4 add a “lifelike” feel even though the sound of the car in person isn’t really overdriven.
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