F1 @ Silverstone Grand Prix 2011

Having asked around the forums (http://socialsounddesign.com/) for tips, I headed up to Silverstone this weekend to camp & record some sounds for the F1.

The cars were LOUD. I must have been 50 metres away and had to wear ear plugs and cans…the gear changes kick you in the chest!

It was an entertaining race, and great experience. Tech below:

I was up by Abbey (and walking around) and managed to get lots of useable material. I sampled at 24/96 but there’s not much going on above 20-25k, only the really raspy exhaust stuff.
I hired out some low sensitivity DPAs and ran them into a fostex FR2LE at almost 0dB gain, coming up to -10dBFS.
The recordings do sound small and tinny. I remembered distinctly they had weight and size to them, although if you played them back at normal levels, you’d probably get near to the feeling – it’s the extreme volume.
The Lotus F1 engines had a new front firing exhaust and this made some entirely wierd noises, great for SFX.
(click for audio)

F1 Silverstone 2011 © Lostrack

3 thoughts on “F1 @ Silverstone Grand Prix 2011

  1. Wow, Tom! That sounds amazing! Especially at high volume with my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones. Nice stereo image. The engines mostly drown out the PA so no complaints there. Nice work! I agree it could use more bottom, but you could always run it through a sub-harmonic generator.

  2. Nice stuff. Sounds much edgier then the sound from the tv. Did you manage to get any lower RPM stuff?

  3. F1s don’t really project that much when they were low. There are a few bits, the pits would be the ideal place.
    Interesting seeing the sound setup from live tv – it’s all rycote shotguns @ 100m spacings around the track.

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