Creating the artificial acceleration soundtrack for electric performance cars is not a job that I envy. It’s almost an no-win scenario, because if you make it sound like an engine, enthusiasts will call it inauthentic. But if you make it sound like an alien spaceship, people will say it sounds silly or fake. And if you don’t make a soundtrack at all and leave it silent, others will say it’s boring. So since you can’t ever please everyone—and in this specific endeavor, you might not be able to please anyone—you just have to make something you think is cool and hope other people like it, too. And that seems to be exactly what BMW M did with the upcoming electric M3, which you can see in this new video.
To create a sound profile for the M3’s performance that feels authentic, not to internal combustion engines necessarily but to performance in general, BMW took three of its most iconic M cars and brought them to a sound studio that looks more like a Bond villain’s lair. They then put the cars on a rolling road and revved the nuts off ’em, recording their sound profiles and learning what made them sound so exciting. The cars they chose were the F82 BMW M4 GTS, the E92 M3, and the E63 M6, so an inline-six, V8, and V10, respectively.
Source: BMW
With info gathered from each car, BMW M’s sound engineers could figured out what made each car so special by studying the sound map each car created. They studied where those sounds tickled the brain and the heart, so they can make a sound profile that does something similar. One thing they noticed was that even the best sounding engines are boring, even grating, at just one constant rpm. In the sound map, if kept at 6,000 rpm, even the V10 sounded like an air conditioner. So they thrill of a good exhaust really is about the journey, the rises and falls. “No one wants their car to sound like a dentist’s drill,” said one of the engineers.
The sound needs to not only thrill but inform the driver, telling them how much power is being delivered, where its peak might be, and how much more they have. It’s information and emotion. What they seem to have come up with sounds kind of like a car but not really. It almost sounds like what a sci-fi movie car might sound like, or like something out of George Lucas’ mind. It will be interesting to see how it’s implemented in the new M3, as well as how it’s received by fans.
