Turn the volume up and enjoy from Sonoma Raceway E90 M3 | VF supercharged VF620

[insane79]

sounds like a UFO..

[THE-FN-MAN]

Amazing vid man, I gotta get that mic and video set up!

[avsbmw]

sounds so tough! looks like a fun track!

[MikeM5]

this was a great way to wake up this morning! thanks for sharing and kudos on a great run!

[alexmtl_135i]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Hi All.

Thanks for the nice comments!

First, I need to give credit to M3post member Ti-Jean. He was running this sound recording setup, and I duplicated it. EAS ran the wires for me. It's all totally hidden, and the jack that plugs into the GoPro appears under the driver's side headlight in the vent. This is great because you can record audio from the exhaust and record video from the front all in a single pass to one device, so you don't have to go through the extra steps of re-syncronizing the sound to the video later. That's a painful process.

So, the initial setup takes a bit of work. But using it is very very easy. The microphone just lives in the trunk under the fabric flap. I pull it out, wrap it around the tow hook and tape it to the inside of the bumper. It's pretty well protected from the wind, and still gets great exhaust sound. In the first pic below in Turn 2 of Sonoma, you can see the black wire on the bumper going down to the tow hook.

Thanks for sharing this and congrats for the car !

The setup is interesting and I will have a very similar setup during my upcoming road trip. What microphone did you use? Did you use any wind protection on your mic ?
If you have pics of the mic on your bumper, that would be great too. I haven't yet done testing for my setup so that could save me time!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by alexmtl_135i

Thanks for sharing this and congrats for the car !

What microphone did you use? Did you use any wind protection on your mic ?
If you have pics of the mic on your bumper, that would be great too. I haven't yet done testing for my setup so that could save me time!

Thanks!

(I should mention that I do sound and music for a living so the concept of audio recording is not new to me, but I never bothered with making better recordings until I heard how cool M3post member Ti-Jean's videos sounded.)

The microphone is: Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone. It's $21 at Amazon right now.

Running the wire from the trunk to the front is the harder part. If you want to do it right, it needs to go through the hole in the firewall behind the glovebox. This is a fair amount of work because the ECU is on the other side.

Here's a few pieces of advice on the setup:

-The microphone's wire is very long. You might be tempted to start the run from the trunk to the front with the microphone wire. Don't do that. Instead, run extender wires the whole way from the trunk to the front. And then plug the microphone into the extender in the trunk. Reason: if the microphone gets damaged, or you want to try a different microphone, all you need to do is unplug in the trunk, instead of pulling wires. Also, let's say you wanted to mount the camera in a different spot besides where the extension was run at the front bumper----let's say the side window---you could unplug the microphone jack from the extender in the trunk and then run it through the rear seats and out the window and plug the mic directly into the camera on the side window. The mic's cable is long enough to do that.

-Use stereo (tip/ring/sleeve) extenders. That way you have the option of recording mono or stereo. My GoPro2 can only record mono. But a GoPro3 can record stereo. (I haven't moved to a GoPro3 because I keep hearing that battery life is atrocious.) But my setup is ready to record stereo.

-If you want to be really adventurous, and make a stereo signal from two mono microphones, you can get this device (search Amazon): HOSA Stereo 3.5 mm Phone Male - Two Mono 1-Tip and 1-Ring 3.5MM Female - 6-Inch. This will combine two mono sound sources from two separate microphones into a stereo signal and feed it to a stereo recording device. I have another Audio Technica mic waiting for the day that I can record stereo with my video camera. Please note, this device is QUITE different than just a regular headphone splitter that looks the same. A headphone splitter does NOT combine two mono signals into a stereo signal.

-The microphone has it's own battery source (LR44) for it's amplifier. This will live in the trunk and you need to turn it on at the beginning of the day, and off at the end of the day. Ti-Jean says he's gotten 7 track days out of the LR44 battery. I switch it at 5 days. The problem is that with the AudioTechnica, there's no light on it to let you know if it's actually on or not. So, I'm switching at 5 days.

-DON'T FORGET TO TURN THE MICROPHONE ON IN THE MORNING!!!!! (don't forget to turn it off at the end of the day too) There's a few of us with this setup now, and sometimes, someone forgets to turn the microphone on. If that happens, you get ZERO sound. Since I'm a sound guy, I'm paranoid about stuff like that.

-The microphone comes with a little foam windscreen. It works pretty well. I make sure that when I'm taping the microphone inside the tow hook hole, I have the tape holding the foam windscreen so it doesn't fall off.

-As far as microphone placement, the biggest thing you want to do is keep the microphone away from wind as much as possible. It's so loud back there near the exhaust, it doesn't really matter where you put the microphone in terms of catching the exhaust sound. Ti-Jean found that inside the rear bumper was the best-shielded spot from the wind. I agree. Plus I think it's good as far as dirt goes too. So I just bring the wire out of the trunk, wrap it around the tow hook three times, put a fairly sticky tape on it (including the windscreen)---the blue painter's tape is not sticky enough---duct tape works, and then tape it to the left-most part of the inside of the hole---the 9 o'clock position---on the inside of the bumper. (see pic below)

-I wouldn't run this microphone in the rain.

[alexmtl_135i]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Thanks!

(I should mention that I do sound and music for a living so the concept of audio recording is not new to me, but I never bothered with making better recordings until I heard how cool M3post member Ti-Jean's videos sounded.)

The microphone is: Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone. It's $21 at Amazon right now.

Running the wire from the trunk to the front is the harder part. If you want to do it right, it needs to go through the hole in the firewall behind the glovebox. This is a fair amount of work because the ECU is on the other side.

Here's a few pieces of advice on the setup:

-The microphone's wire is very long. You might be tempted to start the run from the trunk to the front with the microphone wire. Don't do that. Instead, run extender wires the whole way from the trunk to the front. And then plug the microphone into the extender in the trunk. Reason: if the microphone gets damaged, or you want to try a different microphone, all you need to do is unplug in the trunk, instead of pulling wires. Also, let's say you wanted to mount the camera in a different spot besides where the extension was run at the front bumper----let's say the side window---you could unplug the microphone jack from the extender in the trunk and then run it through the rear seats and out the window and plug the mic directly into the camera on the side window. The mic's cable is long enough to do that.

-Use stereo (tip/ring/sleeve) extenders. That way you have the option of recording mono or stereo. My GoPro2 can only record mono. But a GoPro3 can record stereo. (I haven't moved to a GoPro3 because I keep hearing that battery life is atrocious.) But my setup is ready to record stereo.

-If you want to be really adventurous, and make a stereo signal from two mono microphones, you can get this device (search Amazon): HOSA Stereo 3.5 mm Phone Male - Two Mono 1-Tip and 1-Ring 3.5MM Female - 6-Inch. This will combine two mono sound sources from two separate microphones into a stereo signal and feed it to a stereo recording device. I have another Audio Technica mic waiting for the day that I can record stereo with my video camera. Please note, this device is QUITE different than just a regular headphone splitter that looks the same. A headphone splitter does NOT combine two mono signals into a stereo signal.

-The microphone has it's own battery source (LR44) for it's amplifier. This will live in the trunk and you need to turn it on at the beginning of the day, and off at the end of the day. Ti-Jean says he's gotten 7 track days out of the LR44 battery. I switch it at 5 days. The problem is that with the AudioTechnica, there's no light on it to let you know if it's actually on or not. So, I'm switching at 5 days.

-DON'T FORGET TO TURN THE MICROPHONE ON IN THE MORNING!!!!! (don't forget to turn it off at the end of the day too) There's a few of us with this setup now, and sometimes, someone forgets to turn the microphone on. If that happens, you get ZERO sound. Since I'm a sound guy, I'm paranoid about stuff like that.

-The microphone comes with a little foam windscreen. It works pretty well. I make sure that when I'm taping the microphone inside the tow hook hole, I have the tape holding the foam windscreen so it doesn't fall off.

-As far as microphone placement, the biggest thing you want to do is keep the microphone away from wind as much as possible. It's so loud back there near the exhaust, it doesn't really matter where you put the microphone in terms of catching the exhaust sound. Ti-Jean found that inside the rear bumper was the best-shielded spot from the wind. I agree. Plus I think it's good as far as dirt goes too. So I just bring the wire out of the trunk, wrap it around the tow hook three times, put a fairly sticky tape on it (including the windscreen)---the blue painter's tape is not sticky enough---duct tape works, and then tape it to the left-most part of the inside of the hole---the 9 o'clock position---on the inside of the bumper. (see pic below)

-I wouldn't run this microphone in the rain.

Wow, thanks a lot for the very detailed answer. I just bought myself a Audio-Technica PRO-24CM + windcutter for that purpose, I didn't know the smaller ATR3350 could do such a good job at recording the exhaust!

Thanks for the tips about battery life, I'll have the same problem with my mic too :P.

The location of your mic is actually really smart . I don't think mine would fit in there, but worse case scenario I can buy another 24$ ATR3350 and put it there. The only thing is that on my 135 the exhaust is on the left and the tow hook is on the right, but it may be loud enough!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by alexmtl_135i

Wow, thanks a lot for the very detailed answer. I just bought myself a Audio-Technica PRO-24CM + windcutter for that purpose, I didn't know the smaller ATR3350 could do such a good job at recording the exhaust!

Thanks for the tips about battery life, I'll have the same problem with my mic too :P.

The location of your mic is actually really smart . I don't think mine would fit in there, but worse case scenario I can buy another 24$ ATR3350 and put it there. The only thing is that on my 135 the exhaust is on the left and the tow hook is on the right, but it may be loud enough!

Yeah, it won't matter where the mic is back there in terms of it's ability to capture the exhaust sound. If anything, you want a little distance because it is REALLY loud back there. As it is, you're going to be banging into the audio limiters to prevent distortion. Keeping wind away is the most important thing.

In this video, I'm at almost 140mph at the start line and the sound is still viable. It's actually pretty intense.

I wouldn't use such a large microphone like the 24CM. It's just too damn big. The LAST thing you want is that thing coming loose and flapping around. Plus it will stick out like a sore thumb in pictures.

And do you really want to tape the crap out of that thing to your bumper? I would think cleaning up the tape would stink---unless you figure a way to suction cup it back there. But I would still worry about it. It gets damn hot back there. My opinion is it would be better to have either a stereo lavalier or two ATR3350's along with that y-cable I noted in my previous post and stick it in the tow hole. The audio limiters might engage a little differently slightly affecting the stereo field, but it's going to be so dynamic back there with exhaust and wind and tire noises that I think the sound would be pretty good. Plus you could experiment and choose where to put each one controlling the stereo field------I mean if you really want to be geeking out with this stuff.....

[Ti-Jean]

Originally Posted by dogbone

First, I need to give credit to M3post member Ti-Jean. He was running this sound recording setup, and I duplicated it.

Still running the setup and like it more than ever You know I'm trying to replicate this setup on my other track car... still some tweaking to do. That setup on the M3 is the best mod you can do if you track the car and cheap too The track videos are so much more fun to watch ... and more importantly ... to listen

Great video

[monkawekrue]

arty 0030:

[John Tanglewood]

that made me moist.

[Kriston]

Wonderful audio!

I hope this goes to show that you do not necessarily need an extremely expensive exhaust on these cars to sound great and gain a few extra ponies. A nice x pipe and your good to go!

[hyperboost]

Nice vid!

[k-lo]

audio doesn't get any better than that!

[Carrozzeria]

Awesome video, sounds great. Is it bad all I could picture was what I do on each section in Forza?

[biglare]

Cool Video! Sounds Sick!

[alexmtl_135i]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Yeah, it won't matter where the mic is back there in terms of it's ability to capture the exhaust sound. If anything, you want a little distance because it is REALLY loud back there. As it is, you're going to be banging into the audio limiters to prevent distortion. Keeping wind away is the most important thing.

In this video, I'm at almost 140mph at the start line and the sound is still viable. It's actually pretty intense.

I wouldn't use such a large microphone like the 24CM. It's just too damn big. The LAST thing you want is that thing coming loose and flapping around. Plus it will stick out like a sore thumb in pictures.

And do you really want to tape the crap out of that thing to your bumper? I would think cleaning up the tape would stink---unless you figure a way to suction cup it back there. But I would still worry about it. It gets damn hot back there. My opinion is it would be better to have either a stereo lavalier or two ATR3350's along with that y-cable I noted in my previous post and stick it in the tow hole. The audio limiters might engage a little differently slightly affecting the stereo field, but it's going to be so dynamic back there with exhaust and wind and tire noises that I think the sound would be pretty good. Plus you could experiment and choose where to put each one controlling the stereo field------I mean if you really want to be geeking out with this stuff.....

Yeah i think you're right, I saw someone with a tow hook and that mic + wind cutter, so I went with that. Your setup is much simpler and also doesn't require taking it out each time you walk away from the car. Im gonna try and replicate that

[SilentAttack]

Great Vid!!!