Designing Tesla
This was my first project after landing in Berlin, the brief was to design a soundscape around a Tesla drifting in the desert. It was for an art exhibition and was accompanied by sculptures and a perfume/scent designer.
Ok, so first challenge, Tesla’s don’t have big V8 engines, they are essentially silent vehicles, so the question was then “What does a Tesla even sound like?”
My instinct told me it’s going to be a torque filled whine, like a giant electric RC car. It’s pitch rising and falling as you put more or less energy into the system. After some research it appeared to lean in this direction so the next step is the “how?”.
Since you can’t really record a Tesla, as they don’t make a ton of noise besides the tyres, I would need to design a synth or sampling patch that I could manipulate and essentially perform the vehicle, like an instrument. This way we can convey it’s speed through sound.
After some trial and error I settled on an instrument by Arturia called Pigments. It has two engines of which both can be sample based. So I scoured my library two find and design two particular sounds:
1) A pitchless noise, derived from an engine, to serve as the body.
2) A pitched but stable engine sound that could be modulated to rise and fall. I settled on a constant power Jet Engine.
Arturia Pigments Patch
By assigning the modulation wheel source to multiple parameters, I could essentially “play” the vehicle on my Midi Keyboard. As I increase modulation the pitch increases, the low-pass filter cutoff opens up and a few other things move about in an organic way. And the opposite is true for lowering the Mod Wheel.
Mod Wheel or Surprised Face?
The next step was to imagine this vehicle drifting through space, from moments of calm to high adrenaline, and then perform it. There is a duplicate Pigments instance that sweeps through a digereedoo wavetable, two octaves lower, for body. You can see the performance automation in the next image.
Modwheel and (hidden) Volume Automation
Now that we have this vehicle moving around, the next problem is that nothing occurs in a vacuum. This Tesla affects the world it lives in. It’s tyres thrash against the sand, it’s body breaks against the desert winds. So, it’s time to layer in these elements. As the vehicle picks up speed, we layer in the sand, wind, skids and drifting. then automate the volume till it feels right.
Aesthetically I wanted the listener to move from in to outside the Tesla, then to being right next to the tyres, then to be on an imaginary mountain kilometres away while you watch this vehicle drifting in the distance. All while the desert and mother nature envelopes this rare spectacle. An uncommon disruption on this imaginary landscape. Playing with perspective and distance (another subject for another day), we give the soundscape depth, at times intimate and aggressive, at other times melancholic, isolated, even peaceful.
After the design and foley (human sounds) were sorted, I composed a suitable score and added backgrounds and ambience for my little world that I had designed. I find the second half of the piece quite relaxing, you could even use it for ASMR if that floats your boat.
Enjoy, and any questions please ask below or email at info@hibrianstudio.com. Cover photo copyright Simon Stalenhag (https://www.simonstalenhag.se)
Some of the background layers