Thursday, October 30, 2014
The future’s going to sound a lot like the past
We live in an age of wonders.
It seems like almost every few months, some amazing new electronic gadget gets invented and before we know it, it totally changes the way we live.
Sometimes this new technology comes with a hidden dark side, as I discussed in my article, “Privacy in the modern world is really an illusion.” And sometimes it comes with amusing unforeseen consequences.
A few weeks ago I heard a report on NPR’s business program, Marketplace, that squarely falls into this latter category.
It seems car manufacturers such as BMW and Ford have gotten so good at making their engines so efficient and quiet through the use of modern technology, that people are complaining that the engines are too quiet. Buyers of Ford’s signature muscle car, the Mustang, and BMW’s equipped with the company’s inline six-cylinder engines miss the distinctive growls the cars used to make.
“The enthusiast driver wants to hear that sound,” Dave Buchko, a BMW spokesman said in the
aforementioned Marketplace interview. “They want to hear the engine as it's revving up.”
So, what have these companies done to address this complaint?
Turned to technology, naturally.
Taking a cue from Apple, which revolutionized the way we now listen to and purchase our music, these automakers have recorded the sounds their older engines used to make and play it back inside the car’s cabin through the sound system.
“What you're getting,” Buchko explained during the interview, “is pre-recorded engine sound that is matched exactly to a car's RPMs.”
When I heard him say that, I burst out laughing. Not because I thought it was cheating, but because I immediately though what a great marketing ploy this could be.
Can’t afford BMW or V-8 Mustang?
Afraid you (or your kid) won’t be able to handle a car with all those horses under the hood?
No problem.
For a few extra bucks you can make that three-cylinder Ford Fiesta sound like it’s packing a V-8, with the special V-RUM (Virtual Rumble Upgraded Motor) package! See your dealer for details!
Of course the absence of the noises we’ve become accustom to isn’t always just an aesthetic problem. Sometimes it can be a safety issue. Today’s electric cars and plug-in hybrids are so quiet when they are running on only their electric motors, that people often step out into the street in front of them because they can’t hear them coming. To combat this, manufacturers had to make these vehicles make noises.
But unlike BMW and Ford, I wouldn’t make them sound like traditional cars.
I’d give them a unique sound all their own.
A sound that would be instantly recognizable.
A sound that generations of us have already heard.
That sound?
This one of course.
Yup, that’s right. The bop-bop-bop-bop sound the Jetson’s car used to make. (Hey, this IS the future! Why should our cars still sound like they did at the start of the last century?) And at least one company seems to agree with me. Nissan gave its new electric car, the Leaf, a Jetson-like sound.
Yet people still seem to prefer the sound of our old technology. I can’t begin to count how many people have their cell phone ring tones set to mimic the sound of the old Ma-Bell mechanical ringers. Digital camera’s still make a “clicking” sound despite not having any mechanical shutters, and while I understand the need to have these devices make sounds so you can’t surreptitiously take someone’s picture, why not have the camera say “Cheese!” or “Got ya!”
All this leads me to believe that for the foreseeable future our cars will still sound like they always have even though it’s becoming less and less necessary for them to do so.
It seems there is something about human nature that compels us keep around familiar aspects of old technology in our new inventions, even when those new products don’t functionally need them. So as anachronistic as it may be, I expect that the sounds we hear in our future will mimic what we hear today.
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