It’s not every day that you get to record the sounds of Porsches in the Alps. Henrik Oppermann was working for Sennhesier and got in touch for me to make recordings of the runs they had planned on the Susstenpass. This is one of the most famous stretches of road in the Swiss alps that remains open during the summer and spring. Of course, I didn’t hesitate, what an opportunity.

The plan was to record the sound as well as true to reality with the challenge of the fact that there would be 4 cameras attached to the Porsche and they would naturally take priority. I would need to work around them, so as not to leave any microphones in shot. The plan was to use 8 microphones in stereo pairs. Recording the sounds of the Porsche in stereo was the priority. So this required a great deal of electrical tape and DPA microdot extender cable so that the wires could be folded neatly into the joins of the bodywork of the car. There were two types of mics that were used for this job. DPA 4063 which were perfect for conditions where there was a high sound pressure from the sheer amplitude of the engine — these were being recorded by a sound devices mix pre 10 with 32 bit floating point depth. Then there was the Sennheiser twins. One of Henrik’s go to mics that have a duel diaphragm with a channel for each making them incredibly versatile as a microphone. I have to say, there is something about these microphones where the upper frequencies have some kind of magical quality about them. For this job having a stereo pair of these really made sense. I was worried when I first engaged them that there would be problems as they have a largish diaphragm which are prone to low end vibrations. This simply wasn’t the case and the microphone handled as well as the car—smooth and charismatic in equal measure.
Of course, the very nature of recording with people in a team meant that during the course of the shoot where only the main talent could be present in the car(it’s a shoot about him driving it) meant that something could go wrong. And, of course when something can go wrong it normally should go wrong. The camera lenses started to create a small vibration inside of the car next to the Sennhesier twins—the prized microphones making the inside of the car sound rattly and dare I say, cheap. This lead to a tense exchange as time was ticking as we starting to move away from the morning golden hours to a more “on top” position of the sun in the sky that looked less desirable. Of course, I would never suggest that we fuck off the cameras at this point, we’re a team, we shall work through this together. Thankfully after some calm troubleshooting we managed to mute the vibrations of the lenses with some good old fashioned bongo tie engineering. We then went on to get a clear run with both the camera and sound being captured in a cacophony of motorcar and natural awe.
Recording in stereo pairs allowed the sound to follow the frame in the edit. When the car started it was the stereo pair that were positioned next to the exhaust. When the shot was inside the car, the stereo recording of inside was used for the foundation. When we moved to the shot outside the window it was the stereo sound of the microphones under the wheel arches. When the car stopped on the top of the mountain it was the sound of the stereo pair that were placed up close to the rear engine that captured the hallmark sound of the Porsche cooling down after being put through the motions. Here are the results:
https://youtu.be/B4VOThlleaw?si=eWusrX6qUUgHbzw0