Product Description
Bonneville Land Speed Races
Every August, racers gather at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats to run heir custom vehicles through measured miles of ancient lakebed. These recordings capture a range of purpose-built machines—vintage hot rods, streamliners, and modified roadsters—under full acceleration across the open salt.
The unique acoustic environment of the flats, combined with high sustained RPMs, produces sounds that work well beyond traditional vehicle effects. Onboard recordings and starting line launches make excellent car chase sweeteners while the long, sustained passbys can stand in for ship passbys and propeller aircraft. The variety of engines—supercharged V8s, turbocharged four-cylinders, vintage flatheads—provide a large tonal palette.
Recordings were captured using a variety of microphones. DPA 4061s were used for onboard recordings where sound pressure levels exceeded 140dB. LOM Uši Pros in an un-attended ‘drop rig’ captured 200+ MPH passbys at a distance of 10 meters. A Klover 26″ parabolic dish was used to capture distant passbys near the 4 mile marker alongside a Sennheiser MKH 8070 lobar shotgun and a Schoeps MK41. Starting line revs and launches were also recorded with the Sennheiser shotgun mic.