Re: So Short question: How do Engine sounds get recorded?

To clear up the speculation I'll respond here giving what detail I can.

Despite what some people say the recordings we use in game are authentic. Every year (covid permitting) we attend pre-season test and work with several teams. We place multiple mics on the cars in as close to FOM broadcast mic positions as possible. There's a few things to mention here, firstly we buy the same spec mics as FOM, although both FOM mics and Codies mics are custom modified for various reasons. This means we'll never completly replicate the way FOM capture the recordings. Secondly, while we aim to position our mics as close as we possibly can to the FOM mics, the FOM mics are in very specific and sometimes hard to access positions. As with the mic spec, we can't possibly replicate this 100% but do what we can.

Our recordings are authentic and recorded at the time of the test session. For obvious reasons we can't just record the cars throughout the year, where they are tuned and upgraded throughout a season. We're at the mercy of how the power units sound during the test sessions and only able to capture the sound of the engine based on a specific teams run plan. We do work incredibly closely with team though and have had feedback on engine audio. I won't go into specifics about teams, drivers or how we share our assets but the reception from teams is largely positive on how our recordings sound.

It's also worth mentioning (especially to people who ask about mods and the way other games sound, especially those with smaller budgets) that we're simply not allowed to rip or steal assets from the TV broadcast. We're then also reliant on how playback is handled in game by the physics and handling teams. All of these factors play into what our engines sound like in game.

For what its worth we also record hundreds of GB of new assets at every test session from garage ambience (such as team chatter, cars being worked, fans, cooling, servers) to track side ambience, pass bys from every team, paddock, media centre etc... Most of these assets are recorded in mono, stereo and ambisonic formats. So most assets you hear in game are extremely authentic year on year, very little library assets are used. Don't believe everything you hear about annual franchises being copy/paste 😃. We work incredily hard year on year and the audio team has only grown in size over the last handful of years. Most of us are also huge F1 fans too so its not odd to find me taking notes and thinking about improvements to the game when watching a GP.

As I always mentioned in the Codies forums I'll always try and respond to and engage with any polite comments and constructive criticism. Telling me the game sounds bad or we should all be fired probably isn't a good way of engaging 🙂