Toronto Indy Lights: lamenting engine sounds

The roar of high-performing engines as we turn the world of sports today.

Paul Virostek of Creative Field Recording sent through several recordings from the Toronto Indy Lights race practice – here we can hear a pack of cars zooming past during qualifying at turn 9 on the Toronto course.

City version:

The reimagined sound takes as its starting point the discovery that the Indy Lights car engines roar in the key of Gbm.

From here, we created a piece with multiple synth and instrument parts in the same key to tap into and express those elements of the pure sound of a high performance engine that can sound oddly mournful, as if the engines are lamenting to the world as they whizz past.

The synth parts are complemented by various tracks from the field recording at different speeds, which move around the stereo field as if they’re racing across it.

Memory version: