Recording exhaust sound on the move.

[Acethepower]

Hi all,

I recently went on a little road trip to Yorkshire/ Lake District with a mate and thought "I'll take my GoPro and put together a short video to remember it".

While I did get some really good camera angles from outside and inside of the car, the audio left a lot to be desired. On the external shots the wind noise was unbearable.

My friend had one of those Amazon special fantaseal mics for his GoPro, but even that wasn't great.

What I'd like to achieve for future trips is good quality audio of exhaust notes, gear changes and other miscellaneous car sounds from a standalone device that can be inside or outside the car.

My current setup is
Clio 182 (bog standard)
GoPro hero 3 +silver edition
Open back door (under 100mph)

Im open to any suggestions as I am very new to this.

Cheers

[tuneltek]

Hi, I record vehicle sounds, alas there is no single device that can do what you are after. A handheld digital recorder with the capability to plug in external mics is the cheapest way.these usually come with 4channels.
To capture every sound you really need at least 8 channels.
Set up the recorder in the car cabin with a furry mic screen and then you can plug in your external mics to capture the exhaust...in stereo
These do not come cheap...i recommend DPA mics...buy the heavy duty version they can record 130+ decibels and have titanium reinforced cable and will not melt with the heat produced by the exhaust or engine.
Buy professional gaffa tape...it will not mark and i have not had a problem of speeds over 150.
Its a very complicated set up to get the recording levels good before you set off as most cars do not let you rev to the max whilst stationary, so it could be fine in your garage but as soon as you hit the road it will clip constantly .
Under bonnet recording again is trial and error to get the sound you want but not capture electrical interference from the components.
Budget around 1500 for a starter setup

[untakenname]

I've ended up using a zoom mic with dual inputs and connected two sennheiser lav mics, one under the bonnet and one in the centre of the bumper between the two exhausts.

Comparison vid I made here with the built in dashcam mic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUjo_m4w5Uk

[Acethepower]

Cheers for these responses guys,

While my budget unfortunately cannot stretch to £1500 it is very interesting to know how the pros do it.

The zoom method is interesting as well. Which model of zoom mic are you using? The quality sounds great.

Cheers in advance

[untakenname]

Hi, it's an Zoom H4 which records onto compact flash, it's well over a decade old so I'm sure that any newer recorder that has external input and records PCM will do the job.