Comfort Noises and Electric Vehicle ‘Soundscapes’

Before noise-cancelling microphones, voice activity detection algorithms, and the crisp audio clarity of modern phone and video calling, lulls in conversation were naturally filled with analogue background noise. These imperfections provided continuity, making silence feel natural. Without them, the silence in digital communication would be unsettling.

To address this, synthetic background ‘comfort noise’ is added to phone and video calls, as well as digital radio transmissions:

Many radio stations broadcast birdsong, city-traffic or other atmospheric comfort noise during periods of deliberate silence. For example, in the UK, silence is observed on Remembrance Sunday, and London’s quiet city ambiance is used. This is to reassure the listener that the station is on-air, but primarily to prevent silence detection systems at transmitters from automatically starting backup tapes of music.

This concept of comfort noise reminds me of the evolution of electric vehicle ‘soundscapes’ and the discussions from the late 2000s and early 2010s about adding artificial engine noises—not just for safety, but also as an auditory brand identifier (or “sonic character”):

BMW hired Hans Zimmer to help score their electric car sound, the inspiration for one model supposedly starting with a chord from a Beatles song. Jaguar has employed the US electronic musician Richard Devine, and Volkswagen hired Leslie Mándoki […].

When the musician and sound designer Danielle Venne […] was asked to lead the design on the acceleration sound of the Nissan Leaf, she experimented with layering samples of woodwind instruments, flutes, clarinets and synthesisers.

“It ends up feeling like something out of Star Wars,” Venne says.

Fiat was the first to sample a human voice in the sound of its electric car, which has been overlaid with a chord from Nino Rota’s soundtrack for the 1973 movie Amarcord – the end result sounds as though you are sitting at a theatre and the curtain has just been raised on a show.

And then you have the much less pleasing, exaggerated versions, which feel like little more than some kind of aural conspicuous consumption.

Tags: