Recording a 360 Sprinter Car.

Sometimes a little blind commitment will take you places you never thought you’d go.

Admittedly my trained audio experience lies in the studio, and as passionate as I feel about field recording, I’ve been figuring a lot of it out as I go. This working model was exemplified when I pulled into Ohsweken Speedway with a duffle bag full of new recording gear, and a pit in my stomach.

Some context… Recently I’d been hired to do audio work for a new APTN TV Doc Series called Friday Night Thunder. The show follows a dirt-racing league through the perspective of 6 promising drivers out of Ohsweken Speedway.

As you can imagine, these vehicles have a unique sound and to the show’s production company, authenticity was imperative. The sound team at Eggplant decided we would benefit from getting out to the track and doing some recording. With five days of vehicular recording under my belt, I had some confidence and volunteered my services.

Here’s the thing…  the trucks and SUV’s I’ve been recording have been slow moving, large-scale vehicles with mounting points, and comfortable backseats for me to record/mix from. On the contrary these Sprinter cars are small and well… very fast.

It quickly became apparent I was not going to be able to join Glenn in the car, meaning both the microphones, and the recorder had to be mounted to the vehicle, and left in record the entire time. Yikes.

Well… we were there. And we had a job to do. I clamped a Zoom H6 to the front of the Sprinter Car, and taped two DPAs to the side and back and set my preamps as low as they could go. Set up a Zoom H5 on the sidelines, and watched 3000$ in recording gear fly around a dirt track at 150KM/hour.

All in all, things went pretty well. Everything sounded good, the team was happy, and my gear only took some minor damages. (Everything still works.) I consider myself lucky, but I don’t take it for granted. Every shoot’s a learning experience, this one more-so than others. This gig’s challenges inspired me to make some new Back Pocket Sound investments… but that’s another blog post.

Till next time,

Ben