Yamaha YZ250 Dirt Bike sound effects library | Hacker News Reader

Yamaha YZ250 Dirt Bike sound effects library

watsonwu.com

83 pointsbrudgers57 comments

I really, really miss that brief, beautiful period when the internet was ONLY stuff like this, and you just kind of wandered around.

The library is missing the sound of the bike's rider repeatedly kicking the starter, over and over, and the muttered oaths, as the bike fails to start.

That's funny. However the only time my engine ever died was from either a fouled plug or running out of gas. Solution: always ride with a spare plug and wrench. Also keep the bike rev'd and stop running it so rich. The only other thing that ever stopped my engine was running out of gas.

They are surprisingly reliable if you keep the fuel filter clean and use no-ethanol gas.

As a YZ250 owner and HN frequenter, I'm both thrilled and confused as to why this is on the front page.

Because broken algorithm and vote manipulation. It only took votes from 8 friends to get this onto the front page.

Because the YZ250 was a hack of a bike.

"Yamaha YZ250 Dirt Bike sound effects library"

I came here thinking, well what's news about this? Dirt bikes are really loud and libraries are meant to be pretty quiet places..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHhy2Gk_xik

Touche: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Om1BIcNbY

So, semi-related question which I'm sure somebody here on HN knows the answer:

I've been wanting to make a programmatic car "vroom" noise. As in, you can arbitrarily change the speed/acceleration and there are realistic sounding engine noises. Acceleration, deceleration, constant speed, etc. I've thought of making this by stitching together a bunch of car noises, but all my attempts have ended really badly (partly because most car noises are relatively low quality and partly because they don't stitch together well.)

So how can I make realistic engine noise? I'd appreciate anything that might help (recordings, links, examples of it done, etc.)

I'm pretty sure that videogames do this by using lots of samples that they combine to have variation, same thing that realistic drum samplers do, they take hundreds of samples and combine them.

Star Citizen's recent ship production pipeline video had an overview of their thruster audio. It's not a perfect reference since they're not trying to reproduce a real-world sound, but it might be of interest: https://youtu.be/Bbq2Crt8pTA?t=1525

Segment on engines starts at 26:44.

EDIT: for anyone who can't/won't watch the video, I think it's a bunch of synth and sample layers that shift at different rates as the thrust changes. He only specifically talks about a few synth layers though.

This seems like the sort of thing you could do procedurally relatively easily, without recordings. Find some car recordings and stick them in a spectral analyzer like Raven. You'll probably see harmonics of the valve and crankshaft periods, with intensity changing with engine power.

I've been struggling to synthesize satisfying engine sound and tire squeal for a game, my best efforts sound like an engine that runs on soap bubbles. I think the cutting edge solution involves harmonic analysis of samples to find or make smooth looping points within the engine cycles. Crankcase audio has some tool that does this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpeJdErx5b4 . Way too expensive for me though.

Physical modeling / waveguides / etc. might be one way to go here.

As an example: Andy Farnell's "Designing Sound" (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/designing-sound) describes some physical modeling techniques for engines. (The model is referenced in this paper: http://www.academia.edu/14107512/Physically_informed_car_eng... which tries to improve on the model and also might contain some additional ideas).

I took a listen at the engine sample from Andy's PureData code page (http://aspress.co.uk/sd/practical22.html). The second half (where the engine was revving and accelerating) sounded pretty good to me! It might need some combination with samples, though, the idling portion kind of sounded off...

This is really cool, modeling the process instead of relying on samples is a really appealing solution. The first engine sounded like atari pole position to me but the second 4 stroke model is pretty amazing. I guess the added complexity makes the engine sound more appealing.

That sounds like something you should be able to do with subtractive synthesis. If you don't have an analog synthesizer lying around, you can try software like maybe zynAddSubFx. If you set the pitch bend range wide, you could simulate smoothly revving from low to high RPM.

I have a Moog Slim Phatty that does an interesting/glitchy thing if you try to play notes that are too low for it, where at some threshold the oscillators slow way down. If you use pitch bend to ride the edge of that threshold, it sounds like a car engine trying to turn over, catching for a few cycles, stalling, and so on.

I will once again link to xoxos VST plugins (my fanboyism is showing):

http://www.xoxos.net/vst/vst.html#models

Scroll down to the "virtual machine" plugin. It's closed source but there is a PDF that explains how it works, with a nice signal flow graph. You can also get a very good idea of the underlying algorithm by playing around with the parameters.

Also, since someone else is asking about generating squeaking tire sounds, xoxos also has a "friction" VST that does this. There's no audio demo so I made a quick one that emulates tire squeaking:

http://007ee821dfb24ea1133d-f5304285da51469c5fdbbb05c1bdfa60...

Edit: and while I'm at it, here's another engine sound demo using "virtual machine" (less interesting than the one on his website, but I put a bit of reverb/ambience on it to make it more realistic):

http://007ee821dfb24ea1133d-f5304285da51469c5fdbbb05c1bdfa60...

Those attached PDFs give a great overview of how to implement this. The virtual machine and friction plugins sound so good, I really want to try duplicating this. Thanks for the samples!

How many other hn readers dirt bike? I just moved to Utah, one of the big attractions is easy land access.

I did when I was a kid, but I crashed pretty badly and almost died, so dad sold the dirtbikes :(.

I've been meaning for a long time to get a new one, but live in the city, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to have one here.

I live in inner Sydney and I'd go crazy if I couldn't ride. So, I ride an R1 to work every day, rain, hail or shine. Bit of a ridiculous bike to have for a commuter but it's a lot more fun and much faster than any other option. I would probably only be able to ride it on weekends if I worked in the CBD though. I'd still recommend it if there is any chance you can filter and get to work without too many headaches.

I do. I used to have a yz250, now I ride a KTM 450sx-f. I've ridden down Baja a couple times. I have an idea for a start up that deals with dirt bikes but it's kind of a small market and I haven't really been able to pull the trigger.

Small targeted markets are good, though, especially when you have deep domain knowledge on them.

You should do it.

Raced motocross growing up. Those are some of the happiest memories I have from 6 - 17.

College and then city life meant retiring from that hobby but my new guilty pleasure is downhill mountain biking (Whistler is one of the coolest places on the planet) and BMX dirt jumps.

I remember getting a piece of advice to do what made you happy as a kid. It worked ;-)

Probably used by movie/TV studios which explains the price... B2B is where it's at.

The word "Foley" in the filenames kind of confirms that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)

And video games. This is a good price for high quality sound coverage.

Well, since we're talking bikes now on HN, I'll use this thread to see if anyone in SF/Bay area is interested in buying my BMW 2004 R1150RT. I'm leaving the country within a week and still need to sell it. Bike has some visual damage to the left fairing from falling over in the garage, but other than that it's mint and low miles for a 2004 (around 20k).

Got any pics? What is your asking price?

Yep, more info here: https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/mcy/6074610360.html

Price is the "craigslist price", so it's negotiable.

Hell yeah at least he used a bike old enough to be a two stroke. Four stroke dirt bikes are just wrong.

Braaaaappppp. The funnest days of my life have been on 2 stroke dirt bikes. Living in a major city, it's something that I miss on a daily basis.

Buy and then sell a sport bike. They're a TON of fun, if not in exactly the same way. They're also dramatically more dangerous.

Also incredible amounts of fun. However, I've always felt safer flying through the air on a dirt bike than riding a sport bike surrounded by hoards of distracted drivers paying more attention to their cells phones than their external environment.

Yeah nothing like that powerband. Pure ridegasm.

And the smell! Some combination of the oil burning and the smell of the seat. Man I love that smell.

Sometimes you've got to do some enduro!

There's actually been a bit of a 2 stroke resurgence in the last few years. Yamaha still has brand new ones rolling off the line

I heard a rumor that there would be a ban on them due to emissions. Assumed after the 2007 federal emissions law, would be RIP for new 2 stroke dirtbikes. Glad to know that doesn't seem to be the case.

They are in the process of being banned in Europe. Rumour has it KTM is releasing fuel injected models in 2018 that will pass the emissions laws (and have improved throttle response), which is great to see. They're dubbing it "TPI" or "transfer port injection".

I think the general view on this issue is that 2 stroke dirt bike emissions pale in comparison to other 2 stroke equipment emissions and thus not really worth making a stink over.

It is odd that 2 stroke street bikes died out here in the US back in the 60s, but off roads have continued until pretty recently...

Noise and emissions controls.

It was in the 70's too. I had a 1976 Yamaha DT250 and a 1974 Suzuki TS-185 as dirtbikes a few years back and they were both street legal back in the day (I had all the lights and stuff removed though so wasn't gonna go through the process of registering either for the road).

My neighbor had a '76 TS-185 registered though, kinda wanted to buy it to cruise around locally and annoy the crappy newer neighbors.

When I was in high school at the end of 70's, I worked in a motorcycle and gun shop (seriously). We used to see a few Suzuki GT 750 water buffaloes come through there for various repairs.

750cc 2 stroke engine? That's crazy. It must've sounded like the apocalypse.

From a storytelling perspective, the sound of a two stroke engine probably conjures up the image of a motorcycle when the bike is not in frame (similar to the way the screech of a red tailed hawk is used for storytelling).

In case you wonder what's the market for this: film making. I have friend that's in the sfx/field recording business. They engage in sneakernet type of trading of sound libraries. He's got terabytes of meticulously tagged SFX.

They seem to have have lotsa fun. A couple of years ago he went to Finland with a leading game developer to record people shooting cannons and other weapons from the ww2.

For a second I was happy that Yamaha decided to, for what ever reason, release some sound library for machine learning or something.

I guess the article was targeted for some other population on HN. Possibly the one that often looks for Yamaha YZ250 Dirk Bike sound effects library but doesn't know where to buy it form. /s

Carmakers have been known to electronically augment engine noise to better match the taste of those who like engine noise. Yamaha, being the uncontested number one amongst brands that do both motor vehicles and synthesizers, would be the prime candidate for introducing the concept to motorcycles. I was half jokingly expecting reverse engineered firmware.

Yeah man long live 2stroke MX bikes. But WTF is this on HN?

I don't get it.

Maybe I should grab my field recorder and go make some recordings of my BMW and Hondas...

This is cool, but I'm genuinely curious how/why this hit the front page?

The classic way, people upvoted it. The 8 points it has is a relatively high number of upvotes for 1 hour. It also helps that it's on a domain that doesn't get a penalty.

I didn't know that some domains were penalised. The ranking system seems very strange sometimes, so this might explain it. Is the list of penalised domains made public?

Individual users are penalized too. And no, they don't make either public.

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