Engine Sound Simulator | Hacker News Reader

Engine Sound Simulator

markeasting.github.io

299 pointshyperific138 comments

Reading a lot of the comments it seems that most people here are keen to have otherwise quiet cars fitted with fake sounds. While I appreciate there's a safety aspect to making some sort of sound for pedestrians, I am actually looking forward to a future that makes cities and heavy traffic areas both quieter and cleaner. If you live in such areas, this would be a great quality of life improvement and dare I say, may improve property values in such places.

I'd hate to think that 20 years from now I'll still be subject to morons deciding to delight the neighbourhood at 2am with their overblown engine sounds.

Yeah Skeuomorphic EVs is a bad idea.

I kinda like the Skeuomorphic Brooke 25/30-HP Swan Car, which has Eerie Glowing Skeuomorphic Swan Eyes, can Rudely Spray Skeuomorphic Steam from its Skeuomorphic Swan Beak to clear a passage in the streets, can Obnoxiously Skeuomorphically Honk with an exhaust-driven, eight-tone Gabriel horn that can be operated by means of a keyboard at the back of the car, and can Disgustingly Dump Skeuomorphic Bird Shit onto the road through a valve at the back of the car.

It even has a baby daughter, Cygnet The Baby Swan Car!

I bet Elon Musk and every CyberTruck owner would love to drive a CyberSwan.

https://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/en/car/brooke-25-30-hp-swan-car...

Brooke 25/30-HP Swan Car

This Brooke Swan Car is truly extraordinary. It was the creation of the eccentric and wealthy Scotsman Robert Nicholl ‘Scotty’ Matthewson, who lived in early 20th century Calcutta, the capital of what was then British India

Matthewson wanted to shock the local elite with his car, and he certainly succeeded in doing so.

The bodywork represents a swan gliding through water. The rear is decorated with a lotus flower design finished in gold leaf, an ancient symbol for divine wisdom. Apart from the normal lights, there are electric bulbs in the swan’s eyes that glow eerily in the dark. The car has an exhaust-driven, eight-tone Gabriel horn that can be operated by means of a keyboard at the back of the car. A ship’s telegraph was used to issue commands to the driver. Brushes were fitted to sweep off the elephant dung collected by the tyres. The swan’s beak is linked to the engine’s cooling system and opens wide to allow the driver to spray steam to clear a passage in the streets. Whitewash could be dumped onto the road through a valve at the back of the car to make the swan appear even more lifelike.

The car caused panic and chaos in the streets on its first outing and the police had to intervene. Matthewson sold the car to the Maharaja of Nabha, whose family owned it for over seventy years.

The car was discovered years later in its original state, albeit in poor condition. The sumptuous Indian silk upholstery had been eaten away by rats.

In 1991 it came into the ownership of the Louwman Museum and was fully restored. New upholstery was commissioned from an Indian weaving mill following the discovery of remnants of the original material under the seats. All the gadgets were made to working order again. In 1993 the Swan won the Montagu Prize at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance in California.

https://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/en/masterpieces-of-mobility/swa...

Designed to shock

The Brooke ‘Swan Car’ is truly extraordinary. It was the creation of the eccentric and wealthy Scotsman Robert Nicholl ‘Scotty’ Matthewson, who lived in early 20th century Calcutta, the capital of what was then British India. Matthewson wanted to shock the local elite with his car, and he certainly succeeded in doing so.

Quite a sight!

The car’s first outing in the streets of Calcutta lead to newspaper headlines: “Women screaming” and “animals in the streets scattered in all directions”. At the time traffic in Calcutta was already very busy and chaotic. The authorities’ response was to be expected: they banned the car from public roads.

A work of art on wheels

The body represented a swan, probably inspired by Swan Park in Calcutta where Matthewson lived. The accessories are just as quirky as the body of this work of art on wheels. In particular the system that allowed hot water to be sprayed from the swan’s beak and the brushes used to keep the tyres clean.

The Maharaja of Nabha

Matthewson decided to sell the car. A buyer was found in the person of the Maharaja of Nabha. After a conflict with the neighbouring principality, the Maharaja was forced to abdicate. His son, at the time 9 years old, succeeded him. The Baby Swan was built specially for him and beautifully complements the Swan Car.

Meet the Swan Car

The cars didn’t see much use and in the 1980s part of the Maharaja of Nabha’s car collection was sold, including the famous Swan Cars. Both cars were acquired by the Louwman Museum and subjected to a thorough restoration.

https://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/en/car/cygnet-the-baby-swan-car...

Cygnet The Baby Swan Car

To accompany the large ‘Swan Car’ The Maharaja of Nabha had this smaller version made for use on his estate in the 1920s.

The body was hand-beaten from steel sheet and fitted with an electric motor. It was called the ‘Baby Swan’ or ‘Cygnet’. Note the cygnets at the front. This is probably the oldest Indian-made automobile.

Both cars are now reunited in the museum, like ‘mother and daughter’.

Yes! I've already written NHTSA and US DOT about getting these synthetic noises banned. The more people who do the same, the more likely it'll get noticed.

Now, we just have to figure out how to include motorcycles...

you know they're the ones that required them, right?

>> getting these synthetic noises banned.

Not possible. Db limits are one thing, but a content-based rule would be akin to banning certain types of music.

That sounds a bit theoretical in this context, I am sure auto makers would love to save the costs of external speakers, so the incentive is there to drop them if the sounds were not mandated.

Unless I'm missing something, these sounds only occur inside the car. Can you explain how that affects you?

EVs at low speeds need to produce external sounds to warn pedestrians.

Warn pedestrians about what?

That they’re near. They’re so quiet unless you hear them shifting gravel on the road you won’t hear them. It’s dangerous to walk around anywhere vehicles park if an EV is present.

I know that HN is not one person, but this is getting out of hand. Some commenters are so upset about EV sounds they write petitions to have them banned, others swear that pedestrians fall dead from their sheer quietness.

Maybe the EVs adapt to local regulations, because from my experience, depending on the model, they sound like a sad harmonica, hurdy-gurdy, or a model fighter jet, all of which are quite entertaining but fulfill the function.

I think the complaints were about EVs with fake sounds, added because they are so quiet. So both things are happening - some EVs are too quiet, others are too loud with the fake sounds.

In ICE cars, some people remove the mufflers and modify the exhaust for louder and more deeper sounds.

anti-social vehicles

I'm aware of that. We're talking about artificial engine sounds, though.

I'm not a motorhead, so I only skimmed second hand part offerings and found this: OEM Maserati part number 670006946. For optics it's advertised as noise cancellation system, but owners' forum [0] suggests it can work either way. They also discuss a defeat mechanism.

[0]: https://www.ghibliforum.com/threads/increase-diesel-active-e...

That’s because it’s a microphone with a speaker playing the inverse wave form.

Oh but they don’t! Lots of German “performance” cars now have speakers under the car to make obnoxiously loud sounds. They can’t produce them naturally because the muffler regulations prohibit unfiltered exhausts - hence speakers.

AMG, Audi RS, M Power - they all do it.

Do you have an AMG example? Afaik they only play engine sounds in the interior.

That's incorrect. I just did some searching and they play the sounds through the interior sound system.

Yes, you are missing something. Query for your favorite search engine is "active sound exhaust system". This is how it affects me.

I think you're the one missing something. I just searched that exact phrase and all the sources I can find says they play the sound through the interior sound system. Can you find me a source that says otherwise? I can't.

These are results from the first page. Not an endorsement.

https://www.maxhaust.com/en/accessories/v4-ab-022023/active-... https://schawe-shop.de/en/bmw/bmw-5-series/bmw-5-series-seda... (no product page) https://ixsound.eu/ https://milltekshop.com/active-sound-control-single-sound-ge... https://thor-tuning.com/eu/shop/thor-electronic-exhaust-2-lo...

From the descriptions it's unambiguous that these add-ons are not pumping 100dB into the car's interior.

I wonder if they could go the other way and use loudspeakers for external active noise cancellation.

wtf is external noice cancellation

I believe they refer to something similar to this: https://youtu.be/y2RAsubSDAk?si=anuRAPCCI9Z0NQMJ&t=144

Sorry, for the obnoxious video. I couldn't find another quick example.

https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-is-active-...

They already do have active noise cancelling, but I believe it is to benefit the passengers.

Having lived in apartments on many busy roads in my life the main source of noise from cars is tyre noise, not engine noise.

Try living downtown in South Florida.

The first mistake was living in Florida

You’re right, freedom is overrated. Dictatorship in one of the blue states is a better choice.

That's an insane take given DeSantis.

You literally live under desantis, the most brazenly autocratic governor in the US. GTFO.

My experience is complatly different.

By far the worst offenders when it comes to neighborhood car sound are EV’s. They have decided across the board to blast the most bone chilling drone imaginable every time they are backing up a driveway or driving at low speed – you know, the kind of thing that happens in neighborhoods all the time.

The tone itself is the worst part. It’s as if it was specifically engineered by top audio scientists to be as repulsive as possible (that’s probably exactly what happened), then they turned the volume dial up to 11 so it’s still grating even in your house several doors down. I believe Tesla led the charge here, but now they’re all equally guilty of disturbing the peace and wanton noise pollution.

Just play a nice v8 sound at a reasonable volume for gosh sake!

I like the hissing sound that some delivery trucks started making about a decade ago.

Experiments show that people can determine the direction of a hiss (a sound composed of many frequencies) better than a beep or a pure tone.

There’s some regulation here to contend with that mandates these EV sounds have to include a 1khz-4khz tone which is probably what you’re noticing since it’s on the higher end of the usual urban audioscape. The Verge did an interesting piece on this recently – https://www.theverge.com/24182348/ev-sounds-low-speed-survey...

People like the sound of engines. It’s interesting to me that you have issue with car exhaust notes but not police or other sirens. In urban environments you typically hear sirens more than vehicle noise, at least in my experiences in SF.

Maybe don’t be concerned with things that don’t really matter. Likely real engine sounds aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Most jurisdictions have laws against modifying cars to make them louder, so your attempt to make GP believe that his adverse reaction to loud cars is unusual or is his problem fails.

Maybe you should face that fact that your loud car is bad for the health of your neighbors.

Sure, and that’s the avenue to take rather than the GP stating across the board that the sounds are bad. Loud sounds, regardless of the source, are harmful.

So again, now do sirens, and music.

Are you actually trying to equate sociopaths to emergency services?

If you liked this, y'all owe it to yourselves to checkout AngeTheGreat's channel. It's truly amazing work.

https://youtube.com/@angethegreat

Yeah, I always look forward to their new developments. This is similar to Ange's effort with SiliconX to add realistic engine sounds to an electric motorcycle though this appears to be for an electric race car.

Absolutely — the procedurally generated fluid-sim engine sound generator is just wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bJTkBsiTPc.

if you get to the 0.1.11a release and are annoyed that you have to manually edit some file to change engines, you can use 0.1.14a of the community edition of the software https://github.com/Engine-Simulator/engine-sim-community-edi...

it is almost the same except has some severe qol improvements.

For a less scientific approach LAxemann has some interesting videos as well. He uses software synthesizers to create the sounds. His introductory video is quite interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afvKUTIL4D8

He has other examples and updates on his channel as well.

That rigid body engine sim is, without a doubt, one of the coolest software projects I’ve seen in my entire life. If only we could get sim racers to adopt this tech.

Ange's top patron is BeamNG, arguably the most physically accurate sim racer out there right now (in some areas, it still needs improvement). I predict within five years BeamNG + engine sim will leapfrog what anyone else has done in this area and recreated what we all thought video games were doing when we were little kids.

Looks like this uses soundbanks instead of actually simulating an engine like AngeTheGreat's simulator. The author of this one has published their source code here https://github.com/markeasting/engine-audio

Tangentially: Does anyone know where to find a collection of the low speed sounds emitted by electric vehicles (in the US at least)? I'd be interest to hear the different approach different manufacturers have taken.

i too would be very interested in this! i am for now a petrol head but continue to be fascinated and also mildly irked by the varying EV sounds.

some sound like galactic spaceships, some like weapons, some like "blurred mechanical noise", and some are almost indescribable in words. some can be semi-nightmarish.

i'd love to play with a soundboard that had all the different EV manuf sounds on it.

Shortly after moving into my current place, I would randomly hear this hum that for the life of me I could not figure out what it was. I had even looked at maps to look for some sort of place nearby that might make sense. It wasn't a constant hum, and there was seemingly no schedule for it. A week ago, I just happened to be in my drive way instead of the fenced backyard when I heard the noise. It was my neighbor's EV <facepalm>

There was a short moment when I thought the future looked like no fumes and no noise (well, at least no engine noise; tires are quite loud at speed). And then the government decided that EVs should not be quieter than ICEVs, in fact they should be louder. And some of the hybrids on the roads (looking at you, Toyota) are the loudest of them all.

Different strategies for different cars, though.

My neighbor's Highlander hybrid is audible a couple blocks away as it comes into the neighborhood.

Our old Bolt EV was not quite as loud, but still distinctive and never a surprise to anyone as it came down the street.

My Model 3, however, makes a white noise sound going forward that you don't really notice aside from very low (single digit) speeds in a very quiet environment. But in reverse, it howls pretty loudly, and is probably louder than any of the hybrids.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWxrK_3LlEr9WsfOL8N41...

I absolutely love the reverse sound my Toyota RAV4 Prime (hybrid) makes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUT94MBt_Ao To me, it sounds like the future. Sort of a hovering UFO. People's heads definitely turn when I back out of my driveway.

When I first got a RAV-4 hybrid, I had no idea that this sound was being pumped out of a speaker. I thought it was an artifact of the electric motor. As it happens, companies spend a lot of time designing their unique electronic sound as a signature of the vehicle. My dog has learned to recognize the sound and he barks when the car is as much as 1km away.

Video coincidentally posted today that details some of the design requirements of these sounds: "What should an electric car sound like?" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnAGXvVNMB8)

I think you’re the only one.

I wouldn’t mind as much if the volume wasn’t 5 times louder in reverse than drive.

That sounds horrible.

Let me make sure I've got this right... According to the video, if the driver of a Toyota EV reverses through a "cross walk", and hits a pedestrian, it's the pedestrian's fault for not getting out of the way?

And, in order to prove that it must be the pedestrian's fault for not noticing the vehicle reversing through said cross walk, the vehicle omits an obnoxious noise at high volume?

I didn't watch the video, but both practically and legally speaking, in the US when a car hits a pedestrian it's considered the car driver's fault, excepting some circumstances. The noise doesn't have anything to do with it- cars have to stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalks, and should stop at any formally defined crosswalk (not all "crosswalks" are directly labelled or signed as such).

My main objection to the newer EV sounds is that they are tonal enough to be recognized as a musical chord, but not a pleasant one. It’s either vaguely minor like a horror movie score, or a downright dissonant mash of pure sines.

> semi-nightmarish

There's one I hear regularly that sounds like a choir of demons.

Is it the Honda hybrid sound? I owned two hybrid CR-Vs (loved those cars, but got into an accident one year ago today that totaled a three month-old CR-V hybrid and car prices went up so fast we had to downgrade). We always called it "Hell Choir". It makes for an amusing contrast to the horn, which sounds like a clown car.

https://youtu.be/K_7Hd3M2qrc

I’m not going electric unless I can choose the Hampsterdance as my motor sound.

I really hope we can get to a point where there are multiple approved sounds to choose from. If the car has to make noise, might as well be able to select from some options.

Probably won't see Hampster Dance approved, however...

On the one hand, yes!

But more realistically, think of the headache of trying to keep your engine's Hampsterdance in sync with the Hampsterdance blaring from your car's stereo, (as it naturally would be).

Not to mention all the other excellent tracks on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampsterdance:_The_Album

Seems like a great choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WpMlwVwydo

I think I'll petition NHTSA etc. to make this song mandatory for electric vehicles.

i3 with Jetsons sound (fake but fun): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NgSZ8sjDgU

I recently started getting something related in my youtube recommendations and that is the recordings of PWM motor signals from japanese and american trains[0]. There's also people building their own boards and motors to generate these same waveforms[1].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgxlM_kiDL0 [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0B2bvd9rFQ

God, the Hyundai sounds are terrible in Korea. They sound like a UFO and are very loud. They tried to go too hard with the future vibe and it drives me nuts living in the small streets of a very busy Seoul.

Oh my god it actually sounds like a more high pitched version of the Jetsons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NgSZ8sjDgU

Edit: Found it, look how loud this shit is! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgvUu2YZ5ps

Having a loud/annoying low-speed sound would be a dealbreaker for any EV purchase.

That's the thing. When you're driving you most likely can't even hear it unless it's dead quiet (and when it's dead quiet these things don't adjust, they are LOUD).

I did notice this when I had a city apartment with a window facing the street: regulators have not taken noise pollution into consideration. They made it very loud so as to be sure to alert all pedestrians, which is good, but it is also far more noticeable than a quiet ICE in several situations. If I’m in a building, I really do not want to hear a vehicle! Noise pollution is a real problem and the current regulations unfortunately do step backwards in my opinion.

It will happen eventually... hopefully. I'm usually ahead on my complaints to the average Joe. So since I started complaining a couple years ago I give it til next year to start being enforced.

Holy crap, is that modified or do they all sound that loud? And not just in reverse? Not the future we were promised.

They all sound like this (the newer models obviously, probably as far back as 2020)

I'm sure there's a way to hack it and turn it off... but who's going to do that?

OT, sound simulator related:

I recall a thunder simulator (generator?) from years ago. You could draw/modify a “line” representing the ground surface, give it a few seconds, and it would output thunder. Early-ish internet days, Java applet. Might have been on a university web site.

I tried searching fairly recently and came up empty handed. Is it possible that anyone here on HN might remember this and have a reference? I would settle for a paper.

reminds me of this masterpiece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKT-sKtR970

I love his videos but all the sound demos are a a bit too much sometimes :D

I touch Theta param in the left part of it, and the sound disappears, all the numbers go mad into infinity and then become NaN. Also there's no sound if none is selected in controls, but changing anything in controls makes the same effect -- all params spiral into infinity. Not fun.

More fun than I expected. Now I want more engine sounds. I wonder how hard it would be to contribute new engine models. Like, what is the recording process and processing required to build the source sounds.

This is great!

For a game I was making years ago, I tried to make a “crowd noise” generator. As in for a football/soccer match.

But it was not my skillset and I failed miserably.

Does anyone know of something that might get me started?

A non-procedural approach might be easier: collect loops of baseline murmurs / elevated cheering / peak ecstatic crowd and vary the volume of each based on what is happening on screen. If you have variants of each "energy level" you can also smoothly fade between them, queuing the next one randomly as the current version runs out. This way the wrap-around point should not be that noticeable.

Something similar is done for music that varies according to gameplay intensity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_music

This is sometimes known as "walla". This tutorial is specific to Sound Particle (audio app), but the basics can be implemented easily from scratch. https://youtu.be/nigFrC2mORk?si=Cktdb3aTrIs5vUbB

Digital sound is criticized but creating fake analog sound is celebrated.

[1] Hyundai Ioniq 5 N https://youtu.be/HZczpFsv9ZY

[2] The Secret To Making Your Car Sound Like An Old F1 Racer Is Found Under Pressure https://jalopnik.com/the-secret-to-making-your-car-sound-lik...

I’ve got one of these. It’s called a toddler.

I've also got one. It's called my jackass neighbor.

Frank? That you?

Reminds me of the sound racer v8[0]. This gismo was a lot more fun that people gave it credit for -- it read the rpm from the 12v signal in the power and modulated a v8 over fm. Had a blast in my little four cylinder sounding like a beefy v8!

[0] https://www.soundracer.se/?p=98&p2=505

Anyone know good tutorials for simulating drone/airplane propeller sound?

That would be an awesome PsyOps sound to get people looking in the wrong direction

This is a scary but incredible idea.

It'd probably much cheaper just to fly a set of drones in the area rather than deploy a full PsyOps team and gear. They do it with actual jets while the actual attackers are flying in fast and low from the opposite direction now that you've sortied your defensive aircraft towards the bait.

Used to have fun back in my childhood playing Round Sounds from a set of speakers on the roof of the apartment building. People on the street started looking for the airplane.

https://aircraftrecords.com/products/round-sounds-volume-1?v...

Automation (game) does a pretty good job of simulating sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkU5KkF_L4I

Partially related: I love the sounds of electric vehicles. They're so futuristic and weird! If you close your eyes, you can imagine a spaceship instead of a car.

It would be interesting to see an engine sound sim with various malfunctions, sort of like the call-in part of Click and Clack.

Just this afternoon my daughter asked why a car was making a particular sh-hiss between some cylinder beats and I speculated it was a small head gasket leak between cylinders allowing some of the ignited gases to expand into exhaust. Maybe it was something else though, maybe crispy cooked feline remains against a fan belt.

Add buttons for people on mobile?

Even better, use the gyroscope.

I'd like to hear a gas turbine sound simulator. It would be cool to hear a T700 (Blackhawk engine) enter the critical RPM ranges for example.

I liked to lie to people that my big old modular Thinkpad (the one with two bays for batteries, disk drives, cdroms, etc) had a tiny gas generator module in it to charge up the batteries, then I'd mime pulling the start cord, while surreptitiously playing a loud audio file of a chainsaw starting up and running, to prove it.

This would be great to load up onto an RPi and put into a kids toy. Maybe use it to pimp up one of those toddler steering wheel sets.

^^ This.

I thought the same thing. I want to rig up a optical encoder to a bicycle tire and use the output to drive the engine simulator - make my bicycle sound like a sports car.

Way overengineered... Back in my day we were happy with sticking a plastic bottle between the tire and frame :)

Looks like kids still do it today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWRv17qvM0s

Granted, but can a plastic bottle be modified to make my bike sound like a Star Wars speeder bike?

Why turn your kid into a degenerate before they've even reached adolescence?

The car sounds add to the experience of playing with a steering wheel, versus some tinny soundbox?

wow, most of the time the engine sounds of cars designed to go 0-100 quickly sounds super generic, but this i can actually get to sound like two different cars i've owned. I could almost get it to sound like a Lancer Evo X but there's no blowoff or turbo sound... maybe in the next version!

This is amazing. I think a small amount of window dressing would make this a classic page people bookmark and return to frequently just for fun. Especially if that make it mobile friendly.

Like even just two pedals and two flappy shifters on screen with all those other tools hidden behind a collapse or whatnot.

If you downshift with RPM too high, UI breaks off and falls to floor of screen

Whole Page turns red when you hit RPM limit

Shift score. Can you pick the perfect shift point based on sound alone?

The sequel to Dragster for Atari 2600!

See other similar funny stuff like electric drill sound simulation using phaseplant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Ifle4q7Tw

I managed to get negative RPM - cool!

Very cool, get to top RPM in gear 6 and drop down to gear 1 for an ear-rending shriek.

Pretty cool!

Downshifting under braking doesn't feel accurate. Most fast cars brake like 2-4x their acceleration rate, but in this sim, the braking feels more like 100x.

The sound of an engine under decel is just as awesome as acceleration.

Deceleration is where you get fuel overrun and backfires, too!

    VrOOOOooomm-pa-pop-pow-ooooom.

Slightly off-topic, but I hate when people modify their engine / exhaust system to do this on purpose, just to be obnoxious. You're not cool, dude. You're just a jerk.

No, this is 100% on point. I support your comment and it isn't off topic at all.

They are certainly cunts and it would be amazing if police actually enforced noise ordinances for passenger vehicles at some point. Fingers crossed! As always!!

Both of my cars are stock and are like fireworks going off if I lift off the throttle. So this isn't just a modified car thing, a lot of cars made in the last 10 years pop, bang, and fart from the factory.

If police started ticketing me, I'd probably just sell the cars since tuning either car is a pain in the ass (locked ECUs). Granted, police are already ticketing people with stock exhaust.

> Both of my cars are stock and are like fireworks going off if I lift off the throttle. So this isn't just a modified car thing, a lot of cars made in the last 10 years pop, bang, and fart from the factory.

That's fine, happens in a lot of performance vehicles. Some people just do stupid stuff to artificially increase the amount of noise. Some of it is illegal (like removing the muffler) and some of it is just rude (like setting the air-fuel ratio to be far too fuel-rich). Some engines are naturally a bit fuel-rich, especially performance engines, but some people just change it to be as loud as possible.

You can sort of "heel and toe" with the space and b keys, while shifting down. Use the same finger for both keys for added realism.

Around 5000 RPM I get transported to the back seat of a two-stroke Trabant struggling to reach 70 km/h on a mild incline.

Tapping on the controls is broken. Typed text in gear number field is erased immediately.

The app sounds fun. Excited to try it again later.

I love that when you get to max RPM in 6th gear and then just downshift to 1st you hit comically high RPMs!

More than you ever wanted to know about this.

https://youtu.be/p9SbDvMhCFs

And a decent specimen.

https://youtu.be/EjHMkkkLQaU

The best/worst of those videos are the ones where you can actually HEAR a bunch of metal bits hit the ground right after the shift :)

This is truly music to my ears!

hmm, I either don't know how to use it or it doesn't work in Safari

Reload. Click in the window. Then rev up the engine. It breaks when you switch sounds -- so reload, select sound, click somewhere, etc.

Absolutely delightful!

This is way more fun than it has any right to be.

Fun! Would be funner if it handled the money shift.

My 4 year old is loving this

The smile on my face...

This is really good!

This is way too fun.

Free startup idea: Restomod an old Porsche/Mustang into electric and keep the rumble and feel of a big V8.

Needs: Engine sounds, haptic seats, and a few small modifications (e.g. clutch pedal, gear stick)

Cars are already having in-built engine sound simulators, especially ones with manual gear to force people shift when necessary.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com