11-05-2014, 11:14 AM
We took the old cars out 2 weekends ago into West Virginia. We put 453 miles on the cars in one day - leaving home at 8:30am and pulling back into the driveway at 9:20pm - only stopping to eat lunch for 45 minutes at the DQ in Petersburg, WV (and to get gas). What a beautiful fall day!
I made a video with the GoPro of the drive on Rt 72 out of Parsons, WV, but it's 23 minutes long and I'm undecided on whether to post it to YouTube or not. I finally discovered a location for the external microphone that picks up the engine/exhaust sound but none of the wind noise. If I clip the mic to one of the aluminum louvers on the back window, it works great. However, after watching the video I discovered that there is a crack in the center rib of the louver assembly. As the car flexed under turns and acceleration, the two sides of the cracked metal ground together, producing a sound like a dentist digging at your teeth with sharp pick. After about 6 hours worth of editing the soundtrack with Audacity over the past 2 weeks, I was able to remove most of the horrible dentist pick noise, but it's still there in several spots - just not nearly as horrible as the original. (Some of my sound edits make the car sound like it has a miss though - it doesn't!)
So lots of good came from this experience: I found the crack in the louver and will be able to weld it before it propagates any further; I discovered the free audio editing software called Audacity - which seemed tailor made for removing this type of periodic noise - which showed up really clearly on the sound waveform; and I discovered some killer-looking fishing spots in the Monongahela Forest that I'll be going back to in the spring.
Here's Rt 72 from the air (courtesy of Google Maps). What an unbelievable road.
[attachment=10341]
I made a video with the GoPro of the drive on Rt 72 out of Parsons, WV, but it's 23 minutes long and I'm undecided on whether to post it to YouTube or not. I finally discovered a location for the external microphone that picks up the engine/exhaust sound but none of the wind noise. If I clip the mic to one of the aluminum louvers on the back window, it works great. However, after watching the video I discovered that there is a crack in the center rib of the louver assembly. As the car flexed under turns and acceleration, the two sides of the cracked metal ground together, producing a sound like a dentist digging at your teeth with sharp pick. After about 6 hours worth of editing the soundtrack with Audacity over the past 2 weeks, I was able to remove most of the horrible dentist pick noise, but it's still there in several spots - just not nearly as horrible as the original. (Some of my sound edits make the car sound like it has a miss though - it doesn't!)
So lots of good came from this experience: I found the crack in the louver and will be able to weld it before it propagates any further; I discovered the free audio editing software called Audacity - which seemed tailor made for removing this type of periodic noise - which showed up really clearly on the sound waveform; and I discovered some killer-looking fishing spots in the Monongahela Forest that I'll be going back to in the spring.
Here's Rt 72 from the air (courtesy of Google Maps). What an unbelievable road.
[attachment=10341]