CREATING THE VOICE FOR THE FIAT 500E

Short List
TitleCREATING THE VOICE FOR THE FIAT 500E
BrandFIAT
Product / ServiceFIAT 500E
CategoryC02. Sound Design
EntrantSYN Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation FIAT Turin, ITALY
Production SYN Tokyo, JAPAN
Production 2 RED ROSE PRODUCTIONS Milano, ITALY

Credits

Name Company Position
Nick Wood Syn Music CEO & Creative Director
Alan Mawdsley Syn Music Music Director
Mathieu Kranich Syn Music Production Assistant
Flavio Ibba Red Rose Productions CEO
Rudi Rok Rudi Rok Voice Artist
Sami Tammela Rudi Rok Sound Designer
Lauri Laukkanen Rudi Rok Project Manager

Write a short summary of what happens in the radio or audio execution or campaign.

With our urban landscapes welcoming more and more electric vehicles, crossing the road will be both safer and more sonically pleasing with the in-vehicle engine sound of the New Fiat 500 electric car. In this project, we collaborated with a voice-artist based in Helsinki, Finland, and a partner music agency based in Milan, using the human voice to sculpt the engine sound and create something truly anthropomorphic for this classic Italian car. Marrying the innovative and the organic, we invoked the Japanese sensibility of ‘Wabi Sabi’ (meaning ‘Beauty in Imperfection’) to embrace the natural earthiness of the human voice and create an engine sound that breathes new life into the urban environment.

Translation. Provide a full English translation of any audio.

N/A

Cultural / Context information for the jury

Since 1957, The Fiat 500 ‘Cinquecento’ has been an icon of Italian engineering, style and design. Its reputation as a charming, cheeky and characterful car has earned it a well deserved position in Italian pop-culture. This is relevant to our engine sound, as it strides Italian tradition and a Global future. The sound of the vehicle reflects this, whilst also paying tribute directly to one of Italy’s greatest film composers, Nino Rota (The Godfather, La Strada, Romeo and Juliet).

Tell the jury about the sound design.

We collaborated with a voice artist in Helsinki, who created the engine sound using his own voice, presenting us with a number of different tones and timbres to work with. As an engine sound (or AVAS sound) is an EU legal requirement for electric cars whilst driving under 20km/h, we had to work within very strict technical guidelines to create a sound that was both creatively excellent and legally compliant. Furthermore, this was met with the limitations of the internal speak in the car, which dictated the frequency response of our sounds. Part of the sound design process centred around how we could alter the pitch of the sound as the car accelerates, we were able to model this process using an automated pitch shift in order to keep the sound as smooth and melodic as possible.


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