Does Anyone Else Record Just Their Exhaust Sound? If So, How?

[ShadowRide]

A recent discovery from a Road Reality vlog allows me to isolate my voice with the Waves plugin for Adobe Premiere. It's changing how I'm handling my audio.

I run an Osmo pocket(odd vlogging camera on it's own gimbal) for the camera angle looking at me. It's useless facing forward because the gimble can't work in the wind unless it's facing rearward. I have a wireless mic for it and I wanted to put it to work.

My thoughts are that with the isolated voice from the GoPro footage, combined with the wireless mic placed somewhere near the exhaust, I would not have wind noise, just voice, exhaust noise, and maybe some ambiance(like a bus passing). That is the sound that seems perfect to me.

I achieved this perfect sound by placing the mic in the side box of the Goldwing. The problem is, there's a lot of rattles in there that ruin it in bumps. It's not junk in the box, just rattles of the body pieces. I tried putting the microphone in a bag out on the rear luggage rack, but the exhaust isn't loud enough, and there is some wind noise from the wind hitting the bag.

Does anyone have ideas for a place to put a small wireless microphone that would capture the the exhaust noise?

 

[PhilTonic]

I'm shoving a Zoom H2N recorder in my back pack and sync up the GoPro and the external mic by beeping the horn.

 

[Theodor]

I have tried it, and found that placing a microphone on my back seems to work best. Also you'll need a sound recorder with gain adjustment, to get the best result. Few better phone apps can do that too, but I don't know any free ones.
If something makes a sound, you will hear it though. So if your bike has some rattles, you will get it, just adjust your riding, while recording. But on your back, microphone is shielded from wind and not too close to suspension, to pick up those sounds annoyingly loud.

 

[ShadowRide]

Thanks for the ideas.

I don't like adding a zoom recorder. I've tried it. It's just another thing to worried about. Part of my problem of doing motovlogs is that I need very few things to worry about. Turning on two cameras is enough. Adding another device is out of the question. I do see where having something with gain going to be the only way to get clear exhaust noise.

I'm going to keep trying to improve the sound I am getting and forget about adding the noise from the wireless mic.

 

[Moto Mengy]

Honestly my Hero 8 mounted to my helmet records the exhaust note and engine sounds of my Goldwing pretty great if I stop talking, using only the Hero 8 internal mics. With the windshield up I barely get any wind noise too.

I've experimented mounting a lav mic at various places on the Wing just to record engine & exhaust sounds, but I keep finding my standard helmet mount spot for my Hero 8 does the best job.

 

[Ponkster]

I think if you want to do a video where the audio is the main point then you are better using a stand alone sound recorder - I get the thing about using a second device , but once you get over that its easy and it opens up a number of options to your moto vlogging. Like others I found the best way was putting a zoom recorder in the back pocket of my jacket - dont worry if the recording is quiet as you can boost that in the edit and this way you dont get all the wind noise and general clicks and pops as you move around on the bike. Here is a short video I did to capture the sound of my old speed triple - man I loved that bike!

 

[ShadowRide]

That's the type of quality of exhaust sound I'm looking for. I'll give it a try and start figuring out how to edit the audio to this point.

 

[Ponkster]

That's the type of quality of exhaust sound I'm looking for. I'll give it a try and start figuring out how to edit the audio to this point.

The simplest way I know is to set both camera and sound recorder (or second camera) running the honk you horn three times in a row before setting off - this will give you three sound spikes that will show up on the editing software, then you drag them to line up and you are done - its not like trying to sinc speech so as long as you are close it will work.