A Car Stereo Than Senses Your Mood

The car stereo as we know it is about to change in a big way. It's been predicted that by 2015 some vehicles won't be equipped with a radio, pulling programming directly from the cloud (check out this article about Harmon's Aha Radio). A little more of what to expect was recently demonstrated by Gracenote at Music Hack Day in San Francisco, as they showed off a technology that could sense your mood and program your music to it.

Gracenote hacked into the vehicle performance data of a Ford Focus (a pretty advanced vehicle it turns out, which I had the pleasure to rent on a recent trip), then fed the outcome or their processing into the car's infotainment system. What you'd get is a different set of songs when you were going over 50 miles per hour from when you had the windshield wipers on, for instance. Once it learns your tastes, it connects the triggers of the vehicle's performance directly to them, so you get your own custom programming built for your driving.

Here's a video that shows the hack in action. Keep in mind that this is still pretty primitive, but it gives you a bit of an idea of what we may be in for in the future.

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It Really Does Go To 11

Way back when I was teaching recording I had a guy in my class who was really into after-market car audio who used to tell me about these contests where the SPL in the car would get as high as 140dB SPL plus. I doubted the guy, because that's louder than the Space Shuttle taking off, and that much level would blow out our ear drums in a flash.

Forward a few years I happened to be at a trade show where they actually had one of these contests, and sure enough, the SPL was loud enough to break the windshield of the car! What I didn't account for is that no one would be crazy to sit inside the car during the contest. Here's a cute little video that shows exactly what happens when the pedal goes to the metal with a souped-up car stereo.



Remember that this is absolutely nothing to do with audio quality; it's pure and simple audio level. One of the trademarks of clean SPL is that it doesn't sound loud, just bigger. Once you've heard a playback in that environment, it sticks with you forever.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.