Most of you may have noticed that I try to make a point about sounds in just about every sound thread that involves tires, so instead of causing a mess I've decided to put everything I know from experience in here.

First problem with LFS is that there is only one sound (at different levels), but one basic sound that every tire makes. This is not real, every tire makes a different sound, and especially when they are different compounds from hard, to soft rubbers.

Secondly I will try to explain the differences of tires that LFS has: normals, supers, and slicks.

Normals: The car I drive has tires most comparable to these. They have a lot of tread pattern, and are made of a very hard compound. These tires will squeal very easily, it does not take much for them to chirp, and as far as I know, there is no slipping sound, just a squeal (this is as far as I am aware; there is very little tread on my tires so I cannot 100% say that this is true).

Supers: Softer compounds, often seen on sports cars and more luxury type cars. They hold no lies to their nickname sticky tires, because they pick up just about anything laying on the road and throw them into the wheel wells, including little rocks which you hear tinking around inside the wells. Going around turns fast enough will cause them to make a "purring" sound (actually sounds like a "hhhhhhh" sound [Note: I'm not sure the "hhhh" sound will exist in other countries than the U.S.], basically it sounds like the sound you make when you let a deep breath out with your mouth open).
I've only heard a tire of this type squeal once, and it was not very loud, but it could have been muffled by the interior (windows were not down).
Any input on this section would be helpful.

Slicks: My recent experience at Road Atlanta has helped here. However, the drivers were so good I only got to hear the effects of one driver dropping off of a bump strip onto the track, which did create a squeal, but other than that I am in the dark as far as slick sounds go.
Any input on this section would be helpful too.

(and please, no talk on other types of tires including wets etc. this thread's purpose is for sound, and sound only.)

I would post videos, but.. youtube obviously has poor sound quality (majority of the time), plus this is something you have to experience, rather than listen to.

Good points nuse.

From my experience, the surface plays a large role in what sounds are created as well but overall my findings are consistent with yours. With high performance tires, I've laid patches that made nothing but a scrubbing/scraping type of sound and yet in the same car laid patches where the tires screamed like crazy and the difference seems to be the type of pavement / ashphalt the said patch was laid on. As far as lateral behaviour; I've noticed much the same but high performance tires don't tend to make noise nearly as much in cornering just as you say.

Roads that make a lot of cabin tire noise, which I guess is just roads that have a rough surface, don't seem to be conducive to tire squealing as much as smooth surfaces. (parking garage anyone?)

Even in my own car with "normal" tires, I've driven on mountain roads with rough pavement where sliding only produces some heavy scrubbing noise and yet most of the time they will chirp and squirm quite easily.

With very limited exposure to slicks as an observer, I've noted that most of the noise sounds more like a "squishy slirking(tm)". At least on take off and doing burnouts. Any cars I've seen have been too loud on track to hear what the tires sound like in corners.

Wow.. you were right with the deep breathe and the sounds supers make... I never noticed how close the sounds were.

You mentioned that the normals were a super hard compound... Slicks are harder. All professional grade slicks are harder I'm sure. A normal street compound will wear out much much quicker than a slick; I'd imagine the same for a super as well. I bet it'll last longer on the track than a normal would. So, normal street tires are softer than racing tires.

a tyre sound editor like the engine editor could be usefull? or somthing like that

id make up a custom one that when ever you loose traction it says "your about to crash you dozy ..."

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

a tyre sound editor like the engine editor could be usefull? or somthing like that

Well its not necessarily that it needs to be modified, the sounds are okay (then again I do have modified ones which are quite nice). Its not sound quality or anything, but rather number of sounds being produced.

@BBT, with slicks yes I have to agree, rarely does anyone get to hear what slick tires sound like alone. Instead you get 500+ horsepower on top of everything else so its like finding a needle in a hey stack when you're blind.

@Maggot, when it comes to harder/softer compounds I'm an idiot , but you may be right (I just figured harder compounds would make more noise [using common sense terminology]).

Oh I forgot the other (besides hybrid) type:
Knobbly/Off road: I've never been to a rally, however I believe it is safe to assume that they make the same noise as big off road trucks make. I have no onomatopoeia for the sound they make, but I'm sure everyone has heard off road tires before. If you haven't, well I assure you they make plenty of noise which is nearly indescribable. If I were to describe the sound, I would have to say it kind of sounds like plates of rubber hitting the ground really hard, and very quickly.

Trouble is, there is no "Normal tyre sound" and "Super tyre sound". Because there are hundreds of each "class" of tyre available and hundreds in between the two classes. The sound they make can depend on the car they're on and the size and profile of the tyre.
I've driven basic road cars on basic road tyres that will start to "chirp" the moment you get close to the limit of grip, and other very similar cars and similar quality tyres that will hardly make a sound till you're pushing beyond the limit of grip at which time they make a lower pitched droning sound.
I've driven lots of cars on top quality rubber too that make different noises at different times/levels of load.

It wouldn't surprise me if different slicks and cars are prone to making a wide array of noises either.

So what you say in your second paragraph, Nuse, is totally correct. I'm all for different tyres making slightly different sounds, but there's no real right or wrong.

Well, there is a real wrong, and LFS is it.
But yes, what you say is all true, LFS just needs to start somewhere!

Quote from MAGGOT :

Wow.. you were right with the deep breathe and the sounds supers make... I never noticed how close the sounds were.

You mentioned that the normals were a super hard compound... Slicks are harder. All professional grade slicks are harder I'm sure. A normal street compound will wear out much much quicker than a slick; I'd imagine the same for a super as well. I bet it'll last longer on the track than a normal would. So, normal street tires are softer than racing tires.

Slicks are way softer, broheim! Ever felt one with your bare hands? you can almost scrape rubber off under your fingernails. Racing slicks don't exactly have 30,000 mile wear ratings.

Quote from wark :

Slicks are way softer, broheim! Ever felt one with your bare hands? you can almost scrape rubber off under your fingernails. Racing slicks don't exactly have 30,000 mile wear ratings.

exactly!

So my common sense was right.
About to say, that sounds completely wrong anyways. Plus the slicks my dad has in the garage from way back whenever are still a bit squishy.

I'll just offer my two cents about cars riding on "normal" tires. I drive a 98 Subaru Legacy Outback, which has larger, wider tires than most vehicles it's size. From what I can tell, the tires actually produce three types of noise. They are, by the way, all-season tires, but they were pretty expensive and rated very good for handling in all conditions and rated 5 stars for ROAD NOISE. I've also got sport shocks, so the car doesn’t lean TOO much.

Sound 1: Normal road-noise... uhh... yea.

Sound 2: Say I'm taking a series of curves at a high (fun) rate of speed. Not to the limits of the car, but still more aggressively than normal. I get a very high-pitched noise - higher and louder sounding than normal noise - as the tires ride up on fresh, unused tread near the sidewalls.

Sound 3: This comes from taking a very sharp turn on a stickier road surface. Not the shiny, well-worn, tar-like, black surface of some roads, but the more gravelly, grayish kind of road that offers a slightly rougher ride. This road grips a lot more, so taking a turn fast there (like turning onto my street) the tires ride up a LOT more on the rims. At this point, I get the "exhale" sound... which kind of fluctuates as the suspension bounces a bit... This is the limit of the car, after which it starts to slip.

Also, I get two main types of skidding sound with my car. The first is on those slippery surfaces, where you can take a turn and the tires will make a high-pitched skidding sound, but not really lose grip. This nose is not as loud as the full skid sound. The other is from when I, say, slam on my brakes and the car really skids... that's when you get the loud, shrill, get-the-attention-of-all-the-cops-in-the-area skidding sound.

Hope that helps. Mines not a racing car at all, but maybe this could be applied to the lower-end cars in LFS.

If you can turn it this way: tyre sounds in LFS are already more "advanced" than in most other sims. For example every ISI sim since GTR1 have used the same annoying sounding tyre sound sample. Same sound, no matter are the tyres totally locked or just screeching. Same thing for nKpro. I'm not saying "if it's better than others, then it's perfect" but anyway.

I agree Deggis. Whilst I also agree that we could use more diversity for tire / surface types, I would also have to say that LFS's tire sound dynamics are better than anything out there ATM for sure. The sound intensity is based much more on the load the tire is receiving - from a very slight scrub to a shreik, the dynamics are very good in terms of what type of sound you would expect to hear. They also blend to together seamlessly unlike some other products - if you gradually increase the forces on the tire, the sounds morph nicely together giving the illusion of continuity rather than being so obviously a number of different samples.