Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, and Mercedes worked together to make an app that lets people use sensors to change how recorded music plays in their cars. Sound Drive technology was shown for the first time this week at the CES technology show in Las Vegas. A Mercedes EQE SUV was driven by Will.i.am when we tried the app in person. Electric cars make for an interesting sound sample. Because they are so quiet, they need music because the sound doesn’t have the visceral thrum and accelerative crescendos that we usually associate with speed. Automobile companies have hired famous musicians and artists to try to fix this clear problem, but the result often sounds like a space pod driven by Rick Deckard or a Theremin. Luckily, Mercedes-Benz has smashed every keyboard it can find to find new sounds for its electric cars. Will.i.am, a Grammy-winning producer, technologist, humanitarian, and founder of the Black Eyed Peas, was chosen as its partner. Sound Drive is the finished result; it’s software that can be used in production. By putting a bunch of instruments on the car’s accelerator, steering wheel, suspension, and brakes, the technology turns the driver into a DJ. Tamara Warren of C/D says that this update of “The Wheels of Steel” is made possible by the system’s ability to use inputs to change how recorded music is played through the speakers. Will.i.am said in a session at CES in Las Vegas, “That means every single drive will have a different version of whatever song they’ve been driving to.” “It’s a pretty transformative technology.” Will and I drove an electric Mercedes EQE SUV with Sound Drive to see how well his plans worked. Our job is not to play music, but Will is. So we let him drive. Roland Kirk’s Case of the Three-Sided Dream in Audio Color album cover and Sound Drive both start each song with a muffled sound that makes you feel like you’re listening to music through a stack of wet pillows or a twisted saxophone. As you play along, though, different parts of the music start to stand out and become clearer like a digital camera trying to focus. The go pedal changes how loud it is. The wheel bends and turns, just like Dr. Fink, Prince’s pianist. The suspension makes it sound like the music is going through a chipper that is slowly shaking. Getting Going at Night in Las Vegas U-turns are good times to look into the system’s possibilities because they combine sharp inputs from all of its linked parts. Will enjoys our late-night drive through Las Vegas’s back alleys while the loud Coi Leray song “Players” plays on the Benz’s Burmester stereo. The experience has changed our limbic system in ways that haven’t been properly identified, and we can’t stop laughing. Even though it’s silly, it’s fun, like a lot of current technology in cars. The allure of this sound editing might make people less responsible. Markus Schafer, who is in charge of technology at Mercedes, says that safety measures are in place to stop people from being so stupid. Schafer states, “This system is very smart.” We all thought you shouldn’t have to drive longer than normal. Also, it’s a good idea always to follow the speed rules. Say you live in an area where the speed limit is 35 mph. The sound will not go faster than 35 mph. Bro, you no longer have that 100-mph sound orgasm as you hit the ground. When our mom listened to her Donna Summer eight-track records when we were kids, she would do a low-speed slalom sound effects Gymkhana and pound out breaking beats. We don’t see how these settings would stop someone from doing those things. Well, at least we don’t believe that it’s our fault. Eventually, the platform will offer artists’ content as well as changes to music that have already been recorded, letting musicians make new tracks that can be changed in the app. Will plays a few of these songs for us before we get off the road. As we drive 12 miles per hour, we feel and personalize the songs. As we get closer to our goal, though, he stops and looks through the music. “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas was his choice, and he admitted, “I know it’s corny.” “But I can’t help it.”
