- Everybody loves the sound of a roaring V8,
but which V8 sounds the best?
Today we are gonna find out.
I am joined by Mark Mangini.
(audience applauds)
Academy Award winning sound designer.
The dude responsible for the engine noises
in "Mad Max:Fury Road."
AKA way too qualified for this kind of video.
We are gonna take a look at 10 different sounding V8s
that you guys submitted,
and then rank them,
find out once and for all,
what is the best sounding V8?
This is Mark.
I'm James.
And this is "The D-List."
Thank you to Geologie for sponsoring today's video.
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And now back to the show.
Mark, one award winning artist to another,
you got an Academy Award
I got a Streamy, so. (Mark laughs)
Who are you and what do you do?
- I am a sound designer.
That means my job is to record, create, design,
all the sounds that you hear in a movie.
So for example, as you mentioned in a film like "Mad Max"
all those vehicles,
and there is hundreds of them,
needed a signature personality.
It was my job to record and edit and fabricate
each one of them
to make them come alive on screen.
- We are gonna listen to 10 engines
then talk a little bit about why it sounds that way,
and then we are gonna rank 'em on the Monolist.
Cool, so are you ready to jump right in?
- I can't wait to embarrass myself.
(James laughs)
(engine starts)
(engine revs)
Nice burbles.
Solid burbles.
- Were you talking? (laughs)
- I was just commenting on the burbles.
- Yeah, I love the burbles.
- (laughs) Yeah.
- Especially that flap on the downshift.
- Yeah, so as an expert,
how would you describe the sound of that V8?
- Well, my first impression is
it sounds a little high pitched for an American car.
Very high rev,
I'd say, you know, redline on this car is 7,000 RPM.
Love that.
That blip that you get on the downshift.
So I'm digging this sound so far.
Liking it.
- The engine you just heard is from a Corvette ZO-6.
- Oh, no way.
(engine revs)
Ah.
- Great car.
- I'm stunned.
- Super fast for what it is.
- Shocked and stunned.
Well look, it didn't get a fail,
but I didn't swoon,
so let's just put it in the middle for now
because it had some attributes that were really exciting,
right on America made.
- [James] (laughs) All right, you ready for the next one?
- Yeah.
(engine starts)
(engine revs)
(James laughs)
Wow.
Now that is excitement, man.
- It sounds like an F1 car. - I love that.
I love that.
- If you are talking to a director or your team on a film,
and you wanted that sound,
how would you describe that?
- Well, high RPM,
rapid acceleration.
It's a whine.
The first word that comes to mind is whine.
It's that, you know,
as you get up into the 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 RPM range,
you just,
it's screaming.
It's not roaring or you know, growling,
like the deep V8s,
the American,
the old Chevy's,
it's screaming.
And there is a sort of a beautiful
frightening quality to that.
That if I wanted to go further
I'd put like a monkey scream on top of that at the top end.
(monkey screams)
Just put it over the edge.
- (laughs) That's awesome, yeah.
That is a Ferrari 458.
- Wow.
- It redlines at 9,000 RPM.
- Ah!
- One of the reasons it sounds like that is
it has a flat plane crank,
higher RPMs,
better acceleration,
gets it going quicker.
- And I might add a good recording.
A compelling recording.
Right on to whoever captured that.
- LoreninHD, good job buddy.
So I think I wanna put that above the Corvette.
- I'm totally with you.
It definitely belongs
just for the sheer emotional impact that it has.
- Yeah, it's very dramatic.
- Yeah, I wanted the Corvette to do better,
I want us to buy American but,
(James laughs)
here we go.
The next one, I want you to flap it.
- Okay, yeah.
- I want you to make a sound effect with it.
Can you do that?
(board clinks)
Oh, that's so satisfying. (chuckles)
- (laughs) Hold on.
- I wanna record that. (laughs)
- Okay, next one.
(engine starts)
(engine revs)
- Got it.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say decidedly American.
- I agree.
- Decidedly contained.
Not a lot of drama in that sound.
I found it rather dull.
(upbeat music) - That was a Shelby GT350.
(engine revs)
- My sister in law has one of these.
- Does she really?
Your sister in law is cool.
- Carroll Shelby was a friend of hers.
- What!
- And he gave her one of the first ones off the line.
- What!
I've never been more jealous
of a sister in law. - My sister in law.
And it just sits in her garage.
- What!
- And they don't drive it. (laughs)
- Maybe 'cause it sounds so dull.
(Mark laughs)
I love this car.
- Gorgeous car, no doubt. - [James] It's beautiful.
- No doubt.
- Like the Ferrari it has a flat plane crank
but it obviously sounds way different.
One of those reasons is it has a different firing order.
Where the Ferrari goes up down, down up,
this car goes up down, up down.
- Does it also have to adhere
to different like, EPA standards
for like with the cat and the mufflers and the--
- They actually designed the exhaust manifolds
to sound more American.
And like when they--
- Ah, yeah.
See, I'm not so stupid.
- (laughs) When they first developed the car
it sounded too European,
and so they-- - [Mark] Interesting.
Oh, but then go the other way.
Give it the balls.
Give it some throat.
- Wanna flap?
- I wanna (chuckles) let's see if I can even get this right.
Ready, one, two, three.
(board clinks)
(Producer laughs)
We need more magnetism. - [James] We need more
powerful magnets.
- [Producer] Yeah, we need better magnets.
- Oh, this is so--
- Or we'll get like 600 pound magnets. (laughs)
- Oh, now look what I have done.
Sorry. - This next one is a good one.
- Oh all right, ready.
(engine starts)
(engine revs)
(Mark laughs)
- You wanted authority.
That's pretty authority.
- You know what though?
I'm still not impressed.
I don't like the sound of it.
Especially in that acceleration curve.
You get that flutter that does not sound even.
It sounds like not properly tuned to me.
But maybe this is a feature, not a bug. (laughs)
(James laughs)
I'm not exactly sure.
And I always discount points on deceleration.
You take your foot off the gas
and you get too many of those (mumbles).
I didn't feel the throat.
I'm still waiting for that (rumbles).
- I feel like this one,
like you talk about animals
like this one kind of sounds like a big cat.
- Funny you should say that. - A bark, a tiger bark.
- I did a film decades ago called "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
and for the--
(Producer laughs)
- Have you heard of it?
- For the truck chase,
we added lion and tiger growls for the truck engine.
And if you go back and listen
they are patently obvious once you know.
(upbeat music) (engines rev)
- I'll catch them!
- Good observation.
- (chuckles) Yeah.
- Animal growls and engines.
A lot of kinship. - Yeah, that sounds cool.
And you mentioned the pops and burbles in the Jaguar F-Type.
That is the Jaguar F-Type.
- That's the FTR?
- Like now every new car has like the (rumbles)
on the acceleration,
but this was like the first one that came out
and it kind of set that trend.
- Beautiful car.
- [James] Yeah, they are really kind of subdued.
- But I'm like, did it sound detuned?
Does it sound like maybe not in perfect working order?
- I think they did it on purpose,
but they purposefully made the car sound broken.
So where would you put this?
Not a huge fan.
- Above the 350 but below the Z06.
The Z06 had some merits. - He is hanging in there.
- He is hanging in there,
but my blessed countrymen Enzo is
(James laughs)
hopefully gonna stay there for the remainder.
- It's hard to beat the sound of a Ferrari V8.
I'm just saying.
- Right. - All right, you ready?
- Okay, sorry.
(engine revs)
Wow.
(engine revs)
(chuckles) Wow.
Wow.
Good.
Interesting excitement,
that sort of almost like backfire sound
is kind of compelling.
- Almost sounds like
it's like running and taking a breath between shifts.
It's like (grunts).
- Yeah, which makes you think about it for a second.
That gives it character.
I just don't know what car I would be tracking that way.
- That is an AMG 4.0
Biturbo.
Biturbo of course means-- - [Mark] Woo!
- Two of them.
- That is the four liter crossplane V8
which replaced the naturally aspirated 6.2 liter V8
that a lot of people were huge fans of.
And it's just awesome to know that
that sound is coming out of that car.
- Hard to imagine.
But Mercedes is not known,
that's not in their character.
- Yeah, so you liked this one.
Where would you put it?
- Yeah, the poppy stuff,
because I didn't like the tuning of the Jag,
I'm gonna still put it below the Corvette,
but above the F type,
because there was something snappy about it,
it just felt in better tune,
and I'm impressed that Mercedes has, you know,
given some rich people
a way of announcing themselves. (laughs)
- You know, we just wanna make the rich louder.
(laughter)
- All right, this is getting good.
The excitement is building.
(engine revs)
Interesting. - I like that one.
- Interesting and boring for me.
Unfortunately, you know,
what I'm discovering because I'm Italian is that
I like the drama so--(laughs)
- (laughs) We blew our award with the Ferrari,
and now he is like, I mean it's not Ferrari.
- But think of the tension that's building.
You can do, "Is he gonna top the Ferrari?"
- (chuckles) This is a Lexus LC500.
The engine was co developed by Yamaha.
(engine revs)
- Was this the one you were telling me about
with the tuning of the sound?
- Lexus and Yamaha have made engines together a few times
where the focus has really been on sound.
- I love these guys
that they care about sound,
that sound is part of the experience.
And look, this is crashed,
but I'm giving points just because they care about sound.
- Yeah, definitely.
- So I'm gonna say below the Corvette still,
I'm still impressed with that Z06,
but above the AMG.
- Good job Lexus.
- I gotta give them points for that.
(engine revs)
Wow, that was incredible.
- It sounds dangerous.
- Oh man, that was,
that's goosebumps stuff.
I have no idea what that vehicle is
but it had power and emotion,
didn't have the deep throaty stuff,
but it had that kind of
F1 kind of quick acceleration up to the top.
- Yeah, that he was shifting like every second.
- Yeah.
It was fast.
This was just clean (rumbles).
And it's just,
there is nothing stopping it.
- This is an Ariel Atom. (laughs)
- Oh, I've seen that.
I've seen that on "Top Gear" as well.
I'm pretty sure they did an episode.
- The one they famously made Jeremy Clarkson's face
in a mess. - Yes. (laughs)
- So, it sounds dangerous because
I thought it is dangerous. (chuckles)
So that engine is actually
two four cylinder Suzuki motorcycle engines put together.
It revs to 10,500 RPM.
Where would you rank this guy?
- Just below the Ferrari.
- Yeah, sorry Corvette. - Came close.
You know in opera they say that
you always remember the sopranos
you don't remember the basses and the tenors.
These are the sopranos.
These are the--
- Unforgettable. (laughs)
- (laughs) I'm sorry to be so Italian.
(laughter)
- All right, so I think you are gonna like this next one.
- [Producer] I think so too.
(engine revs)
Oh.
Oh yeah.
(engine revs)
Oh there it is.
There it is.
(engine revs)
Yeah.
All right.
I'm going way out on a limb
and I'm gonna say that's American.
It's a big American V8,
and it has that blappie, growly, deeper note
that I just love.
- That is like peak V8.
- Yeah.
Well, I didn't know that was a term. (laughs)
- (laughs) Yeah.
That is a Mopar 440 cubic inch big old block.
- Gorgeous.
- This is a 7.2 liter
V8.
- That's a beast.
- There is nothing really going on with it
except big. (laughs)
- Yeah, no cat for sure.
- No.
And yeah, that is one of the reasons that
it does sound like that
because this is pre emissions.
- All right, so if this is the soprano, the operatic soprano
that's rage against the machine.
(James laughs)
We get to do the doppelganger.
I'm gonna drop it just below the Ferrari 458
because we have to have contrast.
There is a place for everything in the Sonic Universe.
And we have to acknowledge that ballsyness.
- That's a beautiful sentiment.
(Mark laughs)
There is room for everything in the Sonic Universe.
We are switching it up a little bit with this one.
- Okay.
(engine revs)
(chuckles) Well,
the quality of the recording notwithstanding,
we didn't get sort of maybe the dramatics
that we got in some of the other recordings.
It's hard to say.
But the first thing that came to mind was bee buzzing.
(bee buzzes)
On those first revs.
- I thought dump truck because
(Mark laughs)
that is a diesel engine.
- Get out of town.
- That is the Detroit Diesel 2 stroke screaming Jimmy.
- I would have never guessed,
because on the diesel you didn't get that J break sound,
and I thought I would have guessed it had I,
I would have guessed it had I heard the J break.
- Under load it sounds a lot different
because there is so much more pressure in the cylinder.
- I have,
for a movie I did called "Die Hard with a Vengeance"
it was number four
of the "Die Hard" series. (Producer laughs)
The movie revolves around stealing gold,
sorry, spoiler alert,
stealing gold from the federal reserve,
and they bring in all these big rigs to steal the gold.
I got to literally hang off the side of it
micing the big exhaust pipes.
Anyways, we had some fun with those recordings.
- Yeah, that's awesome.
- It still has to go at the bottom.
- (laughs) Yeah.
- But--
- It's a dump truck.
- Props for tricking me and throwing that in there. (laughs)
- So this is the last one.
- [Mark] Oh, be another.
- And we are gonna end it on with a banger.
(engine revs)
- Oh. (bleep) (James laughs)
Oh, there is that scream.
That is just sheer,
just bliss.
It felt like there was this like turbine whine,
or a supercharger whine,
I can't put my finger on it.
Maybe it's,
what do you call that big fan belt
that dragsters have on them?
Boy, that's compelling stuff.
That to me is,
that gets the audiences blood boiling when they hear that.
- Yeah, it's super dramatic.
That is a supercharger.
It's a twin screw supercharger
found on the 6.2 liter supercharged V8
in the Dodge Demon. - Dodge!
Wow, God bless America.
That's beautiful.
Oh!
- So that whine that you are hearing
is just actual air getting shoved
through these two turbines. - Is it really?
Yeah, I heard spinning like giant crank.
Something spinning around like mad.
- It was like a tornado warning system. (laughs)
- Can I hear the Ferrari one more time.
- Tiebreaker, tiebreaker.
- (laughs) Tiebreaker is what I want.
- But at the end it is a close heat.
(engine revs)
- Done.
Done.
(engine revs)
I don't have to hear any more.
(James laughs)
It's just, it's so pure.
It's artistry.
That's just poetry
in mechanics.
- Good on Dodge for making a screamer like that.
- Yeah.
I'm sure Enzo is looking up from hell super--
- What?
- All right, saint Enzo is looking down from heaven.
(Mark laughs)
Super proud that his legacy is being carried on
with the Ferrari 458.
The best sounding V8 in the world.
Like I said at the beginning,
all of these sounds are submitted by you guys,
so I really wanna thank you.
I wanna thank Mark for coming down here
and offering his expertise.
Let me know in the comments below
if you disagree with anything
that is totally cool,
we love a little discourse here.
- Subjective.
Completely subjective.
- (chuckles) Speaking of discourse,
we also have a discord,
it's one of the perks of the Donut Underground,
that is our membership program
where you can get way more Donut stuff
than we could provide on the main channel.
To learn more about that,
I'll put a link in the description,
or there is a join button down there sometimes. (chuckles)
I love you.
- And remember, when you go to the movie theaters
don't forget to listen,
and don't accept (bleep) sound.