Matthew Dear + Ford Motor Co’s Mustang Mach-E Sonic Collaboration, “New Breed”
The Detroit recording artist assembled a captivating track from the all-electric vehicle’s sounds
As long as there have been cars there have been sounds emanating from them—the thrum of an engine, the honk of a horn, the tunes on the radio. Ford and Lincoln have an industry-leading perspective on sounds in their vehicles, and for their groundbreaking all-electric Mustang Mach-E, Ford tapped the sound designers at Ozone Sound to develop a sonic personality to fill in the quiet profile common of electric vehicles. The electronic notes inspired recording artist Matthew Dear to transform them into an exciting new electronic music track, “New Breed.”
“[They] reached out to me, being fans of my work and knowing what I did and trusting that I would be a good person for this project,” Dear tells us. “In the very beginning, through email or a phone calls, it was a bit of a head-scratcher. I thought, “OK, I’ll try that,” but as soon as I heard the sounds, it definitely made a lot more sense. The sounds are things that I would do in my own kind of work. It’s a very, very electronic sounding car.”
Mark Clapper, the head sound engineer at Ford, says, “Sound quality is a powerful indication of vehicle quality, overall performance and is a strong proof point for the Ford brand. For electric vehicles we believe sound, if delivered in an authentic way, provides emotion and passion to the vehicle especially for a product such as Mustang Mach-E. Since this would be the first electric Mustang, we wanted to create something unique that would draw on its classic sound but still stand out on its own.” He adds that the team at Ozone Sound “started with a blank slate and an open mind.”
“I think the guys did awesome,” Dear says of Ozone’s efforts. Dear took Ozone’s idle drive sounds and began to play around. “The engine hum, that was a big part of it. But also some of the interior sounds like the car start-up or shutdown. Things like that were bookends for me to take and base the rest of the song around. And like everything I do, whether it’s a regular song, a remix, or any production of my own, I kind of just start throwing darts at the musical soundboard. Then all of a sudden some things start to click.”
“We wanted to find an artist that would be able to bring this sound to mainstream consumers in a way that would get them excited about the Mustang Mach-E and electric vehicles in general,” Clapper says. “Given Matthew’s personal passion for working with various sounds to tell stories through electronic music, he was a natural fit for this project. Matthew is also Detroit-based, which is a nice add considering the car was designed and engineered here.”
Image courtesy of Charlotte Smith / Ford Motor Company
