How will.i.am is changing the in-car audio experience with Mercedes-Benz
Imagine you could remix the music you love, just by driving? Well, will.i.am did – and he caught the ear of Mercedes-Benz. Now, the German marque is bringing the tech to its electric cars. Noelle Faulkner took a spin with the musical multi-hyphenate to test-drive the in-car audio gamechanger
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“MY MERCEDES-BENZ ambassador credibility just went up!” laughs William James Adams Jr., the rapper better known as will.i.am. He’s sitting next to me in the driver’s seat of a Mercedes-AMG EQE electric SUV in a backstreet of Miami. ‘Players’ by Coi Leray is blaring out of the speakers, and Will is looking amused. Partly with pride because of what he’s just shown me; partly because I’m visibly shell-shocked into silence. All I can manage to spit out is, “Will, what the fuck is this?!” He nods excitedly, and laughs, “Right?!”
Will is giving me a preview of Sound Drive, an in-car, music- experience software he conceptualised, built and brought to life with Mercedes-Benz, set to roll out in select EVs this year. Unlike any other in-car sound system I’ve experienced, Sound Drive gives drivers the ability to remix tunes via the car’s dynamics. Every technical input, from steering to braking, acceleration to suspension, becomes a sound generator, or what Will calls a “composition engine”, transforming the song as you drive. After scrolling through the in-built Sound Drive playlist of around 100 popular tracks – including hits by some of the biggest artists in the world – Will lands on ‘We Are Family’ by Sister Sledge and tells me that Nile Rodgers also lost his mind when he experienced the tech, and duly offered up his catalogue.
When the vehicle is stationary, the music is muted, as if underwater. But as soon as Will puts his foot down, it explodes into a dynamic electronic remix, with acceleration leading the song’s progression. The steering is linked to a synth-like effect, so a sharp turn introduces a Moog-like sound that bends and warps with the wheel.
So, how did this multi-talented artist, the frontman of Black Eyed Peas, come to collaborate with the German automotive brand? It goes like this: in 2022, Mercedes-Benz asked will.i.am for his thoughts on a simulated V8 engine and took him for a drive. “We turned a corner. We went through a tunnel. I took my notes,” he recalls. “Then, we went through a tight little street and that’s really what made me critical. They asked, ‘What are your notes?’ I’m like, ‘Okay, when we turn the corner, how do you simulate gravity? There should be some oscillation of that. How do you simulate reverberation opening up when you go through a tunnel? Everything is based on the environment you’re in. If you have a simulated V8 sound, how is the environment affecting it?’”
Thinking about how blind people use sound to ‘see’, Will’s solution was to replicate a sensory experience with the car’s movement and music, incorporating its in-built sensors to communicate what is happening. Its curiosity piqued, Mercedes-Benz gave him a car to dig deeper. Will assembled a team, built a prototype and, three years later, here we are.
He makes the point that the only time music is altered and alive IRL is either when it’s played live or manipulated by a DJ, making no live experience the same. “Why can’t this be the same for our journeys?” he proposed. Whipping out his phone, Will shows me the original pitch he made to Mercedes-Benz, outlining where he sees the technology going and why he feels this is the next frontier for artists. “The car is an ecosystem for new creative experiences,” he reads, adding that he’s also working on studio software for the technology, too.
“This will open doors for the creative community to create soundscapes and drivers to add new colour compositions to the world of audio journeys. TikTok made millions of people feel creative; Instagram made millions of people realise they are photographers. We will make every driver a composer . . . future cars won’t make sounds that go vroom vroom; they will sound like orchestras.”
Sound Drive will be available in Australia for Mercedes-AMG and Mercedes-Benz with AMG Line vehicles equipped with the second generation of the MBUX infotainment system, via over-the-air updates in the next year.
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