Stefan Larsson’s interest in music and sound began at the age three years when he would sit and play with the keys of the family piano. Today, he has succeeded in combining his passion for sound with his work life, thanks to his job as a sound designer in a somewhat surprising field: heavy vehicles.
Creating a modern driver environment
We’re standing in Scania’s sound studio, an ultra-modern environment featuring acoustic dampening, ten or so listening posts, and top-of-the-line speakers on the walls. Behind the glass in the adjoining room, Larsson is sitting in at a control desk, adjusting the sliding switches on something that resembles a sound mixer in a music studio. But while his work tools include a keyboard and the music software program Pro Tools, Larsson’s workspace isn’t used for composing Taylor Swift’s latest hits.
“We use this space to create the synthetic sounds that form part of the modern driver environment,” explains Larsson, who is the only Scania employee to have the title of Sound Designer.
“These can include different warning sounds, such as collision-warning or engine-failure tones, and interaction tones such as the sound made when the indicators are put on.”