Recordings of background atmospheres and incidental noises from all over London. Many form part of a sound grid series recorded at evenly-spaced points across the city, each marking the centre of a square on the map below.
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Above: graphic based on a daytime satellite image courtesy of the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. Each red grid square is 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers across.
Filename: Helicopter and gulls River Lea
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Walthamstow, Leyton, Lea Bridge
Recorded by: dollyskilbeck
Recording date: 2 November 2010
Time of day: 5.15pm
Location: By the River Lea near the Warwick East reservoir.
Description: A helicopter flies overhead and away, cries of gulls squabbling, honking of geese.
Technical guff: Smartphone recording.
Additional notes: Visit dollskilbeck's Twitter page for links to interesting stuff.
Filename: River Lea waste depot
Duration: 1:15
Grid square: Walthamstow, Leyton, Lea Bridge
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 10 April 2010
Time of day: 10.45am
Location: River Lea, a few hundred yards south of Lea Bridge Road.
Description: Birdsong, humming and occasional clanging sounds from a waste depot on the other side of the river Lea.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x MM-HLSO/Sennheiser MKE-2 mics and Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Filename: TQ 3627 8826
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Walthamstow, Leyton, Lea Bridge
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 16 February 2009
Time of day: 3.30pm
Location: OS reference TQ 3627 8826. Brunel Road, off Markhouse Avenue.
Description: Bird song, aircraft drone, vehicles driving past, a pedestrian passes, hollow banging sounds as concrete pipe sections are lifted off the back of a lorry.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics. Olympus LS-10 digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Filename: Hackney Marshes
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Walthamstow Leyton Lea Bridge
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: September 2008
Time of day: Around noon.
Location: Lea Bridge end of Hackney Marshes.
Description: Football players recorded around Sunday lunchtime at Hackney Marshes. Players' cries, metallic banging from a building site, aircraft drone, fizzing of insects in a patch of tall grass nearby.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX preamp. Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Sound map recordings fall into two kinds, shown by the filenames they're given.
A sound grid recording has a filename beginning with the letters 'TQ', followed by eight digits. These are the Ordnance Survey co-ordinates for where the recording ought to be made. Each is part of a regularly-spaced series of recordings covering London. More about them, including graphics showing the resulting city-wide patterns of sounds, can be found on this page.
Other recordings have more descriptive filenames and these are simply of curious or distinctive sounds heard in different places.