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: Pymmes Brook Brunswick Park
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Friern Barnet, Bounds Green
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 23 December 2011
Time of day: 2.50pm
Location: Middle of Brunswick Park, north London.
Description: Faint sound of Pymme's Brook, birdsong, a crow caws, a man's voice in the mid-distance, distant traffic, airplane drone.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x DPA 2006C mics, MixPre-D preamp, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Filename: TQ 2835 9205
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Friern Barnet, Bounds Green
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 20 March 2009
Time of day: 3.40pm
Location: OS reference 2835 9205. Highgrove Close, around 150 feet south of the grid point, which falls inside the Princes Park Manor gated housing development.
Description: Sustained aircraft drone, a door slams, a scooter sputters past, some wind noise, background otherwise quiet.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics. Olympus LS-10 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.