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.
File name: River Roding Charlie Browns Roundabout
Grid square: Leytonstone, Snaresbrook
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 30 December 2011
Time of day: 1.45pm
Location: Immediately south of Charlie Brown's roundabout, south Woodford.
Description: Loud traffic passing through and by the roundabout, intermittent thumps as vehicles pass over a join in an elevated road surface, faint trickle of the Roding.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x DPA 2006C mics, Sound Devices MixPre-D preamp, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: River Roding Redbridge
Grid square: Leytonstone, Snaresbrook
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 30 December 2011
Time of day: 1.15pm
Location: Beneath the footbridge off Roding Lane South, near Redbridge.
Description: Loud constant traffic on Eastern Avenue and the North Circular, water dribbles from a pipe into the Roding, fait birdsong.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x DPA 2006C mics, Sound Devices MixPre-D preamp, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: River Roding Wanstead Park
Grid square: Leytonstone, Snaresbrook
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 15 September 2011
Time of day: 5.45pm
Location: Near Rook Island, Wanstead Park.
Description: The Roding trickles over its gravel bed, constant traffic noise from the North Circular to the east.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x DPA 2006C mics, Sound Devices MixPre-D preamp, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: TQ 4023 8826
Grid square: Leytonstone, Snaresbrook
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 16 February 2009
Time of day: 5.00pm
Location: OS reference TQ 4023 8826. Junction of Chaucer Road and Dangan Road, Wanstead.
Description: Two women count to sixteen as a child runs ahead of them. Sounds of a circular saw used by workmen on the outside of a house and a van being loaded.
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.