Getting off the train at 72nd St, on the subway platform we heard a funny sound and wondered ‘what is that?’ Well, it turned out to be the sound of fireworks above for the kickoff of the NYC Marathon. You could hear the reflections of sound off of the building facades and the overall reverberation somewhat.
Posts Tagged ‘soundscapes’
Putting the rev back in your engine
A great deal of engineering effort has gone into quieting the automobile over the past century. In most major cities, transportation noise is a huge contributor to environmental noise both outdoors and in (who doesn’t live near a road?) Vehicle acoustics is a primary focus of many current applied acoustics research programs, with the enthusiastic support of the auto industry.
Even so, some would argue that these great successes in reducing vehicle noise have come at the expense of exhilaration; gunning your engine at a stop light just doesn’t give the thrill that it did in the days of the big block V8.
For those of us that would occasionally like to hear what we’re driving (which yes, sometimes includes even noise-averse acousticians), a Swedish company has developed the SoundRacer. This gizmo fits into your cigarette lighter socket, and using the socket voltage to sense engine RPM, broadcasts real-time sports car engine sound through your car stereo. Even if your “sports car” happens to be less than sporting!
just in time for Superbowl Sunday…
Squareheard Technology has a new microphone system, AudioScope, that allows broadcasters to zoom in on sounds as well as sights, to pick out a single conversation. The device is made up of around 300 microphones used in conjunction with a wide-angle camera that can zoom in to any position. The AudioScope software then calculates the time it would take for sound emanating from that point to reach each microphone, and digitally corrects each audio feed to synchronize them with that spot.
Sample the sounds of the city
British artist Stanza has published a growing database of urban soundscape samples (his Soundcities project) into a Google Map, allowing the user to sample the sounds of world cities—including New York City. The online, open-source database also allows users to contribute their own samples, and to freely use and mix samples from the database for their own projects.
In his introduction, the artist states that “Cities all have specific identities, and found sound can give us clues to the people that inhabit these spaces, as well as provoking us and stimulating our senses in a musical way.”
Projects like this (see also a similar project by the BBC) allow us to explore what a Chicago street has in common with an avenue in Tokyo, or to compare the quiet (or lack thereof) in New York’s Central Park to that at Skansen Kronan in Gothenburg.
What is still lacking is decibel noise level data for each sample, allowing a direct comparison of loudness. This sort of calibration would be the only way to prove that one city is louder than the next—although, in the meantime, our money is on New York.