Hi all,
I'm forwarding this for a friend who's looking for recordings of
"everyday" common soundscapes (where the norm is taken to be the
contemporary "first world")... My own recordings were judged too
"interesting" (cough) for the project!
best,
aaron
PLEASE REPLY DIRECTLY TO:
Brian Gygi
AUDITORY RESEARCHER LOOKING FOR EVERDAY SOUNDSCAPES
I am part of a small but growing group in the acoustic academic community
interested in how we listen to sounds in the real world, as opposed to the
sine waves and noise bursts that have occupied the field for so long. I am
a postdoctoral fellow at the VA Medical Center in Martinez, CA, and I would
like to investigate how well we can identify scenes with multiple sound
sources. So I am looking for high quality field recordings of everyday
soundscapes - not just nature scenes, although those are fine, but also
more ordinary situations such as laundromats, hospitals, kitchens, stores,
bathrooms... I would appreciate any field recordings people might be
willing to submit for this study. I would not reproduce the sounds without
permission, nor would I sell them in any form (and of course you would be
mentioned in the acknowledgements, not that anyone reads those). There are
some requirements, which are not absolute, but I would like to adhere as
much as possible:
1. The soundscapes should be ones that are familiar to a majority of peopl=
e.
2. They should be as representative as possible, that is not too
unusual. The clips should also contain only the natural sound scene,
nothing added in afterwards
3. There should be a minimum of intelligible dialog, or if there is, it
should not be in English
4. Music can be a part of the scene, but not the major part
5. The recordings should be as high quality as possible: minimum 16-bit
22.1 kHz sampling rate, with minimal mic pops and wind noise (although I
can do some cleaning up)
6. I would like sound scenes with a variety of sources present, to see how
many people can recognize
7. The clips should be on the short side, that is < 30 seconds.
8. I would very much like to avoid getting mp3s. While the compression is
useful, the process introduces incontrovertible transformations that would
be looked dimly upon by reviewers.
9. As many details of the recording of the clip as you have would be
useful, esp. where, what kind of recording setup, and what sources were
present when you made the recording.
So, if you have some soundscapes you would like to contribute, I would be
most happy to receive them. You can email me at or call me
510 375-7638. As for sending the sounds, if you have a high speed
connection, you can ftp them to a high capacity storage server I have,
which I can provide you the location and password for. Alternatively, if
want to burn them onto a CD and mail it, I would reimburse you. You can
mail them to:
Brian Gygi
East Bay Institute for Research and Education 151-I
150 Muir Road
Martinez, CA 94553
Of course, if you're in the Bay Area, I could just come pick them up.
I welcome any and all contributions. Thank you for your help.
Brian Gygi, Ph.D.
East Bay Institute for Research and Education
Martinez, CA 94609
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