Wildlife recording is one area i’d like to concentrate more on but it takes a huge amount of patience, in that sense it’s not too dissimilar to Railway audio recording: in that you hunt out a good spot, set up and wait… hoping for that moment when you “catch” the sound you want. And of course it also suffers from nay of the same problems of railway recording, unwanted environmental noises like cars, tractors, people and planes can ruin an otherwise perfect recording.

Pop over to the London Sound Survey and lose yourself in the sounds of the capital – you might be surprised at what you find!

However having brilliant ideas is easy, realising them is something rather different. Professor Malcolm Griffiths (Director/Author/Academic) once said to me:

 
A few days ago I was contacted by Ian Rawes who must have had a similar idea to me, yet he took that extra long step and made it a reality : The London Sound Survey what he’s created is truly inspiring an almost complete catalogue of environmental sounds of contemporary London accompanied by an engaging compilation of written records of the sounds of historical London. The wealth of recordings on the site is overwhelming, even more remarkable is that Ian has recorded many of these himself – yet he is accepting contributions so if you have anything do contact him.

In addition to the sound map, the historical records, the sound actions pages and a comprehensive page of related links the site also includes a blog section that features news and features on the sounds of London and audio related events, you may read his first post here.

This really is a truly remarkable project – and definitely worth a Listen!