Measuring and Reproducing Urban Soundscapes

Abstract

Given the multi-sensory nature of urban soundscapes, researchers who aim to study them must deal with a large and varied amount of data in order to fully characterise them. To better understand how people actually perceive their urban sound environments, we must conduct large scale in situ surveys and pair these with techniques like ambisonic audio recordings, 360 degree video, calibrated SLM measurements, and weather data. We have developed a protocol for carrying out theses surveys which enables an individual’s sound exposure to be directly compared to their soundscape perception. We have put this protocol into practice to create a large-scale international database which includes more than 2,500 surveys spanning 8 cities across Europe and China. In this presentation, I will discuss how we go about measuring urban soundscapes, the equipment we use to characterise their environment, and how we can reproduce and analyse the primary aspects of the soundscapes within a lab setting.

Date
Feb 16, 2021 6:00 PM — 7:00 PM
Location
Chicago Audio Engineering Society
Andrew Mitchell, PhD
Andrew Mitchell, PhD
Soundscape Researcher

My research interests include urban soundscape analysis, machine learning, and human perception of complex sounds.

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