The Rest Is Just Noise

Spectres, Camouflage & Unruly Sound with Fiona Smyth

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 23:00:00 +0100

In the beginning there was a morass of Unruly Sound but then came the Acousticians. Pistols were fired.

To record the introduction for today's episode, Francesco and Tin went to St Paul's Cathedral in London, looking for a suitable sonic background for this episode, which we recorded in October 2024 in Cambridge with Fiona Smyth.

We hope you will enjoy a conversation about the history of modern acoustics as Fiona leads us from the beginning of the first acoustic experiments and early acoustic materials to using soundscape to camouflage submarines.

Find Fiona's fascinating book, "Pistols in St Paul's: Science, music, and architecture in the twentieth century".

Follow Fiona's ERC project, "Spectres & Camouflage".

Find Fiona at University of Cambridge.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Soundscape Odyssey Québécois with Edda Bild

Sat, 31 May 2025 20:00:00 +0100

Ben là, we recorded this episode during the two days in May 2024 while travelling through Montreal, Québec (CA). Edda Bild (la ville sonore) led us from one luring soundscape intervention site to another. Francesco, Tin and Andrew applied field recording and field rant techniques, in situ, to stay focused on their mission.

We hope you will enjoy this sound collage of ambiances and witful insights from Edda and your favourite hosts. We start from Le Plateau-Mont-Royal and then visit the City and Quartier des Spectacles, exploring microsoundscapes and water features in quite some depth.

Read about soundscape research conducted at Place des Fleurs-de-Macadam, Place du Portugal and other sites in:

Soundtracking the Public Space: Outcomes of the Musikiosk Soundscape Intervention

Bringing music to the park: The effect of Musikiosk on the quality of public experience

How does activity affect soundscape assessments? Insights from an urban soundscape intervention with music

A sonic perspective for the post-pandemic future of entertainment districts: the case of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles

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Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Urban Soundscapes in Microscope with Usue Ruiz Arana, Richard Bentley, Sarah Jones-Morris et al.

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 17:00:00 +0000

First of all, thanks for coming!

Today's episode was recorded in Microscope, Dalston last June at Usue Ruiz Arana's book launch, and we were lucky that Dan Rea from Periscope kindly introduced us, Usue and her guests.

Stay tuned for an enticing conversation on soundwalks, soundscape practices and the future of mutispecies approach to soundscapes with Usue, Richard and Sarah and the very engaged audience - thanks to whose intervention, we end this episode with END (Environmental Noise Directive). Enjoy!

Buy Usue's book, "Urban Soundscapes: A Guide to Listening for Landscape Architecture and Urban Design": https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003202981/urban-soundscapes-usue-ruiz-arana

Find Usue at Newcastle University.

Follow microscope on Instagram @micro__scope for more audio delights if you're around Dalston this year.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Left Ear Right Ear with Lola de la Mata

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Left Ear
Right Ear
Pink Noise

Some listeners may find some of the sounds in this episode disturbing.

In today's episode, we meet with a conceptual sound artist, composer, curator and musician, Lola de la Mata, working with tinnitus, spontaneous auto-acoustic emissions and aural diversity.

We talk about how research-informed art shouldn't be pleasant at all cost as we dive in Lola's recent album Oceans on Azimuth and her exploration of her personal objective tinnitus.

Find Lola at www.loladelamata.com
Listen to Oceans on Azimuth at https://loladelamata.bandcamp.com/

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

#WiA special series with Jude Brereton

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Welcome to Episode 7 of the special series of Women in Acoustics podcast. Today we have the fabulous Prof. Jude Brereton from the University of York. Jude is a professor in audio and music technologies. We are going to talk about her interests in music, linguistics and acoustic phonetics and how they all tie in together to understand the singing voice in various acoustic spaces. This further goes on to explain her research and teaching which covers audio signal processing, psychoacoustics, spatial audio and virtual acoustics, music performance analysis and voice analysis and synthesis.

Find Jude at:
https://www.york.ac.uk/arts-creative-technologies/people/jude-brereton/

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN+ brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
X: @JustNoisePod

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

#WiA special series with Mariana Lopez

Sun, 07 Jul 2024 15:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the Episode 6 of the special series of Women in Acoustics podcast. Today we have Professor Mariana Lopez with us. Mariana is a Latin American researcher based in the UK, specialising in sound design and accessibility, as well as acoustical heritage and historical soundscapes. She has a background in music and sound design and we were very excited to chat about medieval video gaming!

Find Mariana at https://marianajlopez.com/.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

La ville sonore avec Catherine Guastavino

Tue, 28 May 2024 18:00:00 +0100

For today's episode, our hosts Francesco and Andrew met up with Prof Catherine Guastavino in Ottawa, during the May meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

They will be talking about the science and beauty of Sounds In The City - la ville sonore - easily one of the most famous research projects in the soundscape community that has been running for 10 years now. So, how it all started? What's the role of music here? What's the role of noise? And what does the rest have to do with international standards? Stay tuned to find out.

Find Catherine at McGill University.

Checkout The Sounds In The City project, including blog posts and published research outputs.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

#WiA special series with Reena Mahtani

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the Episode 5 of the special series of Women in Acoustics podcast. Today we have a very special guest with us - Reena Mahtani. Reena is a Senior Acoustic Engineer at Sandy Brown Associates. We shall delve into Reena's personal and professional experiences, her international travels, and everything which helped her develop as an expert in occupational noise and sound measurements and a working mother, balancing her work life with her family.

Find Reena at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenamahtani/?originalSubdomain=uk

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Soundscape Gentrification with Bethan Prosser

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 17:00:00 +0000

...If you're sitting, come to me...

In today's episode we meet the soundscape trespasser and researcher, Dr Bethan Prosser, who is resisting the never-ending waves of gentrification on the English seaside through sound and participatory listening.

Find Bethan at University of Brighton.

Follow her on X: @bethanmathiasp and LinkedIn.

Check out Bethan's upcoming chapter Listening to Gentrification and her PhD Thesis.

Also a paper on community-university collaborations.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

#WiA special series with Alice Eldridge

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 18:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the Episode 4 of the special series of Women in Acoustics podcast. Today we have a wonderful guest with us - Professor Alice Eldridge from University of Sussex. Alice is a Professor of Sonic Systems (Music) and a musician. We are going to talk about her love for music and her curious mind which has led her to a foundation interest in sound, and moving in between the strictly defined academic disciplines.

Find Alice at:
https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p127749-alice-eldridge

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN+ brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Complex Auditory Scenes with Maggie McMullin

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 23:00:00 +0000

For this episode, Andrew recorded an interview with Maggie McMullin, a researcher at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Indeed, this episode is about complex (natural) auditory scenes, but - what makes them so complex? Why we need machine learning tools to analyse them? How to start looking into them in the first place?

This conversation took place at the ASA May event in Chicago, Illinois, but it's about everywhere and everything you can hear from Nevada to Wisconsin.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Sensory Urbanism with Jieling Xiao

Tue, 26 Dec 2023 23:00:00 +0000

Sounds, and then soundscape and planning and then urban sensory planning.

We are expanding on our usual scope on sounds towards smell and sensory environments.

Today's guest is Jieling Xiao, a Reader in Architecture and Sensory Environments at Birmingham School of Architecture and Design, Birmingham City University.

Find Jieling at Birmingham City.
Read Jieling's paper about a participatory soundscape planning framework.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

#WiA special series with Helen Sheldon

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 01:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the Episode 3 of the special series of Women in Acoustics podcast. Today we have a very special guest with us - Helen Sheldon from RBA Acoustics. Helen is a charted engineer and Director at RBA Acoustics, who actively promotes acoustics as a STEM subject speaking in schools and universities and promoting engineering to a wider public.

Find Helen at:
https://www.rba-acoustics.co.uk/team/helen-sheldon/

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN+ brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Listening to Landscapes with Usue Ruiz Arana

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 14:00:00 +0000

In today's episode we have some big words in the title and with Usue Ruiz Arana, a Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Newcastle University, we are going to revisit some of concepts we have talked about very often:

What is a soundwalk?
How should we use soundwalks?
How do we bring this concept to the cities?
Is landscape a superior format to portrait?

Find Usue at Newcastle University.
Check out Usue's chapter on Soundwalking in the Phonocene: walking, listening, wilding.

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Radio Utopia: La Biennale di Venezia 23 with Carlotta Darò and Nicolas Tixier

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 13:00:00 +0100

Welcome to The Rest Is Just Noise, a monthly podcast about what do architects & acousticians, researchers & artists, engineers & academics have to say about the science and beauty of sounds in cities and landscapes. So, is there a better place to look for those answers than in the Laboratory of the Future, the 18th edition of the world-famous exhibition on architecture that’s being held every even year in Venice since the 1980, the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2023?

For this episode, we have sent Tin to travel to the north of Adriatic to visit the Radio Utopia, a laboratory of sound that took place first week of August inside the French pavilion and this year’s project the Ball Theatre. There, we found Carlotta Darò and Nicolas Tixier, the curators of Radio Utopia, and talked beyond just the glamour of multimedia at world exhibitions, discussing the importance of architectural atmospheres.

Carlotta is a Lecturer at ENSA Paris Malaquais and a researcher at ETH Zürich, and Nicolas is the director of the CRESSON, Grenoble. So, in this episode, we are bringing you first a brief audio runthrough the program with Carlotta and finally the conversation with Carlotta and Nicolas, taking place within the soundscape of Les Nouvelles du Monde, News of the World, a collaboratory sound installation.

More info about Radio Utopia.
After Venice, Radio Utopia will be live in Paris in mid October.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

#WiA special series: Sustainable Careers with Angela Lamacraft

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 13:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the Episode 2 of the special series of Women in Acoustics podcast. Today we have a very special guest with us - Ms Angela Lamacraft from Sustainable Acoustics. Angela is working on how to make buildings acoustically pleasing for people who are working in them and the people who are living in them. She looks at the different types of materials that are used and how to better the performance of buildings. She is also a working mum, working part time, trying to balance her life as a mother, spending time with her children, as well as becoming a successful acoustician in industry.

Find Angela at:
https://www.sustainableacoustics.co.uk/our-people
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/angela-lamacraft-65017a29

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Cities and Memory (and Microphones)

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

For today's episode we went on a walk through a maze of alleyways in Central London to meet Stuart Fowkes, the founder of Cities and Memory, and to learn firsthand about this fantastic international platform for promoting urban sound and its impact on society.

Check out Cities and Memory webpage and consider taking part in many exciting projects, whether as a recordist, a composer, or both.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Urban Sound Symposium 2023

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 23:00:00 +0100

Your hosts Francesco, Andrew and Tin went to the 3rd edition of the Urban Sound Symposium, locally organised by researchers at La Salle Campus Barcelona this April.

As expected, it was a truly lovely event featuring the protagonists of the most recent developments in the field, some of which we have already had the honour of hosting in our previous episodes, such as Aural Diversity with John Drever, Ep.No.9 with Prof Gascia Ouzuonian and Dr Ruth Bernatek, Ep.4 "Musikiosk, Misters, and More!" with Dan Steele and Edda Bild and Up and Down the Soundscape Scales with Sarah Payne!

So for today we are giving you 9 short interviews with some fantastic presenters in the poster section (Richard Yanaky, Josep Lorca-Bofi, Merel Ursem, Trond Maag, Sven Anderson, Marc Freixes, Laura Estévez-Mauriz), Rosa Alsina Pagès as the organiser and Edda Bild as the organiser of the Early Careers Professionals in Sound Workshop... with Pierre Aumond and Tin on the piano.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

#WiA special series: Bubbles Everywhere with Eleanor Stride

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0100

Today we celebrate the #INWED23 with the first episode in our new special series Women in Acoustics #WiA, led by Dr Hasina Begum, EDI Champion for the UK Acoustics Network (UKAN+).

But what have bubbles to do with it? Apparently everything.

We talk with Eleanor Stride about what bubble acoustics are and how being an exceptional woman has set her career in acoustics.

Prof. Eleanor Stride is the Statutory Professor of Biomaterials in the Departments of Engineering Science and the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences. She specialises in the fabrication of nano and microscale devices for targeted drug delivery.

https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/eleanor-stride/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Stride

https://raeng.org.uk/about-us/fellowship/new-fellows-2017/eleanor-stride

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Engaging with Everyday Sounds and Marcel Cobussen

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 12:00:00 +0100

Stop - listen to the sounds around you!

Our today's guest is Marcel Cobussen, Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy at Leiden University. Marcel has recently published his book 'Engaging with Everyday Sounds'. It's a journey to rediscover sounds around us and transform how we listen.

We'll talk about what is an everyday sound, the politics and philosophy surrounding urban sounds, and how Marcel has integrated his own sonic experiences into a book.

We begin with a collection of sounds from Marcel's own journey from Rotterdam to London to bring you this episode. Bon voyage!

Find Marcel at Leiden University.
Have a look at the Journal of Sonic Studies.
Find Marcel's new book at Open Book Publishers.

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Sayonara Soundscapes

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 23:00:00 +0000

How do we implement soundscape design in practice? What tools are available for a soundscape designer? And when should it even be considered? And what's the difference between a landscape design approach and an engineering approach? All this, and more, we're going to discuss with today's guest, Gunnar Cerwén. Through his work looking at the soundscape of Japanese gardens, we're going to explore just how soundscape actions can be considered in practical design.

Have a look at Gunnar's Soundscape Design Tool.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Aural Diversity with John Drever

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today we talk with Professor of Acoustic Ecology and Sound Art, John Drever, about what aural diversity is in the first place and how it all started, from paper towels to Kafka.

Find John's and Andrew's book Aural Diversity @ Routledge.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Engineering Soundscapes

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 22:00:00 +0000

Recently Andrew defended his PhD thesis so we came up with this episode to celebrate him. Andrew has stepped down from his hosting role, for this episode only, and came along carrying his jazz trombone to record one or two licks and talk his coding work, predictive soundscape modelling, and promote his rigorous probabilistic approach to soundscape - enabling engineers to finally start using it.

Check out Andrew at his webpage.
If you're into visualising soundscape data, download Andrew's soundscapy, a python library for soundscape assessments.

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Highlights of the Acoustics of Ancient Theatres Symposium

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0100

In early July 2022 Tin attended the Acoustics of Ancient Theatres Symposium in Verona, Italy. In today's episode, we took a nostalgic look back and talked Greek and Roman ancient theatres in modern cities, Italian Opera, British parliament and beyond! If you bear with us, you'll also find that the episode features some binaural samples depicting a summer in Verona - headphones recommended!

We recorded this a few weeks after the conference and obviously can't cover everything - if you think we missed something important be sure to let us know on Twitter @JustNoisePod

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

"Urban Roars" with Jordan Lacey

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 23:00:00 +0100

We've talked about "musical drones" in one of our previous episodes. Well, this time we decided to investigate this idea a bit further as we look into Melbourne's underground and seek out the soundscape potential a humble air conditioning unit (well, four of them actually) can offer.

We had a chance to put our hands on Jordan Lacey during his busy research tour and speak about sonic ruptures and stitches, and also his new book Urban Roars.

Check out Jordan's books:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/urban-roar-9781501360596/
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/sonic-rupture-9781501309977/

Check out hidden Jordan's sounds:
https://hiddensounds.bandcamp.com

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Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Can you hear me?

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 23:00:00 +0100

Today we're bringing you right into the conversation with us by recording the episode on a binaural head.

We're going to be speaking with a Professor in Psychology Mats Nilsson about his work on studying sound perception and psychoacoustics of blind and sighted people.

Find Mats at the Stockholms universitet.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

How much is a decibel worth?

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0100

How much is a decibel worth? Can you put a price on sound quality?

From house prices to heart attacks, from airplane noise to church bells, sound costs us money and years of our lives but can also bring value. How to quantify the value of that is difficult.

Today we're speaking with Like Jiang, a Research Fellow at University of Leeds, about how we value soundscapes. We are getting deep in the weeds about how to quantify the cost of noise, what methods are used and why it matters anyway.

Find Like at the University of Leeds.

Find the latest Like's paper - Ten questions concerning soundscape valuation published in Building and Environment.

More details on transport noise valuation here.

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Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Lockdown Soundscapes

Tue, 31 May 2022 13:00:00 +0100

The lockdowns due to COVID-19 had a huge impact on our urban environments and the sounds of our cities. In one of our recent publications we wanted to have a look at not just how much did those sound levels decrease but how would people have perceived this change in their urban soundscape.

Come along with us as we take a little deviation into our own research and talk about the computer model that we've built, based of the recordings made in London and Venice to predict how people probably would have perceived these soundscapes during the lockdown.

Read the papers we are talking about in JASA and in Noise Mapping.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
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Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

The Songs of Notre-Dame - Special ASA episode with Sarabeth Mullins

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 16:00:00 +0100

Notre-Dame de Paris is famous for its music - from the famous bells to its three pipe organs. But did you know the building itself has influenced how Western music developed? Today (actually nearly five months ago, but who's counting?) we're speaking with Sarabeth Mullins, a researcher at Sorbonne Université about her research into how the cathedral of Notre-Dame has shaped vocal music through the centuries.

Following the fire of 2019, we've seen a renewed interest in understanding and conserving the cultural heritage of the cathedral. Much of this work has tracked the various stages of development and construction that the cathedral has been in over the years. Building on this, Sarabeth is experimenting with how the acoustical characteristics of the cathedral at different periods may have shaped how singers and composers adapted their music to the building and how music and building evolved together.

We hope you enjoy this special episode, recorded in November 2021 at the ASA Conference in Seattle!

Follow Sarabeth on Twitter: @SarabethMullins
Read more from Sarabeth: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9610851
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Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
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ASA ReCap - Once Upon A Time In Seattle

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0100

In early December 2021 our host Andrew attended the Seattle meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and now walks us through the highlights of the conference. We talked about electric vehicles additive sounds, deep learning for audio classification, social isolation for older people with sensory loss during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and more! The proceedings of the ASA meeting can be found at this link: https://acousticalsociety.org/program-of-181st-meeting-of-the-acoustical-society-of-america/

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Picnics at the Wall with Pamela Jordan

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 11:00:00 +0000

Throughout the last year, we've seen a whole bunch of articles, projects and research about how much urban noise was reduced due to COVID-19 lockdowns. This is our 2nd episode in a series looking at the impacts of those lockdowns worldwide on sound in cities.

Today we're speaking for the 2nd time with Pamela Jordan, a researcher at University of Amsterdam, about her project looking, in a very interesting way, at how the soundscape at the Berlin Wall Memorial changed during lockdown, as it shifted from this tourist space, to a public space.

Find Pamela at the University of Amsterdam

Read Pamela's and André's paper in the Special Issue about Historical Acoustics.

Change Over Time - Sounding Heritage - https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/44786

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Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
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Live from the ASA! Mini-episode with Ronald Altoon - Ethics and Culture in Acoustics

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 18:00:00 +0000

This week Andrew is at the Acoustical Society of America conference in Seattle. Throughout the week, our goal is to bring you some highlights about the talks he found most interesting. At the end of it we'll put together a full episode with that run down, but Andrew is also sitting down for some short mini-episodes with the acousticians, architects and researchers presenting to dig deeper into their fascinating work. We're really excited about all of the guests we have coming up so, let's get into our first of this series of special interviews!

Ronald Altoon has been an architect for nearly 50 years, 30 of those leading his own firm. He has given lectures at places like Harvard, USC, and Columbia. If you missed his talk at this year's acoustical society meeting, you missed out one of the best presentations Andrew has seen yet. But thankfully for you we sat down with him for an extended chat about the importance of context in architectural and acoustical design, and on ethics in acoustics. Enjoy!

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Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
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Ep. 12 Soundscape Legacies

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 17:00:00 +0000

We've talked a lot about soundscapes: how we perceive them, how we measure them, how we can predict them... but all of these soundscapes existed. What about the ones that - like purgatory - are just somewhere in our minds or floating out there in space? These are historic soundscapes - ones which used to exist but no longer do.

So the question is - how do we talk about those? How do we measure those?

Today we are speaking with Pamela Jordan, a researcher at University of Amsterdam, about historic soundscapes and her experience in measuring and describing them.

Find Pamela at the University of Amsterdam

Change Over Time - Sounding Heritage - https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/44786

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Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
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Ep. 11 Mechanical Birds - Drones and Soundscapes with Dr. Antonio Torija

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 15:00:00 +0100

In our very first episode, we learned that not all natural sounds are equal, and not all of them are pleasant. In today's episode, we'll talk about how not all mechanical sounds are equal and not all of them are necessarily bad. As we move into the "age of the future" we expect to see drones flying around our cities, dropping off packages and making our skies look like those of Coruscant from Star Wars. But what do these drones sound like? Are they good or bad? What do they mean for the soundscapes of our cities?

Today, we're speaking with Antonio Torija-Martinez, a Lecturer in Acoustic Engineering at the University of Salford about the noise of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. He'll take us through his recent research on whether we can design drones to sound pleasant (or at least, less annoying), and how these drones impact urban soundscapes. And, if you'll indulge us a bit, I hope you enjoy some rambling off into our thoughts on how we measure and describe complex soundscapes. Enjoy!

Follow Antonio on Twitter @ajtorija

Psychoacoustic analysis of contra-rotating propeller noise for unmanned aerial vehicles - https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/10.0003432

Make drones sound less annoying by factoring in humans at the design stage - https://theconversation.com/make-drones-sound-less-annoying-by-factoring-in-humans-at-the-design-stage-151421

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Lockdown Soundscapes - The Stockholm Syndrome with Romain Rumpler

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 15:00:00 +0100

This month we're kicking off a new series of episodes looking at how the COVID-19 lockdowns impacted urban soundscapes around the world! Throughout this past year, we've seen countless articles, podcasts, and twitter threads about how cities went quiet as people were forced to stay at home. We hope to bring you the in depth stories directly from the scientists who were conducting this research. Hopefully we'll be able to answer questions like 'What do our cities sound like when people aren't using them?' 'How did people's perceptions of urban sound change throughout this period?' and 'Just how quiet could our cities be, and would it actually make a difference?'

For the first of this series, we're speaking with Romain Rumpler, a researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, about the effects Romain and his team measured under Sweden's unique lockdown conditions. Make sure to subscribe to keep up with our future lockdown-focussed episodes!

Resources:

An observation of the impact of CoViD-19 recommendation measures monitored through urban noise levels in central Stockholm, Sweden - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210670720306892

Noise measurements as a proxy to evaluating the response to recommendations in times of crisis: An update analysis of the transition to the second wave of the CoViD-19 pandemic in Central Stockholm, Sweden - https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/10.0003778

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Ep. No. 9 with Prof Gascia Ouzounian and Dr Ruth Bernatek

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 20:00:00 +0100

Number 9, number 9, number 9...

As promised, today we're back where we left as we talk with Associate Professor Gascia Ouzounian, joined by her colleague, a Bartlett alumna Dr Ruth Bernatek. They reflect on their ongoing ERC project Soncities at University of Oxford that brings together sound theorists, urban sociologists, architects, urban designers and sound artists to develop critical approaches to sonic urbanism. Their goal is to foster socially conscious approaches to sonic practice in forms of research, analysis and design.

Oh, and there's a chat about the unavoidable John Lennon, oops I meant Xenakis.

Shall we continue?

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UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Ep. 8 "Stereophonica" with Prof Gascia Ouzounian

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 15:00:00 +0100

Today we understand sound is inherently spatial. It interacts with and informs us about the space it - and we - exist in. But as recently as 1900, scientists held that sound itself could not relay "spatial attributes" and that the human ear had physiological limitations that prevented it from receiving spatial information. How did we go from there to our current understanding of spatial sound?

In her new book, "Stereophonica", Oxford Associate Professor of Music, Gascia Ouzounian, traces the development of this spatial understanding from its modern birth, through science, war, music, and finally to our cities. In this month's episode, we sit down with Gascia to talk about some of the episodes she tells which we found particularly interesting. Enjoy!

Buy Gascia's book, "Stereophonica - Sound and space in Science, Technology, and the Arts": https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/stereophonica

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Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Ep. 7 Circumplex Conversations - Measuring Soundscape Perception with Simone Torresin

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 13:00:00 +0100

This month we return to one of our favourite topics - how do you actually measure perception? We trace the development of the circumplex model of affect from it's start in 1980, to it's first application in soundscape in 2010. Finally we speak with Simone Torresin, who has done the most recent expansion of this idea by deriving a soundscape circumplex model for indoor environments.

Are you just confused about what a 'circumplex' even is? Well, listen along and we'll walk you through it!

Resources:

Indoor soundscape assessment: A principal components model of acoustic perception in residential buildings - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132320305266
A principal components model of soundscape perception - https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3493436
A circumplex model of affect - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1981-25062-001

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Ep. 6 S̶t̶a̶r̶ Sound Wars with Dr Linda O'Keeffe

Tue, 04 May 2021 14:00:00 +0100

Happy May the Fourth!
In this episode, we're speaking with Linda O'Keeffe, a sound artist and head of the School of Art at Edinburgh College of Art. Her work on gender inclusion in the sonic arts has led to the development of the organisation Women In Sound, Women On Sound, whose goal is to make visible women who work in the multitudinous areas of sound - from music technology to sound art, sound & society, the politics of sound, and every are in between.

Today we'll talk with Linda about her journey in sound, her research on the under-examined cultural and acoustic impacts of renewable energy sources, and her latest album, titled 'Silent Spring' which focuses on the new sounds associated with renewable energy.

Find Linda's album here: https://flamingpines.bandcamp.com/album/silent-spring
Find more of Linda's research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Linda-O-Keeffe/research

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Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod

Ep. 5 Highlights of the Urban Sound Symposium 2021

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 17:00:00 +0100

This week marked the second Urban Sound Symposium, held virtually! Featuring keynotes with 30 speakers, panel discussions, and 27 posters, the Symposium brought together some of the leading researchers in urban sound and soundscape. In today's bonus episode, Andrew and Francesco discuss their personal favourite bits from the week as well as talking, once again, with Edda Bild about the extended discussion around representation, inclusiveness, and fairness in urban sound research that was sparked at the Symposium.

We recorded this very quickly right after the final day and obviously can't cover everything - if you think we missed something important be sure to let us know on Twitter @JustNoisePod

If you'd like to be a part of the working group on urban sound EDI, reach out to Edda at edda.bild@mcgill.ca

Keynote talks mentioned:
"Urban trends and their impact on soundscape" - Dick Botteldooren, Arnaud Can
"Public space soundscapes - three continents, three approaches" - Sarah Payne, Jin Yong Jeon, Daniel Steele
"Smart city sound monitoring and its applications" - Juan Bello, David Bernfeld
"Mapping and prediction" - Pierre Aumond, Maarten Hornikx, André Fiebig
"Participatory approaches" - Lisa Lavia, Mattia Cobianchi, Nadine Schütz

Music used with permission from Jack Mac

UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

Urban Sound Symposium 2021

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Ep. 4 "Musikiosk, Misters, and More!" with Dan Steele and Edda Bild

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 13:00:00 +0100

Today we have a just-long-enough chat with Drs. Edda Bild and Dan Steele from McGill University about their various soundscape intervention projects. They'll take us through installing free-to-use speakers in a small park in Montreal to testing out different water feature installations, with many rambling rants in between!

Papers discussed: Soundtracking the Public Space: Outcomes of the Musikiosk Soundscape Intervention

Find more from Dan and Edda here: https://www.sounds-in-the-city.org/en/overview/
@villesonore

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Sonic Appropriation and the UK Policing Bill with Edda Bild

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 15:00:00 +0000

In light of the UK's newly proposed policing bill which aims to impose noise limits and other new restrictions on protests, we bring you a special episode. Recorded a month before news of the bill came out, our host Andrew spoke with sociologist and soundscape researcher Edda Bild about 'sonic appropriation' - how people, particularly protesters and those in marginalised communities, can exert control over their sonic environments. Find out why it matters that people can exert this sonic appropriation over their spaces and some of the history of how it has been regulated and restricted.

This episode was intended to be a short follow up to our main episode in April, when it would've been very cleverly titled a 'Background Noise' episode, but it was so topical we decided to release it early. Make sure to check back in for that main episode about Edda's work with the Musikiosk project!

Read more about the UK Policing Bill here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56400751
See what it might mean in practice in a blog post by Susan Witterick, at DBX Acoustics: https://www.dbxacoustics.com/protest-noise/

Find more about Edda and her team here: https://www.sounds-in-the-city.org/en/team/

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Ep.3 2020 was The Year of Sound (among other things) with Marion Burgess, Michael Taroudakis, & Jean-Dominique Polack

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 12:00:00 +0000

The International Year of Sound is a global initiative to highlight the importance of sound in all aspects of life and to promote an understanding of sound-related issues at the national and international level.

2020 was the International Year of Sound, but it may have been just a tad overshadowed by certain other events that year. Luckily, it carried on and adapted, and has been extended into 2021. This episode, we speak with the steering committee behind it and learn why the Year of Sound is important and what to look forward to in 2021!

Find the IYOS at their website here: https://sound2020.org/

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UK Acoustics Network
UKAN brings together the internationally leading, but disparate UK acoustics research community.

International Year of Sound 2020-2021
The IYS is a global initiative to highlight the importance of sound in society

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Ep.2 Up and Down the Soundscape Scales with Dr Sarah Payne

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 11:00:00 +0000

How do we measure sound perception? How can scientists quantify something so subjective?

Dr Sarah Payne walks us through how scales for soundscape are adapted from visual research. We'll discuss a whole range of scales and theories, like Attention Restoration Theory (ART), Perceived Restorative-ness Scale (PRS), Restorative Components Scale (RCS). But really, the highlight might just be her tips on creating a great acronym, like DESTRESS - (Designing and Engineering Soundscapes To enable Restorative Environments for Sustainable Societies) - bravo!

Find more from Sarah at @ThinkSnowflakes
Follow the DeStress project at @DeStressRestore and https://destress.hw.ac.uk/

Find Sarah's paper here: The Production of a Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale

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Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
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Ep.1 "The Birds" with Dr Ellie Ratcliffe

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Today we speak with Dr Ellie Ratcliffe, "Queen of the Birds"!
Can bird sounds help us recover psychologically? What do we even mean by that? And what is it about specific sounds that we find pleasing?

Ellie will walk us through all that and more as we discuss her paper Predicting the Perceived Restorative Potential of Bird Sounds Through Acoustics and Aesthetics.

Find more from Ellie at @el_ratcliffe

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Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
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Ep.0 A Noisy Prelude

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Meet our hosts and our podcast! In this introductory episode we introduce Andrew, Francesco, and Tin and clue you in to what you can expect to hear about on The Rest Is Just Noise.

You'll hear about how each of our hosts found their way from architecture, physics, and music into the world of sound and some of the interesting stories about sound that they have encountered along the way.

Stay tuned for the first episode "The Birds" with Dr. Ellie Ratcliffe, coming out January 5th!

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Papers and projects discussed
Historic soundscape in Naples: https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.4708901
Zadar Sea Organ: http://www.sonicwonders.org/sea-organ-zadar-croatia/
Soundscape research at UCL: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/environmental-design/research-projects/2020/nov/soundscape-indices-ssid

This podcast is supported by the UK Acoustics Network (UKAN).

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod