Dublin-Pedestrian-Crossing-05.aif

22 January 2010 - 03:16h - The pedestrian crossings in Dublin have a distinctive beep sound which is designed to assist people with hearing difficulties. A sensor detects the amount of ambient noise and raises and lowers the volume of the beep automatically. So even though the level changes in this recording sound like changes in microphone proximity, the microphones remained in the same place the whole time. Those level changes just reflect the varying amount of ambient noise. The rapidly repeating beeps indicate the green light for pedestrians to cross the road.

This is take 5 of 8 from a recording made at the busy King Street junction, which as you can hear is still busy at stupid o'clock even on a weekday. The road is a bit wet from some light rain. This take features some young male voices with Dublin accents in the background.

Recorded with a Zoom H4n and built-in microphones, with included foam windscreen and homemade purple fluffball windscreen, mounted on the boom arm of a microphone stand with poly-rubber foam insulating it from handling noise.