Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1335892
68 I M PS E . O R G goal, other than creating a library that everyone who participated could share and experience what this moment in time sounded like wherever they were, was to see how many cities around the world we could reach, and whether we would get sounds from every continent. We started out with the expectation that if we managed to get recordings from 20-30 people, that would be amazing. This would be enough content to create a reasonable website with individual pages for each participant and we could include audio clips of their recordings, pictures, and social media links. This way, we would not only be sharing the sounds with each other, but it would help to build a sound community for everyone from all these different locations, allowing them to access contacts that could be useful for everything from sourcing country-specific sound effects, to suggestions for ADR and mix facilities in locations where they didn't yet have connections. It was important to us to keep the quality of the recordings as high as possible, as this was intended to be a long-term resource of this unique moment. But I also didn't want anyone to feel excluded if they felt they didn't have the best microphones or recorders. With this in mind, I put together a specification that people would have to adhere to. Not only with regards to the recording format, but also the naming and metadata that would be required. This meant that MP3s were obviously out, but anything from stereo, 16-bit, and 48kHz upward would be accepted. The first submission arrived on March 23, 2020, and within the first week, we had 12 people submitting nearly 80 recordings. Our Twitter account was gaining followers, was being shared widely, and people were engaging positively with the project, with many mentioning how great it was to have something creative to focus on, in what was a uniquely strange time for all of us. By the middle of April, we were up to nearly 50 participants with a total of more than 400 recordings; the amount of work required to keep the website up to date, and the sharing of the library efficiently, had turned into a part- time job in itself. It quickly became obvious that what we were collecting would be a unique set of sounds, and The infamous Abbey Road crossing which is usually swarming with tourists pausing dangerously in the middle of the street for their photo moment. Photo: Alastair Sirkett. Insets from top: Spitalfields Market, London, UK; Liverpool Street Station, London, UK. Photos courtesy Anthony Velevitch