1.00 pm: Subterranean daydream beneath the streets of Hamburg
Wherever you go, at least in terms of big cities, one of the most similar-yet-subtly-different sounds is that of the public transport system, simultaneously familiar as daily life to inhabitants and somehow verging on the exotic for visitors. The first time you step onto a metro in a new city, it’s the small differences from what you’re used to that stand out. In fact, our travel sounds playlist captures some of this.
For me in Hamburg, it was how relatively quiet and peaceful the whole S-bahn and U-bahn systems were compared to what I’m most used to in London. This journey was from my ‘home’ station of Reeperbahn heading into the city, so what began as a novel experience very quickly became everyday and welcoming after a long day’s recording. The station sounds had already been remixed by Christian Hagelskjaer, who passed the baton onto someone else to tackle the journey itself.
This recording was taken on by Mark Taylor from Birmingham, who writes:
“The music is meant to portray the imaginary adventure taking place inside the head of one of the travellers.
Very little has been done to the recording:
· Slight adjustments in amplitude from time to time
· Gentle compression
· Transparent limiting
· A few of the more ‘percussive’ moments, absolutely fine in the original recording, were tamed using Izotope RX as the compression had emphasized them a little too much!
Music was created using Kontakt 5 sampler hosted in Sonar X1.”
City version:
Memory version: