Audio Engineering Society Convention Paper Presented at the 137th Convention 2014 October 9–12 Los Angeles, USA This Convention paper was selected based on a submitted abstract and 750-word precis that have been peer reviewed by at least two qualified anonymous reviewers. The complete manuscript was not peer reviewed. This convention paper has been reproduced from the author’s advance manuscript without editing, corrections, or consideration by the Review Board. The AES takes no responsibility for the contents. Additional papers may be obtained by sending request and remittance to Audio Engineering Society, 60 East 42 nd Street, New York, New York 10165-2520, USA; also see www.aes.org. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this paper, or any portion thereof, is not permitted without direct permission from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. The design of urban sound monitoring devices Charlie Mydlarz 1,2 , Samuel Nacach 2 , Tae Hong Park 2 and Agnieszka Roginska 2 1 NYU CUSP, New York, NY, 11201, USA 2 NYU Steinhardt, New York, NY, 10012, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Charlie Mydlarz (cmydlarz@nyu.edu) ABSTRACT The urban sound environment of New York City is notoriously loud and dynamic. As such, scientists, recording engineers, and soundscape researchers continuously explore methods to capture and monitor such urban sound environments. One method to accurately monitor and ultimately understand this dynamic en- vironment involves a process of long-term sound capture, measurement and analysis. Urban sound recording requires the use of robust and resilient acoustic sensors, where unpredictable external conditions can have a negative impact on acoustic data quality. Accordingly, this paper describes the design and build of a self-contained urban acoustic sensing device to capture, analyze, and transmit high quality sound from any given urban environment. This forms part of a collaborative effort between New York University’s (NYU) Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and the NYU Steinhardt School’s Citygram Project. The presented acoustic sensing device prototype incorporates a quad core Android based mini PC with Wi-Fi capabilities, a custom MEMS microphone and a USB audio device. The design considerations, materials used, noise mitigation strategies and the associated measurements are detailed in the following paper. 1. INTRODUCTION Noise pollution is an increasing threat to the well- being and public health of city inhabitants [17, 4, 3]. Large advances have been made in noise prediction over the last few decades, with applications utiliz- ing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technolo- gies and sophisticated noise transmission modeling [18, 7, 5]. However, the complexity of sound prop- agation in urban settings and the lack of an accu- rate representation of the distribution of the sources of this noise have led to an insufficient understand- ing of the urban sound environment. The presented project aims to continuously monitor and ultimately understand these urban sound environments. It is a multidisciplinary collaborative effort between