Oh, yes. Cities can be loud. Way, way too loud. On sweat-soaked summer afternoons – when you’re stuck in traffic and stuck to the vinyl – who hasn’t leaned back and fantasized about a cool, quiet mountain top or peaceful fields of daisies? I mean, daisies don’t have car alarms and the most obtrusive noise on the mountain top is a yodeller or two.

‘Just because you live in the city doesn’t mean you have to listen to the city.’ That’s the message behind Solitude’s ‘A Day in the City’ spot. Sound designer and editor Jim Longo of Rhythm Division combined some of the city’s less pleasurable aural stimuli (like traffic, sirens and construction) to underscore the much more soothing sounds of the Solitudes cd, acoustic music by Dan Gibson. After all, if music soothes the savage beast perhaps it can counter that jackhammer outside your window at 7 a.m.

Although the ultimate easy-listening music in the spot comes directly from the cd being featured, Longo created the convincing and effective ‘city wall of sound’ by combining original sound with effects from sound libraries on a Waveframe system. Auto accidents, air horns, musical crashes, diesel engines and construction workers shouting in Portuguese are all part of the mix.

Although the budget was modest and time was of the essence – all the sound was completed in a day and a half – Longo says he’s proud of his work on the spot. ‘It’s a nice piece,’ he says. ‘I have it on my reel.’ MEA