You are listening to Los Angeles

March 6, 2011 10:38 PM

You are listening to Los Angeles
Live LAPD radio chatter & CC-licensed music from SoundCloud come together in this weird chillout mashup. Enjoy?

The night the Giants won the World Series there were a lot of people on Twitter referencing the live police scanner webcast from soma.fm and I gave it a listen. Interesting stuff to be sure, but I got bored listening to just the voices and started playing some instrumental music in the background. I liked the results but it was complicated to explain to people how to replicate the mix (i.e. opening multiple copies of iTunes or VLC) so I made this site to simplify the process. If you have any CC-licensed music on SoundCloud that you think would work here I'd love to include it, so please let me know!

posted by idontlikewords (16 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by carsonb on March 7, 2011: You are listening to Los Angeles

This is BRILLIANT. The layout is gorgeous and simple ... as are the concept and the execution. Hearty applause.
posted by mykescipark at 10:53 PM on March 6, 2011

Fantastic. Now build me an iPhone app so I can listen to this to get to sleep.
posted by yerfatma at 11:47 AM on March 7, 2011

@yerfatma I spent a bit of time trying to get this to work in the browser on iPhone actually but unfortunately it will only play one audio stream at a time! >_< But anyway if you load it in safari and zoom in on that little "plus" sign you can click play & at least hear the music half of it on iPhone. Anyway, I guess an app would probably resolve the issue too. I'll see what I can do... ¬¬
posted by idontlikewords at 12:03 PM on March 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is fucking awesome. Thank you.
posted by everichon at 12:25 PM on March 7, 2011

Super great. Nice idea, great work. Now do NYC.
posted by felix at 7:04 PM on March 7, 2011

If you change the background image from night to day when appropriate.. that would be cool.
posted by pwally at 8:39 AM on March 8, 2011

its like a fishtank for the ears. im loving it.
posted by edman at 4:11 PM on March 8, 2011

This is fantastic. I can't stop listening.
posted by Kloryne at 8:53 PM on March 9, 2011

It's like a running soundtrack to a Blade Runner version of life, I love it!
posted by dbiedny at 6:30 AM on March 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Made it on American Public Media's "Marketplace Tech Report" this morning. Good job!
posted by ewagoner at 7:12 AM on March 22, 2011

Made it on American Public Media's "Marketplace Tech Report" this morning. Good job!

And the host very deliberately pointed out how beautiful it could sound and how he had nothing snarky or cynical to say about it. Awesome.
posted by jpolchlopek at 10:10 AM on March 22, 2011

I'm listening to LA and San Francisco in different tabs. Beautiful.
posted by rtha at 8:35 PM on April 2, 2011

I love this. Just wanted to tell you that right here.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:18 PM on April 25, 2011

This would be an awesome app. Please do!
posted by Iteki at 1:55 AM on March 31, 2012

I just want to say that I still listen to this... it sets a weird and awesome mood while I'm working.
posted by spiderskull at 7:19 PM on April 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

I still listen to this and recommend it to other people!
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:22 AM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]