Can you hear your way home?

Katman is semantic sound archaeology: the everyday sounds of a city, rebuilt in your browser. The front door is a listening quiz. You hear ten sounds of your city and name each one from four choices. It takes about two minutes, and at the end you get a rank and a map of what you still remember.

İstanbul

17 sounds: İstanbul ferry horn, Bosphorus gulls, Transit-card validator beep, Simitçi street call, Bozacı night call, Hurdacı / scrap-collector call, Fish-market vendor chorus, Ezan / call to prayer, Ramadan sahur drummer, Tea glass & spoon, Okey tiles being shuffled, İstiklal nostalgic tram, Pigeons at Yeni Cami, Coppersmiths hammering, Dolmuş tout calling the route, Shoe shiner, Kokoreç chopping.

New York

15 sounds: Subway door chime, Subway wheels screeching on a curve, Express train roaring through a station, MTA bus kneeling, Staten Island Ferry horn, Taxis honking in gridlock, Doorman whistling for a cab, FDNY fire truck, NYPD siren, Car alarm at 3 a.m., Jackhammer tearing up the street, Garbage truck before dawn, Bucket drummers, Pickup basketball at West 4th, Ice-cream truck.

How the sounds are made

None of the sounds are recordings. Each one is rebuilt with the Web Audio API in your browser and tuned against field recordings. Katman started as a research instrument, the Lab, which runs 3AFC and ABX listening tests on what a sound memory keeps when the recording is gone.