THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
Street cred for tourists

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By Rob Waugh
May 4th 2008

Soundmap is the five-star option for iPod-toting tourists.

Forking out for audio guides inside some headphone contraption is a big part of tourism as baby-faced dolls in national costumes. But new British company Soundmap aims to spruce up the spoken-word travel guide with a series of downloadable iPod ‘walks’ that are far removed from the drab multi-lingual ramblings you are usually handed in tourist traps.

Soundmap guides are offbeat travelogues read by celebrities with an interest in the area, such as broadcaster Robert Elms (Camden), agony aunt Irma Kurtz (Soho) and author Tarquin Hall (Brick Lane).

The music and sound-effects are ladled on with the enthusiasm of a high-gloss television documentary – although there is something rather disconcerting about putting on noise-cancelling headphones to enjoy Hall’s guide to Brick Lane, and finding it had pre-recorded Brick Lane sound-effects in the background.

As of this week, Soundmap has five hour-long MP3 guides to London. Guides to Brighton, Cardiff and other British cities are in the works.

Downloadable guides are not an entirely new idea, of course. Other sites, such as HeartBeat Guides, do audio guides to European cities. Priced at £6, next to £2 for a HeartBeat guide,

HeartBeat Guides sound thin and unadventurous by contrast – they feel as if they are read from maps, and there’s a leaden lack of enthusiasm to many of them.

At one point a depressed-sounding woman intones: ‘Across the road is the Museum of Childhood, a great place of interest for young and old.’ Sadly, we are not informed what is actually in there.

Soundmap’s ‘walks’ are unique. You get a PDF map of the area to print off, and the guides are cut into individual MP3 tracks, so you walk to a spot, hit ‘Play’, and then soak up local colour as you listen.

The guides are packed with character and atmosphere – so much so that once you’ve finished listening to ‘Brixton bard’ Alex Wheatle’s introduction to the areas hustlers and thieves, faint-hearted tourists might be tempted to get back on the tube and head for Buckingham Palace.

At their best, Soundmap walks feel like mini-documentaries – the interview with the 72-year-old owner of Brick Lane’s Beigel Bake is fantastic, revealing that it has been open every day since 1976.

The fact that these guides are also personal histories – you learn of Wheatle’s first experiences of reggae and Elms’ first pair of Doc Martin boots – steer them even further from tourist-pamphlet territory.

However, Soundmap doesn’t always get it right. The sound quality is kept low to make for quick downloads (under a minute for any of these guides), and that means it can sometimes be difficult to pick out the presenters over the soundscapes that accompany them.

The clanging of Indian instrument sound-effects in Brick Lane often drowns out Hall’s intelligent monologues – people thought I was enough of a lunatic standing in front of Taj Stores for five minutes, without me jamming my headphones into my ears to pick out Hall.

In Camden, Elms is often eclipsed by a bizarre ambient megamix that feels like a relaxation tape gone mad.

The Soundmap walks weren’t quite long enough for my taste. I did the Brixton and Brick Lane ones, and despite about an hour of audio time, they felt short.

But Soundmap is ramping up operations steadily, and the things that it gets right far outnumber the bad. If you are heading to any of these locales, or just looking to renew your acquaintance with them, it is well worth stopping off at Soundmap first.