A press room is never silent. Even with the machines stopped there is a low body to the air, a soft pressure that comes from large metal bodies, fans and the building itself. Printers who set levels for a shared listening space, or who want to know what their own hall sounds like to a visitor, have asked for a reference of that sound. This is one.
It runs for twenty minutes. The sound is a dense, dark wash of noise that has been held back at the top end, so that only the lower part of the range remains. Over it a slow swell comes and goes about every fourteen seconds, very gently, with a faint hollow echo that sits a little behind the main body of the sound. Nothing is struck, no voice comes through, and no single event rises above the rest.
Download: press-hall.mp3, twenty minutes.
Play it at the volume you normally keep in the room, then nudge the level until the swell is just audible without drawing attention. The echo is the part to listen for. If it is heavy at your normal level, the room is either too live or the speakers are placed too close to a hard wall. A short listen at the start is enough to set a level; the rest of the file is there so that the room can be heard over a longer stretch.
The file is a single track with no gaps. It does not loop, so you will need to start it again yourself when it ends.