wire to the ear

When I work on a song a open a few websites to help me out. In different broswer tabs I load a Thesaurus, Rhyming Dictionary, a Keyboard Chord helper website and The Freesound Project website.

The Freesound Project is a online database of audio samples all released under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. This means you can use any sample you download as long as you attribute the work to the author. They make this easy by providing a users attribution page  “which lists all samples you’ve downloaded in the past with their details”. You are free to mangle the original samples as you like and you can use the samples in a performance. If you want to use the sample in a commercial project you must contact the sample author. I’ve done this a few times and each sample author only asked to be credited.

You can search for samples by keywords or by geotags. If you select geotags you get a map of the world you can search around on which is neat. A really great feature they have is “Random Sample“. You click it and guess what? Yes, a random sample pop ups which is great for inspiration.

After a while of getting free sounds don’t forget to be a good citizen and upload some of your own! Do you use another resource for free audio samples? Let me know.

photo credit: klabusta

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