Freesound: A cool site for people with ears

If you are fascinated by sounds then check out the freesound home page. This is the home of a project to make sounds available under Creative Commons licensing. What's cool about that? Well there are times when you want a sound, maybe for a movie or a music project. This site is working to make sounds searchable so that you can find the sound you need, then use it under a Creative Commons license.

I used the sound of a film projector from this library in my first video on YouTube. I am in the process of uploading some of my own sounds, things like dogs barking, rain on a tin roof, frogs doing what frogs do, and so on. In fact, I sometimes carry a small digital recorder with me just to capture sounds.

Is it art? Well, there is an art in the use of sounds, as many a motion picture sound track reveals. And there is an art in the capture of sounds. Creating sounds is also an art form. Some of the sounds on this site are generated from chips. Maybe you need to have grown up with radio drama as a major form of entertainment to get same the kick out of sound that some of us old folk do. Few things have sparked my imagination like listening to BBC radio plays on an earpiece under the covers after bedtime using a crystal radio attached to the drain pipe with an alligator clip.