Freesound is a collaborative
repository
Repository may refer to:
Archives and online databases
* Content repository, a database with an associated set of data management tools, allowing application-independent access to the content
* Disciplinary repository (or subject repository), an ...
of
Creative Commons licensed audio samples
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or ...
, and non-profit organisation, with more than 500,000 sounds and effects (as of May 2021), and 8 million registered users (as of March 2019). Sounds are uploaded to the website by its users, and cover a wide range of subjects, from
field recording
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibra ...
s to synthesised sounds. Audio content in the repository can be
tagged Tagged may refer to:
* Tagged (website), a social discovery website
* Tagged (web series), an American teen psychological thriller web series
{{disambiguation ...
and browsed by
folksonomic means as well as standard text-based search. Audio content in the repository is also analysed using the open-source audio analysis tool Essentia, which powers the similarity search functionality of the site.
Freesound has a
REST
Rest or REST may refer to:
Relief from activity
* Sleep
** Bed rest
* Kneeling
* Lying (position)
* Sitting
* Squatting position
Structural support
* Structural support
** Rest (cue sports)
** Armrest
** Headrest
** Footrest
Arts and enter ...
ful API through which third-party applications can access and retrieve audio content and its metadata.
Licensing
Freesound originally used the
CC Sampling Plus license for all samples, but has since switched to using
CC0
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...
,
CC BY
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...
, and
CC BY-NC
A Creative Commons NonCommercial license (CC NC, CC BY-NC or NC license) is a Creative Commons license which a copyright holder can apply to their media to give public permission for anyone to reuse that media only for noncommercial activities. C ...
. Older samples remain under Sampling Plus unless their uploaders have
relicensed them.
All of these licenses allow use and distribution of the samples (modified or unmodified) for non-commercial purposes, and in the case of CC0 and CC BY also for commercial purposes. The Sampling Plus license does not allow unmodified samples to be distributed commercially, and therefore, like CC BY-NC, fails the
Definition of Free Cultural Works
The Definition of Free Cultural Works is a definition of free content from 2006. The project evaluates and recommends compatible free content licenses.
History
The Open Content Project by David A. Wiley in 1998 was a predecessor project which ...
and the
Debian Free Software Guidelines
The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in De ...
, and is not free enough to be used on Wikipedia, free software programs, and other projects requiring
free content.
Release
The Freesound Project was officially launched on April 5,
2005 in the context of the 2005
International Computer Music Conference
The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) is a yearly international conference for computer music researchers and composers. It is the annual conference of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA).
History
In 1986, the Inst ...
. It is a project of the
Music Technology Group
The Music Technology Group (MTG) is a research group of thDepartment of Information and Communication Technologiesof the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. It was founded in 1994 by its current director, Xavier Serra, and it specializes in sou ...
of
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Pompeu Fabra University ( ca, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, ; es, link=no, Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. The university was created by the Autonomous Government of Catalo ...
,
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
. Frederic Font is heading the team responsible for developing and administrating the Freesound website.
''
Children of Men'' was the first major
motion picture known to legally use a sample from Freesound in its production. The sound used was "male_Thijs_loud_scream.aiff" posted by the user thanvannispen, and the film properly attributes the sample in the credits.
Features
*
Metadata tags
*
GeoTagging
Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data u ...
*Sample packs
*Remix tree
*Similarity search
*Sound Bookmarks
*Forum
*Follow users and tags
*Waveform display
*HTML5/Flash preview
*RESTful API
*CC licensing
The features of Freesound are designed to make the sound files on the website easy to index, search, and browse. Since the licenses used (except
CC0
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...
) stipulate that the authors of the original work must be credited in the derivative work, the site is capable of automatically generating an attribution list to make this easier.
Software architecture
The Freesound platform is based on technology developed by the Music Technology Group of the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona.
*Similarity searches based on automatically extracted audio features using Essentia audio analysis tool.
*
Spectral centroid waveform display
[Source code availabl]
here
The following web technologies are also used:
*
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
scripting
*
PostgreSQL database
*
Apache Solr
Solr (pronounced "solar") is an open-source enterprise-search platform, written in Java. Its major features include full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, real-time indexing, dynamic clustering, database integration, NoSQL features a ...
text search
References
External links
*
Creative Commons interview with Bram de JongUsing Freesound with ccMixter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freesound
Open content projects
Projects established in 2005
Internet properties established in 2005
2005 establishments in Spain
Creative Commons-licensed databases
Stock media