About Freesound

What is this site anyway?

Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse. Freesound provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to:

• browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more
• upload and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license
• interact with fellow sound-artists!

We also aim to create an open database of sounds that can also be used for scientific research and be integrated in third party applications. Using the Freesound API researchers and developers can access Freesound content a retrieve meaningful sound information such as metadata, analysis files and the sounds themselves. See the developers section and the API documentation for more information. Freesound API usage is free for non-commercial use, but it can also be licensed for being used in commercial applications.

Who is behind this site?

Freesound was started in 2005 in the Music Technology Group of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. Currently it is being maintained and developed by the Freesound team, which is basically composed by current and former researchers and students of the research group. Freesound is possible thanks to the support of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, who provides the needed hardware infrastructure to handle the site.

Currently the Freesound team is formed by:

• Alastair Porter: System administrator and developer.
• Andrés Ferraro: Developer.
• Bram de Jong: Former developer, now admin and Freesound's BDFL and guru.
• Frederic Font: Lead developer and admin.
• Sonia Espí: Administration.
• Xavier Serra: Head of the Music Technology Group.

Collaborators and former members:

• Gerard Roma
• Vincent Akkermans
• Stelios Togias
• Jordi Funollet

We have also been supported by:

More information...

Check our Frequently Asked Questions section!