Freesound Forums

The Music Technology Group is the research institute based in Barcelona, Spain, that has created, maintains and keeps supporting Freesound for now over 10 years. MTG is turning 25 this year and we will be presenting Freesound as one of the most important projects to come out of the MTG since its inception.

To highlight the diversity of uses of Freesound we would like to ask you if you or someone you know ever used Freesound in any “out of the ordinary” situations. We have asked this kind of question before and heard about people using Freesound to explain to teachers how children with autism experience sound, how dogs can be desensitized to thunder, to provide a soothing song-bird ambience at a child’s burial, how a scream recorded by a student in his bedroom made it to a Hollywood blockbuster, … and many more of these amazing stories.

To help us discover some more of these out of the ordinary uses, please tell us your story by answering this forum thread

With love,

The Freesound Team

Hello Bram,
I have two stories of use of my sounds that can be described as “out of the ordinary” :

In 2005, I’d been for a week to Napoli recording sounds and moods that I needed for a theater play. I posted a few of them in 2008 on Freesound.
One day, I received a message from a man living in Japan. he thanked me for the fabulous evening he had spent listening to all my neapolitan recordings. Native of Naples and living for several years in Asia, just by closing your eyes, he had « seen » his city again and traveled in this way of sounds until he found the smells of Napoli.
It must be said that Napoli is an « open-air theatre » and that all sounds quickly becomes stories !

In 2009, I uploaded sounds of one big Paris’ railway station (Gare de l’Est) at the request of a young Indonesian.
He had noticed that I had some sounds from Paris and wanted to know if I had some from the Gare de l’Est and specifically jingle (since picked up by David Gilmour for his song « Rattle that lock » ). He lived, during a trip, a few days in Paris in a flat on the edge of the station. And this jingle was for him his soundtrack of this town.
I didn’t have this sound in my recordings, so I promised to go through this station the next time I went to Paris ; what I made.
Sometimes it’s easy to please !

These kind of exchanges « all over the world » are of the most fine and joyful aspects of Freesound.

Amicalement,
Arnaud

Baby-pacifier ...
https://freesound.org/forum/sample-requests/32244/

jwiederhold63 wrote:
Thank you so much! What a blessing, I can't even thank you enough!

Tinnitus-treatment ...

vitreus wrote:
I suffer from chronic tinnitus. I accidentally found the sound and turned out to be an extraordinary medicine. When I turn it on and set it to the loudspeakers under the appropriate account, my tinnitus disappears.

Phone-stalker deterrent ...
https://freesound.org/forum/sample-requests/40753/
https://freesound.org/people/Timbre/sounds/415185/

Tardis impersonation used by Tardis inventor ...
https://freesound.org/forum/your-work-made-with-freesounds/40548/?page=1#post89978

what a great topic, there's so much more to sound than people think, films, ads, radio, medical ways and all the rest i've just learnt from the 1st post.

great topic !

I should add my 'out of the ordinary' story i guess but it's rubbish, one sound reminded me of my phone, i took my headphones off and my phone was ringing, out of the ordinary right ?

again great topic ! will be watching
swagpimp

A great idea for a thread, Bram - it's fascinating to hear about the more unique places where the sounds have been used!

In the style of Timbre, here's a few interesting uses I've read about that caught my eye:
---
https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/400632/

catherine2 wrote:
Using the sound for exposure therapy

jomus wrote:
Thank you!, I am searching for sea sounds for a live action painting I will do in Lima.

Texelpedia wrote:
Thank you for the sound. I used it in a short presentation of newspaper-clippings about the loss of the Wangle III in 1950. This video will be used at the presentation of the book we wrote about thie event.

Calikka wrote:
Thank you for this lovely recording. We used the audio as a sound bed under a poem my mom recorded, and it was played at my granddad's funeral who served in the navy.

ruth64 wrote:
Thank you for the recording, using it in a lecture to illustrate how to use sound in foreign language learning

kayanna_ashmore wrote:
Thank you for the sound clip. I work with kids in China and It helps me teach conversational English.

Juice01 wrote:
Hi. I'm teaching English to a group of horse livers in Thailand. As part of each lesson, I'm playing part of an adventure serial. Your leaves are great for children walking through works. Thanks.

I was also surprised once to find a comment on a sound telling me that the sound had been used in a popular artist's music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K44j-sb1SRY
https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/339326/

---

Wow, there are a lot more comments than I thought! - I might update this later when I can look back through the rest of them!

And happy 25th to MTG!

On April 1 2014, the day everyone fooled everyone, I received an email from a producer William Riead who wanted to use this recording in his Hollywood movie The Letters about the life of Mother Teresa;
https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/185532/

After a long email exchange, in which I indicated that I liked his joke, it slowly became clear that it was reality.

This is one of the two tracks in the movie with the recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EeZNIYOD6w

here are the credits of Agnus Dei with my own name:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1445208/soundtrack?ref_=tt_trv_snd

No, I or the choir, did not make money out of it. I now have a great story to tell my grand children under the Christmas tree. That is worth millions.

Regards

Hi yes I have a story that is a little out of the ordinary....

I've been in bands since i was at school. Punk, Hardcore, Rock, Indie that sort of thing. Anything slightly alternative and non commercial. I've always also liked Electronic music and made a few tracks using my computer. Back in about 2015 i was making some Drum and Bass and EDL/House music just for fun while drinking a few beers (i was using free samples and drum loops from magazines, making some noises myself and using Freesound) when i came to a part that needed vocals. By this time i was quite drunk and did some rapping, it sounded awesome. I finished my session and went to bed at about 4am.

The next day i woke up and played it back. It sounded terrible and very cringy so i binned it off.... fast forward 2 years, i got a freesound message. 'Hello mate your sample has been used by Dillon Francis and NGHTMR in a song called Need You, good work dude.

What sample? I havent uploaded any samples to Freesound, always wanted to but i didnt think i had anything good enough.

In my drunken misjudgment i had uploaded my rapping hahahahahahahahaha

So what about this song then? Well its all over MTV and they use my voice to open some really big shows. The song was so massive that they have also released a remix album with my voice on it!!! I was blown away.... I counted 50 million streams on various platforms before i stopped counting and my sample has been downloaded a thousand times or so.

On that day i made a rule. Every time somebody uses my vocal in a song i have to write and record 4 more rhymes and upload them.... I have now been featured on music by some really good producers all over the world and had releases on many record labels. USA, Canada, UK, Brazil, Russia, Sweeden, Spain, Poland, France, Mexico and still more all the time... I'm a little behind but ive made so many Freesound friends and life is good!!!

Mushino aka Tom Procter

@all, thank you thank you, keep'm coming!!!!!!!!!!

@mushino, can you point me to the sample on freesound?

I think i slightly exagerated the amount of downloads but in my head....

https://freesound.org/people/mushino/sounds/?page=5#sound

During the last 13 years users have often given imaginative uses to some of my samples. Just two examples regarding one popular (dunno whether because or despite being tagged inappropriate) sample of the pig slaughtering:

> sleepybondage 5 years, 7 months ago

>I wanted to post that i will be using the sound in a completely different manner. I have need of a >two ton metal door slowly sliding open. by changing the parameters of this file and playing with it >and adding some extra sounds I will be able to use this file to create the illusion necessary. This >was very disturbing to listen to
https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/33447/?page=4#comment

and also:

>MHCerberus 9 years, 2 months ago

>Thank you, you have just saved me time and effort. I have been looking for a bobcat scream forever, >but this is better yet.
https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/33447/?page=22#comment

Yeah, the fate of inappropriate samples is often inscrutable...

D

dobroide wrote:
Yeah, the fate of inappropriate samples is often inscrutable...

e.g. voice-message sent to wrong-number ends up on a music-video with >1M views

https://youtu.be/bnKTpw6urfI?t=2s [to 22s]
https://freesound.org/people/sandyrb/sounds/109136/

Somebody posted an amazing reaction to one of my amateur improvisations on the Japanese koto. He felt inspired to try and play the a koto himself: https://freesound.org/people/RutgerMuller/sounds/365242/

I love uploading my voice acting to Freesound to help people. I like to contact people who I spot often in my downloads list, partly because it reminds them to credit me, but mostly because I get to find out what kind of project they're making. Most of the time it's a student who's using my voice acting for an animation, video or game project. Sometimes it's even an indie developer who has a few minor requests.

But my story began when someone from a village history society called Prestbury Remembers responded to me. They had downloaded sounds such as this:
https://freesound.org/people/theuncertainman/sounds/421874/
https://freesound.org/people/theuncertainman/sounds/402642/

Prestbury Remembers were holding a sort of commemoration for World War 1 during a village event and needed a soundtrack to create a battle ambience. My sounds were used among with other Freesound samples such as machine gun fire and whistles blowing and bombs dropping. I was absolutely blown away by this, and I felt really proud that my voice was being used for something so meaningful.

The website is here - https://prestburyhistory.com
I could never find the full soundtrack to listen to, but the snippet that I heard was brilliant.
I still think about this a lot and I really look forward to seeing what people create in future.

Hi Freesound,

I've used your resource for a few months now to add sound to high quality photographic stop motion animations for my Instagram feed @shisodelicious, spreading the message of minimal plastic food shopping and plant based cooking.

The videos are popular, with over 200K views in some cases.

Thank you for an awesome free resource, and I apologise for not being able to add creds for all the sound creators who's sound I'm using but it would not be realistic to add all creds and links in neither the vids or my captions! Instead I quote you (freesound.org) as my sound source whenever anyone asks, and sometimes in my captions and insta stories.

Here are some samples
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtwF3ehHz96/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvu3EBhg5j_/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvgZ8TCAvyq/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt85srvla0k/

Thanks again guys for an amazing free resource.

Sara

We are using the facility to enable private (ham) shortwave radio operators throughout the world to listen to their signals at distant locations tens of thousands of miles away.

Hi all,

Just a few days ago, we released our open source eurorack sample streaming and sound synthesis module "CTAG Strämpler".

Best of all, it features online sound access to freesound. Please check it out at the resources below and possibly join as developer.

Maybe this is also good for the freesound aniversary out of the ordinary stories...

Cheers, rma31

https://youtu.be/zmj8tKPHV8g
https://github.com/ctag-fh-kiel/ctag-straempler
https://www.creative-technologies.de/ctag-strampler-a-eurorack-sample-streaming-and-sound-synthesis-module

Hi Freesound!We have been developing a dream and this has been the core of my sounds for any of my sound effects for our channel Random Val in youtube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzUmzOAvfGgWitpoBbiPipw we feel we are not just another youtube channel as we mix culture, science fiction and comedy in one thing (very scarce in our hometown Bogota btw), I would like to thank you guys for this marvelous database, and to the community itself, specifically those who choose to share as CC0, as they really help people like us, to create from our minds and imagine through their own sounds!

Peace and Love for all of you! this is the real internet for me, a place where we mix all our ideas and can create, collaborate and explore, in other words, a collective mind! Long life to Freesound! cheers - Val

One of my sounds https://freesound.org/people/neolein/sounds/417930/ turned into an extraordinary development when I found a voice from user Roses1401, and combined it to an experimantal song.
The initial result can be joined here at Jamendo (https://www.jamendo.com/track/1590927/wet-dreams).

It was uploaded on recording.de for a competition. Roses then contacted me when she was aware of it and in multiple sessions, and lot of communications and voice file sharing, this project was developed to a final song, by also using another of my samples (https://soundcloud.com/voices-of-oblivion/ethnic-voice) to a radio mix, and a maxi version which can be found on youtube and soundcloud, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oNpebR3Peg or https://soundcloud.com/voices-of-oblivion/mein-traum.

This song was also subject to approach a wide audience at popular radio station - but without success. Me and Roses are still hoping to achieve success, one day in future

It was an outstanding development and experience from a virgin idea to a "master piece" and required my whole expertise as elctronical musician in terms of recording, mixing, and sampling with a voice, with lot of effects.

I primarily use FreeSound for game development, but I do freelance engineering contracts of all sorts on the side.

In one of those contracts, (being as vague as possible while giving the idea to avoid violating NDA) I had to debug a board that splits the data in the wave file into various components and sent them through various chips and recombined them later. To look for distortion, the resulting and original wave file had to be compared both by ear and by numbers/graphs.

To test the board, I used various sounds from freesound.org of different lengths, types, ranges, etc. to make sure everything made it through intact and without distortion

Thanks for sharing that story. I find the cooperation really inspiring.