I was recently contacted about some sample web sites and decided to put a little review of the best ones here.

SoundSnap.com has a nice collection of sounds categorized by large icons.
Pros:

1. Built-in audio player with a picture of the waveform makes browsing through sounds quick and easy.
2. No signup required
3. User-contributed sounds
4. Tag cloud with popular categories of sounds
5. All samples free for use under license similar to Creative Commons
6. MP3 and WAV formats

Cons:

1. None that I can point out so far

The Freesound Project has been a personal favorite of mine for a while now. It’s got loads of sounds, from high quality field recordings to synthesized ambient soundscapes, they cover the spectrum of sounds, and best of all, they’re all Creative Commons licensed.

Pros:

1. Built-in audio player with a picture of the waveform makes browsing through sounds quick and easy.
2. Geotagging capability
3. User-contributed sounds
4. Remix tree shows sounds that have been remixed by other users
5. All samples free for use under Creative Commons
6. Sample Packs offered for quick acquisition of multiple sounds

Cons:

1. Free signup required
2. Design is a little dated

SampleSwap.org is a decent sized forum with user-uploaded sampls packs for download.

Pros:

1. Interesting collection of loops and samples cateorized by genre.
2. About 400 sample packs available

Cons:

1. Made with a typical phBB style forum software, which isn’t necessarily the best format for downloading samples
2. Downloads only in MP3 format, maximum 320kbps
3. Registration required.

SynthZone’s Sampling Zone is basically a huge list of small and amateur free sample sites.

Pros:

1. Sheer quantity of links to otherwise hard to find niche sample sites

Cons:

1. Design looks like it hasn’t changed since 1995.
2. Ugly logo and ads

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6 Responses to “Free Sound and Sampling Sites”

1. Pianologist says:
   October 11th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
   
   

   Nice compilation.

2. Pianologist says:
   October 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
   
   

   Can those sites replace the commercial samples sold in CD?

3. Nieuwjaars Jazz Trio says:
   December 9th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
   
   

   Great compilation, especially happy to have found soundsnap.com

   J

4. Dan Connor says:
   December 9th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
   
   

   A site I use pretty often is http://www.primesounds.com

   They have some very nice sample libraries available for download. I like the fact that you can pay per megabyte.

   By the way - I’ve started a similar blog to yours. I ran across emusictips while looking for places to promote it. We have slightly different audiences so check out what I have going on at http://www.thestereobus.com

5. Zaki & Friends says:
   April 6th, 2008 at 7:33 am
   
   

   Free Sound and Sampling Sites…

   I was recently contacted about some sample web sites and decided to put a little review of the best ones here.
   SoundSnap.com has a nice collection of sounds categorized by large icons.
   Pros:

   Built-in audio player with a picture of the waveform makes…

6. Lost says:
   August 4th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
   
   

   Nice list.

   We just published a list of free/semi-free production music sites. There is no getting around SampleSwap, Freesound and SoundSnap.

   Besides these three we added the OLPC samples - not really a site, but hey. ccMixter. iBeat and some others.

   There really are some great resources on the net - just a shame, that all the bull shows on Google … lol.

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