Dear Freesounders,
You maybe didn’t know this yet, but Freesound has just turned 10 this month! The project started out as an all-red website?back in the days. It was built on rather shabby technology and has by now grown way beyond its initial goals. Way back in 2005 I took?Xavier Serra‘s idea of “having a website where composers can exchange sounds” for ICMC 2005. I hacked together?something rather rudimentary?and?invited some of my friends over. We started adding a few sounds and very quickly Freesound unexpectedly exploded into a massive sprawling community.
Freesound was rewritten from scratch to support the high demand and by now I’m no longer involved in Freesound on a fulltime basis:?other amazingly capable people at the Music Technology Group have taken over while I moved a bit more to the background. I still keep an honorary position in Freesound as the?”Self-Proclaimed Benevolent Dictator for Life” which is probably why I’m writing this happy post…! 😉
So, what about the next 10 year? Well, many plans are brewing!!?As you might know, a lot of research is being carried out in the Music Technology Group, including plenty of research related to?Freesound. Work is being done to?improve the way in which sounds are stored, analysed and described. Improvements in searching and browsing would be a first result from this work. Improvements in?uploading and describing sounds a second. The Freesound Team is also?starting collaborations with third parties and preparing really exciting new research and development projects that will support Freesound in the coming years.?Stay tuned, future looks promising!
So, what about some fun nerdy statistics?
- 240?000?sounds, uploaded by 13 000 people. If all sounds were played after one another, Freesound would by now play for 146 days straight!
- More than 4 million?people have signed up to?download?sounds more than 65?million times.
- More than 50 000 people visit us each day.
In order to celebrate this joyous day, one of our moderators who you all know as?AlienXXX?has created a new “Freesound Dare” that matches the 10 year anniversary?theme! We dare you to join it!
Best Greetings,
Bram -?in the name of the Freesound Team
PS:?have you freed your sound today??!
Wow! I remember the “all red” look of Freesound. – Amazing how I got so used to the new look, I had forgotten the old, but reviewing it when I clicked the link brought back some memories.
This is an amazing site. Always was. Even when the technology behind it wasn’t so great because it is made up of great people!
thanks to all for the shared sounds guys. i hope to use some thangs and make good music with the bits that i found. cheers. one love.
man, i remember that red look….nostalgia overload!