15 years of Freesound!

Today, 5th of April 2020, is the 15th anniversary of Freesound. Incredible, isn’t it? we couldn’t have imagined, when it all started back in 2005, that Freesound would become such a reference website for sharing Creative Commons sounds, worldwide.

Freesound was created by the Music Technology Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, and we’re still the ones developing and taking care of it. Here you can see Bram and me talking about Freesound past, present and future at the BCN Music Technology Forum. But Freesound would be nothing without its community and the more than 445k sounds you all have uploaded. Thanks to everyone. Thanks to the people who record and upload sounds, people who download, people who comment and rate, and even people who spam – they remind us that Freesound is an important place. Well, spammers are not really welcome. Thanks to the moderators who do an amazing job, in a volunteer way. Thanks Sam for taking care of support requests! Thanks to the people who contribute to software development and to the technical support staff from the university. Thanks to the researchers that experiment with Freesound and share it with the world, and also to companies and individuals that use the Freesound API to make great sound applications. Thanks to the donors who give money which helps us cover part of our expenses. Thanks to everyone who says nice things about us on Twitter, and to everyone who complains as well 🙂 Above all, we are especially proud of being able to offer a very useful service to a huge community.

To celebrate the anniversary, you’ll see some balloons and a new temporary banner that appears next to the Freesound logo (thanks Bennett Feely for letting us reuse your balloons animation!). Also you’ll have seen that these days, the random sound of the day, is not so random. Thanks Merlijn Blaauw and Jordi Bonada for creating this nice birthday song for Freesound! We encourage you to upload celebration sounds adding the tag Freesound15Years 🙂 You can also add this tag to an existing sound of yours that you feel representative or special or would like to highlight for the anniversary. We’ll make a new post with your anniversary sounds!

There are so many things we want to do… we’ll keep you posted as new developments happen. Until then, keep on Freesounding!


– frederic, on behalf of the Freesound team

ps: nice logos huh? most of these are tests that the graphical designer of Freesound 2 (the current design) did when designing what was going to be the new look back in 2008. Bottom right is the new official logo which will be released when the new interface is ready. I know, we said in the past that it should have been finished by now and it is still not there, but eventually will come and we’ll all enjoy it 🙂

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75 Responses to 15 years of Freesound!

  1. dd40 says:

    Thank you very much for this incredible platform. From a recording of wind turbines in Spain and a door closing in a shop in France to a juicy kick drum or an old lady talking about her experiences growing up in India, this site is full of discoveries. A very big thank you to the team (and to the community).

  2. Elliott Thurlby says:

    Thank you ever so much for this site, it has helped me so much when trying to create things for my course and even with stuff I didn’t know I needed!

    Here’s to another 15 years!!
    – Ckearpf

  3. Kyle Francey says:

    Amazing! I’m so happy this project is what it it.

    I’ve been here for 12 of the 15 years and cannot express enough how thankful I am for what you’ve done.

    Long live freesound.org

  4. Kyle Francey says:

    Amazing! I’m so happy this project is what it is.

    I’ve been here for 12 of the 15 years and cannot express enough how thankful I am for what you’ve done.

    Long live freesound.org

  5. fishytail says:

    This is a fantastic milestone!

    I’ve always been able to find what I’m looking for on freesound.org.

    My way of paying back to this community is by always citing it as my source and encouraging others to use it 😀

  6. Dozy Pilchard says:

    Thanks folks. You do a great job and the site continues to be hugely valuable and extremely enjoyable. 15 years, here’s to many, many more. Cheers!

  7. Congratulations!
    Great job! I looove Freesound. I’ve been using it for so many of my projects: videos, songs, apps. Thank you everyone who contributes or have contributed in the past. What a gold mine! And thanks to the creators and moderators. Did I say I love Freesound?

  8. trung says:

    I love this website.

  9. Holger says:

    Thank you for your amazing work!

  10. M says:

    Love you. I am nothing without you.

  11. Hagen says:

    What an awesome site, thank you all very much! You helped me a ton in so many video projects. I’m planning to start uploading sounds from my professional ‘niche’ to give back. Thank you so much and may you have a bright future

  12. Congratulations! It’s been amazing to see how the project has grown over the years. Here’s to another 15 years and beyond!!

  13. David Medina says:

    Great milestone, guys! I remember the early days, thanks a lot for the hard work and the support towards the commons. Way to go.

  14. Happy birthday, you are the best; I think you should expand, go to YouTUbe, make videos, monetize. Try social medias and son on. Greetings from an Electronic Music producer from Brazil.

  15. Boyan Chen says:

    Thank you, and happy birthday.

  16. Thanks providing us free sound in last 15 years really enjoyed it.

  17. Felipe Rengifo says:

    measure

  18. Zeus says:

    wow, I realized that means I made my first account almost 13 years ago. HUZZAH

  19. DPR says:

    Can’t believe I’ve been here 12.5 years! This old username hasn’t been used since I was very young. Thank you for all the resources over the years for video projects and games!

  20. Andrew Duke says:

    Congratulations on 15 years!

  21. Congratulations on an incredible site that has inspired and continues to inspire me for years. Tullio, Rome, Italy

  22. Wandukwa joel says:

    Hello,i am Wandukwa Joel from Uganda let take this opportunity to thank all members on this platform

  23. HPBD to you, Congratulations on 15 years!

  24. Daryna Romaniuk says:

    Your site is a great achievement in the world of sounds and you have been improving all these years, for which I congratulate you. I hope that https://eproves.com/uk/no-copyright-music/ will reach such heights in the world of music

  25. Den Yark says:

    Thanks to the whole team that has been working for the community for all these years

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