Nazarbayev University LibGuides: Multimedia: Open Images, Audio, Video: Audio

audio waves

Image source: wikimedia.org

The sources listed below will help in finding audio media to meet your needs in the following:

background music scores for video or podcast
music effect to accompany oral presentations or stories
creative assignments and music production projects.

Tools & Stocks

Creative Commons
Search engine for licensed music, free music web sites or with flexible copyright licenses.
Free Music Archive
Use clips from this audio database to insert as background music to your videos or other projects. You can search according to genre or collection
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Licenses: As a general rule, tracks that are licensed “No Derivatives” are not licensed for use in videos without express written permission from the artist, because syncing a track to accompany footage is considered making a “Derivative Work” or adaptation. Other licenses may be licensed for use in your video, depending on the content and distribution for your video.
CCMixter
A community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses.
Jamendo
Free music downloads and streaming from independent artists from all around the world.
Magnatune
Free tracks downloads for non commercial use.
Freeplay Music
A music licensing company offering thousands songs and background musics free of charge.
Beat Suite
Royalty-free edits, loops and stings that can be download as MP3 or uncompressed WAV audio.
The Music of Central Asia
Copyright music - companion to the print edition and e-book version of The Music of Central Asia, edited by Theodore Levin, Saida Daukeyeva, and Elmira Köchümkulova (Indiana University Press, 2015)

Databases & Repositories

Classical

National Jukebox - Library of Congress
Primary sources can be found in this database. If you have trouble playing the file, make sure you have the Flash plugin installed
IMSLP - Petrucci Music Library
For classical music and music sheets
List of online music databases
Wikipedia article. Not exhaustive. Contains databases without open access content as well
Cylinder Audio Archive
The searchable database features all types of recordings made from the late 1800s to early 1900s, including popular songs, vaudeville acts, classical and operatic music, comedic monologues, ethnic and foreign recordings, speeches and readings.

Sound Effects

Freesound
Find sounds of explosions, natural elements, and doors closing in this audio database. Creative Commons licences apply
A1 Free Sound Effects
Free downloads of sound effects: Christmas, New Year, Cool Digital Sounds & Voices Galore.
Soundbible
Free sound effects, sound clips, and straight up sounds human-made (airplane landing) or natural (heavy rain, wind).

Formats

FLAC (.flac or .fla) is the Free Lossless Audio Codec, an open-source compression scheme that can cut the size of an audio file in half (on average) while not losing any quality in the process. It's basically ZIP for audio files. Using FLAC is good for Freesound because it saves on disk space and bandwidth usage, reduces download times, but doesn't degrade the quality of the sample like mp3 or another lossy codec would.
Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) is an open-source lossy audio codec comparable to modern AAC Audio (as used in the iTunes store, etc.). It does degrade the quality of the sample somewhat in order to save on space, but it is much more efficient at this than an older format like mp3. An Ogg file can have the same quality as an mp3 file using less space, or better quality using the same space.

source: Freesound FAQ

In the language of the web, HTML (HTML5 is the latest version), MP3, Wav, and Ogg are supported. Here is a table of popular browsers and the supported format currently (this might change in the future).

The audio recording, conversion, and editing can be made with Audacity - multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux or Myna - online audio editor.

Browser / Format	.MP3 lossy easy streaming over the internet for listening online	.wav lossless large size impractical for portable devices and streaming	.ogg free compression easy streaming over the internet for listening online
Chrome	YES	YES	YES
Firefox	YES	YES	YES
Safariii	YES	YES	NO
Explorer	YES	NO	NO

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Find a prime guide in planning, creating, and distributing podcasts and other forms of audio storytelling in MLibrary libguide.