CROWDSOURCE RECORDING

In 2020 Al Sirkett organized a fantastic project called Ambient Isolation. The idea was simple: take advantage of the lockdown to allow people to record quiet ambiances worldwide. The project recorded over 1,300 sounds from around the globe and raised over £15,000 for an Autism Charity.

With Al’s inspiration, I began a project I called the My Home Crowdsource. The idea was to gather as many people as possible from around the world and get them to record ‘what it sounds like where you live.’ I was intrigued by the ability of social media and our broad connectedness to try and explore what was possible. The project ballooned into something much larger than I had ever imagined. By the end, we had gathered over 4,600 ambiances from 615 Recordists in 62 countries.

The project was massive, weighing in at over 500 gigabytes. If played end to end, the files would play for over 19 days straight without repeating. I decided to use the library to raise money for charity, and after many hours of research trying to find an exceptional one, I settled on The Water Project (www.thewaterproject.org). The Water Project raises money to directly engage water projects throughout Africa, with the simple yet essential goal of bringing clean water to as many people as possible. By exchanging copies of the library for a donation, we raised over $75,000 dollars for The Water Project.

Because of the size of the project and the logistics of hosting the files, the project is no longer available for acquisition. I have brought it out of retirement once for a month or two, and if you’re interested in it, make sure to sign up for our newsletter. If I can host it again, I will send out news there.

I also often participate in Charity Crowdsources, sometimes run through the Field Recording Slack group. Several additional libraries have been used to raise money for charity. They are available at the FRS Charity site www.frscharity.org. The Field Recording Slack has raised tens of thousands of additional dollars for various charities. Click the image below to be taken to the FRS Charity site.

Crowdsourcing is a powerful tool to build your sound library. At any given time, one or two non-charity crowdsources are usually being run on the Field Recording Slack website. To date, the libraries created there have totaled more than 50,000 sounds. It has been an invaluable resource for beginner and seasoned professionals alike to expand their libraries. Everyone is welcome to participate, and the cost of participation is usually only a few sounds. This is generally rewarded with a well-organized library of 400 to 2,000 sounds. It is also a great way to learn more about recording and proper metadata work and meet new like-minded people worldwide.