Yellowstone National Park are in possession of a treasure trove of ambient samples which they’ve released into public domain for your sampling pleasure.
Ever wanted the harness the sound of warbling vireo trilling through the night for your ambient house project but never knew where the fuck you could get a sample from? Yellowstone National Park is the answer to your prayers.
In 2014, the park teamed up with the Acoustic Atlas at Montana State University to put together a public domain library of ambient sounds from across the nearly 3,500 square mile US park.
The result? A goldmine of ambient samples ranging from bursting geysers to delicate birdcalls, swirling snowstorms and croaking amphibians, all for free and at your finger tips.
Yellowstone audio producer Jennifer Jerrett helped helm the project alongside an acoustic ecologist and the National Sounds Division, a branch of the National Park Service in the States, devoted to providing guidance on acoustic monitoring.
“I started volunteering at Yellowstone in 2013, doing a little bit of nature recording and storytelling through sound,” Jerrett told The Huffington Post.
“Jeff Rice at the Acoustic Atlas, a nature and soundscape archive at the Montana State University Library, heard one of my stories, reached out to me, and we started to explore the possibility of some kind of collaboration.”
That collaboration has resulted in a treasure trove of sounds for producers, musicians, foley artists, or anyone else who uses sound in their trade to meddle with.
You can access the sound library here, where you can read a description of the sound you are hearing and download the sample on the fly.
If video is more of your thing, there’s also a video library which definitely helps visualise some of the sounds. Here are a few examples:
If you’re hunting around for some samples, check out our list of the best Youtube to MP3 converters or our list of the best free sample packs on the web.
