The Free Sound Project functions as an online repository of sounds licensed under the curious and lesser known Creative Commons Sampling Plus! License. There is a good mixture of both straight field recordings and processed sounds. Under the terms of the sampling license, there are also multiple versions of many of the files which different members of The Project have tweaked and offered back up.

At the time of this post the site currently has 53557 audio files. That’s a lot. There are a couple of different ways to sift through all of that information: different searches for people on the look out (hear out?) for specific sounds and automatically generated lists like “Most popular files” and “Highest rated sounds” for general browsing.

I’ve always had this picture in my mind when it comes to places that have vast quantities of information and material like Free Sound. I envision most of the available good content lying dormant and collecting dust. Sure, new content is always featured in a ‘newly uploaded’ list. Sure, high ranking content is featured in a ‘high ranking’ list. What about the other stuff that hasn’t made those lists? Who has the time to go through every page of an archive of this size?

Fine, maybe all 53557 audio files of Free Sound do not need to be utilized at every minute of every day. Maybe the site serves its purpose and that’s it. More on that later.

At this point, I would like to draw attention to the “random sample” link on the lower left side of the main page of The Free Sound Project. This link is a nice feature and allows for a slight churn of content.

Project Idea: Click that “random sample” link and make something out of what you find. Beware, it may be some birds chirping, chant music, or someone’s grandfather snoring.

Today I am proud to announce the release of ‘Grow in the Dark Watch‘ on the awesome netlabel test tube. GITDW is a rhythmic experiment without beats, spanning 6 tracks. It’s playful and simple music with disjointed rhythms that change their mind, wander back and forth, and forget what their point was. Thanks to everyone involved, especially Pedro Leitão, Gordon Tebo, and Sabastian Alvarez for his great cover artwork. I hope you all enjoy it, it was really fun to compose.

Great news everybody! “Grow in the Dark Watch” is the next scheduled release on the netlabel test tube. It will be my first published solo project and I’m proud to have it featured through such a great netlabel.

More information about the music and the label coming soon.

And now I would like to present a mixtape. I have compiled a collection of a wide variety of my own material, from melodic electronic to medieval theme song — some good-hearted tracks that probably would never have seen the light of day otherwise. I giggled when I found they fit together nicely.

I am excited about the new ability to release my own work but will be working towards more official releases in the future, whether it be by netlabel or nonnetlabel. This is a special gift from me to you.

Check it out here.

On the subject of internet radio. The traditional model is that a show is broadcasted at a certain time each week or day. This poses a problem for the potential listener who can’t make it to their computer at the designated time slot.

Having previous show archives available at all hours of the day help the situation. This way no one will leave unsatisfied who makes the effort to visit the website for the show. If, however, the show broadcasts commercial material then all of the restrictions that apply to the live broadcasts (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) apply also to the archives.

One way around all this is to create mixes that link to music that is already available for free. This could be tunes under a copyleft license, ‘legal music downloads’ like the ones discussed in the previous post, or anything in the public domain. Here I would like to present one of these playlists. Each track will need to be downloaded separately and will involve two clicks (sorry) — you are also welcome to stream these songs first.

“The Best of Will’s Meekly”

1. Radio Citizen - The Hop

2. Unagi - Sacred Music

3. Steve Spacek - Dollar

4. MF Doom - Live From Planet X!

5. Beat Chemist - I Wanna Tell The World

6. Foreign Exchange - All That You Are