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What is Soundsnap?

Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD's.

It was originally started by a small group of sound people from all over the world. Our common belief is that sounds and samples should be free for everyone to use in their projects, commercial or not.

Our users are a diverse mix of sound designers, sound artists, web game developers, filmmakers and music producers. Hobbyists and home video makers are welcome too.

What Soundsnap is NOT:

  • An alternative to Myspace, Limewire or BitTorrent.
  • A place to upload your band's songs or your favourite mp3's. Soundsnap is only for sound effects and loops.
  • A place you can upload or find sounds from commercial libraries. All sounds here are original- made or recorded by its users.

We encourage everyone to upload high quality sound FX and samples, helping us make every kind of sound available on Soundsnap.

We are looking for feedback from the community to constantly improve, and we depend on our users for that. So please feel free to leave a recommendation or feedback in the special section of our forum.

I hope you enjoy your time here and Happy Snapping!

Tasos Frantzolas
Soundsnap Founder

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Rating problems
tasos's picture
tasos
Posts: 757
 Joined: 2007-07-02

For some time now, we have been discussing the main two problems of the rating system:

Problem 1) Users do not rate enough.

We have taken a few steps like the AJAX rating that have helped this problem. We can also add a 'Please rate me!' text to popup after a user previews a sound.

Problem 2) Some users feel that their sounds are not being rated fairly.

I have proposed a couple of solutions for the second problem:

- To not show the rating until 5 or 10 ratings have been done. This could stop users that are not serious.

- To make a system that eliminates the highest and lowest rating and makes the average out of the rest ratings. That way, people that are trying to harm others, will get discouraged.

Question) Sampleconstruct asked a meaningful question: 'What is the rating good for?' Taking that a step further, I wanted to ask: Do you think the rating is needed at all? Does it help you, and if so, in what way?

‹ Massive sounds cleanup Sounds Cleanup and Sounds Approval ›

Submitted by tasos on Wed, 2008-05-14 15:29. login or register to post comments

Sampleconstruct's picture
Sampleconstruct
Posts: 253
 Joined: 2007-09-11
I am sure that some users

I am sure that some users and visitors here use the rating system to "diss" other users for what reasons I don´t understand. Rating here is about "taste" and not quality imo so the only really useful rating system at the moment is the number of downloads a sound has achieved although "mainstream" taste is only one aspect of quality.
E.g. in the NI Reaktor 5 library the user votes and the number of downloads are both taken into account for rating - a much fairer way to estimate the quality of something imo.

--

www.simonstockhausen.com - www.universe-of-sounds.com


Thu, 2008-05-15 09:26 login or register to post comments

squid's picture
squid
Posts: 322
 Joined: 2007-12-26
I agree with

I agree with sampleconstruct...the downloads tell a better story..my file ratings go down while the downloads go up...whats up with that?
can a record of ratings be kept on a users page...(the ratings that user has voted ? )i look at the downloads to see what is happening with my files...i like to know what people like...


Thu, 2008-05-15 10:09 login or register to post comments

tasos's picture
tasos
Posts: 757
 Joined: 2007-07-02
The downloads are not

The downloads are not representative of the quality of a recording, but only its popularity, which is a totally different thing.

We might create a 'better results' algorithm taking both into account in the future and offer that as a sorting option.


Thu, 2008-05-15 11:26 login or register to post comments

frifrafro's picture
frifrafro
Posts: 256
 Joined: 2007-08-26
I support a new rating

I support a new rating system, but we could also abolish the stars completely :-)


Thu, 2008-05-15 12:32 login or register to post comments

Sampleconstruct's picture
Sampleconstruct
Posts: 253
 Joined: 2007-09-11
"The downloads are not

"The downloads are not representative of the quality of a recording, but only its popularity, which is a totally different thing."

I don´t quite agree with that Tasos - as I said mainstream taste is only one side of evaluating a sound file but in many cases the quality of a sound reflects in the high amount of downloads it has.
When a sound designer/musician/filmmaker is looking for a sound which he/she needs for a current project he/she will type in keywords and check the results in terms of usabilty no matter what the rating is or how often it has been downloaded. So in this respect the whole rating system is obsolete imo.

--

www.simonstockhausen.com - www.universe-of-sounds.com


Fri, 2008-05-16 11:10 login or register to post comments

bubaproducer's picture
bubaproducer
Posts: 82
 Joined: 2007-12-15
Someone intentionaly rated

Someone intentionaly rated all my samples 1 star for no reason. Its kinda frustrating. Also agree alot with Sampleconstruct on this one :)


Fri, 2008-05-16 21:41 login or register to post comments

fiasco's picture
fiasco
Posts: 8
 Joined: 2008-03-25
In my eyes, rating sounds

In my eyes, rating sounds makes no sense at all. How to differ a good "slammed door" from a bad one? It always depends on what somebody is using the sound for. Making a "nice" movie, found a "dirty" sound? Destiny. The only thing one can rate is the technical quality.


Fri, 2008-06-13 12:20 login or register to post comments

BrazilSound's picture
BrazilSound
Posts: 10
 Joined: 2008-04-19
i completely agree with

i completely agree with mr.Sotckhausen, plus we need to understand the people that are searching the sounds and the music here in soundsnap, of course the owner migth have some general ideia, but it's obvious that DJs and non expert are coming... personal tasting from anyone can`t be turned in law...aditionaly be well folks and greetings from Rio de Janeiro/Brasil.

--

Zarco-Fan


Thu, 2008-07-10 05:51 login or register to post comments