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Sound map & ambience studio

Soundscape Atlas

Find real field recordings on a world map and mix them into calm, editable soundscapes.

Launch Soundscape Atlas → Tutorials

Soundscape Atlas puts freely licensed field recordings from Wikimedia Commons on an offline world map — birdsong, rain, rivers, streets and machines, each with its licence, author and source. Mix them with generated rain, wind, water, fire, hum, drone and noise layers into an ambience scene with fades, slow automation, room reverb and a sleep timer, then export a WAV, a credits file or an editable scene. Nothing plays until you press Play.

Free · runs in your browser · no sign-up · Version 1.0.0

Soundscape Atlas Earth Explorer with recording pins on a world map and a result list with licences

Screenshots

Features

  • Earth Explorer

    An offline world map with pins for real geotagged recordings from Wikimedia Commons. Search by region, map point, sound category or words; a list view mirrors every pin.

  • Licences you can trust

    Every recording shows its licence, author and source link. Only CC0, public domain, CC BY and CC BY-SA recordings can go into a scene; others are marked and stay out.

  • Attribution built in

    Each recording carries a ready attribution line, and every export comes with a credits file that lists exactly the recordings you used.

  • Ambience Studio

    Up to 16 layers with volume, pan, loop, mute and solo, fade-in and fade-out, filters and a start time — recordings and generated sounds side by side.

  • Generated weather and machines

    Rain, wind, stream, fire, hum, drone and five noise colours, synthesized on your device from a seed, so a scene sounds the same every time.

  • Slow automation

    Draw intensity curves over minutes — rain that swells and calms, a drone that breathes — and hear the same curve in playback and export.

  • Room and sleep timer

    Place the scene in a room, hall, cathedral, cave or forest, and let a sleep timer fade everything out after the minutes you choose.

  • Procedural Sound Lab

    Tweak a generator with sliders, listen to a live loop and read its spectrum, levels and slope from the same analysis the spectrum tool uses.

  • Imaginary worlds

    Eleven ready scenes from a rainy study to a submarine and a medieval tavern, each labelled authentic, composite or generated.

  • Soundwalks

    Put recordings in order along a route with notes, see the distance and listening time, and play the walk stop by stop.

  • WAV, MP3 and scene files

    Render 15 seconds to 10 minutes as WAV in your browser, convert to MP3 with the site’s audio converter, or save the scene as an editable JSON file.

  • Share links without audio

    A link carries the whole scene as references and parameters — recordings are fetched from Commons again, generated layers are rebuilt from their seeds.

  • Works with other apps

    Bring loops from Tonegrid or clips from Reelcraft in as layers, and hand rendered ambiences or scene files to other premium apps.

  • Private by design

    Projects autosave in this browser with recent projects, undo and redo. Your location is only used for one search when you press “Near me”.

Templates

Start from a ready-made project and change it to fit.

Built-in tools

Soundscape Atlas uses these tools. Each one also has its own page and works on its own, in the browser, through the JSON API and through MCP.

For AI agents

Soundscape Atlas runs on a deterministic engine. The same functions are available as tools with a JSON API and MCP, so scripts and AI agents get exactly the results the app shows.

  • Soundscape Recording Search – Find real, freely licensed sound recordings by place, category and keywords.
    Tool page · POST https://soundscape.usefulweb.app/api/v1/tools/soundscape-recording-search/calculate · MCP soundscape_recording_search
  • Ambience Generator (rain, wind, stream, fire, hum, drone) – Synthesize rain, wind, water, fire, room hum or a drone as a seamless-loop WAV.
    Tool page · POST https://soundscape.usefulweb.app/api/v1/tools/soundscape-ambience-generator/calculate · MCP soundscape_ambience_generator
  • Noise Generator (white, pink, brown) – Make white, pink, brown, blue or violet noise as a WAV file and check its spectrum.
    Tool page · POST https://soundscape.usefulweb.app/api/v1/tools/soundscape-noise-generator/calculate · MCP soundscape_noise_generator
  • Audio Spectrum Analyzer – Upload audio and see its spectrum, peak frequencies, centroid, RMS/peak and waveform.
    Tool page · POST https://soundscape.usefulweb.app/api/v1/tools/soundscape-spectrum-analyzer/calculate · MCP soundscape_spectrum_analyzer
  • Room Reverb for WAV Files – Add room, hall, cathedral or cave reverb to a WAV file with a known reverberation time.
    Tool page · POST https://soundscape.usefulweb.app/api/v1/tools/soundscape-reverb/calculate · MCP soundscape_reverb
  • Universal Audio Converter – Convert MP3, WAV, FLAC, Ogg, Opus, M4A and AIFF with bitrate and sample-rate control.
    Tool page · POST https://soundscape.usefulweb.app/api/v1/tools/audio-converter/calculate · MCP audio_converter

Build a project through the API, then open it in the app with a link to https://soundscape.usefulweb.app/app#project=<base64url JSON>.

Import & export

Import

  • Soundscape Atlas scene (.soundscape.json)
  • Share link (#project=)
  • Audio from other apps (WAV, MP3, Ogg … via App Bridge or file)

Export

  • WAV (16-bit stereo, 15 s – 10 min)
  • MP3 (via the site’s audio converter)
  • Credits and attribution (.txt)
  • Soundscape Atlas scene (.soundscape.json)
  • Share link
  • Soundwalk list (.txt)

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts in Soundscape Atlas
KeysAction
SpacePlay or stop the scene (when no button has focus)
1 … 5Switch to Explorer, Studio, Lab, Worlds or Walks
MMute or unmute the selected layer
SSolo the selected layer
Arrow keysMove the map selection between pins (map focused)
Ctrl + ZUndo
Ctrl + Shift + ZRedo
Ctrl + SSave scene file
Ctrl + OOpen scene file
?Show keyboard shortcuts (single-key shortcuts can be switched off there)

Frequently asked questions

Where do the recordings come from?

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media archive behind Wikipedia. Soundscape Atlas searches it through the public MediaWiki API and plays the files directly from upload.wikimedia.org. It does not host or copy any recordings.

May I use the recordings in my own videos or projects?

Scenes only use CC0, public domain, CC BY and CC BY-SA recordings. CC BY and CC BY-SA require attribution — the export includes a credits file with the lines — and a mix that contains a CC BY-SA recording must be shared under CC BY-SA as well. Check the file page before you publish.

Are the generated sounds real recordings?

No. Rain, wind, stream, fire, hum, drone and noise layers are synthesized on your device from a seed. Every world is labelled authentic (only recordings), composite (recordings and generated layers) or generated (no recordings at all).

Why is there no recording where I clicked?

Only a small share of Commons recordings has coordinates, and some regions have none at all. Widen the radius, choose a region or try another category; the search only shows what Commons actually has.

Will it start playing by itself?

No. Sound only starts when you press Play or a preview button. Opening a template, link or recording never plays anything.

Does the app know where I am?

Only if you press “Near me”. The browser then asks for permission, the position is rounded to about one kilometre and sent to Wikimedia Commons as part of that one search. It is not saved in the project, and searches around a point are never cached on the server.

Why can some recordings not be included in the WAV export?

The export decodes recordings in your browser. If a file cannot be fetched or decoded (offline, removed from Commons, or a format your browser cannot read), the export leaves that layer out and tells you which one.

Where are my scenes stored?

In this browser (IndexedDB), listed under Recent projects. Save a .soundscape.json file or a share link to keep or move a copy. Signed-in users can also save to Google Drive.

Limitations

What Soundscape Atlas does not do (yet):

  • Recordings come only from Wikimedia Commons; their availability, coordinates and metadata depend on Commons and can change or disappear.
  • Licence and author data are copied from Commons as published and can be incomplete; the app does not verify them and you must check the file page before publishing.
  • Sound category tags are a keyword guess from titles, descriptions and categories and can be wrong.
  • Search results depend on Commons search; very large regions may be slow, and Commons sometimes answers “busy” — try again after a minute.
  • Generated layers are physically motivated synthesis, not recordings; the murmur in café and tavern worlds is filtered noise, not real voices.
  • WAV export is limited to 10 minutes and needs the recordings to be decodable in your browser; imported audio from other apps stays in this browser and is not part of share links.
  • Ogg/Opus originals do not play in every browser; the app falls back to Wikimedia’s MP3 transcode when there is one.
  • Playback timing follows your browser’s audio clock and may pause in background tabs on some phones.

Tutorials

Learn Soundscape Atlas step by step.

  1. Find real field recordings on the world mapSearch Wikimedia Commons by region, map point, sound category and words in the Earth Explorer, listen to a recording and check its licence.Beginner 6 min
  2. Mix your first ambienceBuild a scene in the Ambience Studio from generated rain, wind and water plus real recordings, with volume, pan, loops, mute and solo.Beginner 7 min
  3. Slow automation, rooms and the sleep timerLet layers swell and calm down over minutes with automation curves, place the scene in a room and fade everything out with the sleep timer.Intermediate 6 min
  4. Imaginary worlds and the Procedural Sound LabOpen a ready-made world, understand authentic, composite and generated scenes, and shape a generator in the Sound Lab with its spectrum.Beginner 6 min
  5. Soundwalks along real recordingsPut recordings in order along a route with notes, see distance and listening time on the map, play the walk and export the list with credits.Beginner 5 min
  6. Export, credits and sharingRender a WAV or MP3 of your scene, keep the attribution with it, share a link without audio and hand audio to and from other apps.Intermediate 6 min

Ready to try it?

Launch Soundscape Atlas →

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