Soundsnap.com launched yesterday with 30,000 free audio samples. As far as I can make out, the sounds are both free to download and royalty-free, so you can use them in your own commercial music productions.
Like the popular Freesound Project, the Soundsnap site has audio and waveform previews, so you can see quickly if you're getting an individual drum hit or an entire groove. Unlike Freesound, Soundsnap has simple licensing terms and a clean layout.
I also like Soundsnap's Web 2.0-esque "tag cloud" of popular search terms. When I poked around yesterday, drumloop and impact were the biggies, followed by metal, percussion, drop (?), bass, guitar, and piano. I got forest onto the list by searching for it a few times, but I imagine it will drop off quickly as more people discover the site. Anyone over 18 is allowed to post or download original sounds, so it should bulk up quickly.
Soundsnap's tag cloud shows that most people are still looking for meat-and-potatoes samples, but I bet that will branch out as they upload files.
The quality of the samples was decidedly mixed, but there again the waveform preview helps. I found the wimpy-looking waveforms generally portended poorly recorded sounds. Check it out yourself. Here are quick search buttons for Soundsnap and two other free sound sites I've covered.
Freesound currently has the most sounds (34,000). Samplenet has the most consistent quality (although also the smallest library and no previews, alas). But Soundsnap looks to have the best terms, interface, and potential.
What are your favorite online sound sources?
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