Wikimedia Foundation/Communications/Sound Logo/Sound collaboration

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Below was an audio collaboration page, intended to be inspiring and a place to collaborate with others to find or create a collection of sound recordings useful for constructing a sound logo for Wikimedia. The Wikimedia sound logo contest was open from September to October, 2022. Thanks to hundreds of Wikimedia volunteers who participated in and supported this project and thousands of people from around the world that submitted their version of the sound of all human knowledge to the contest. With this participatory, open contest, and a community vote, we now have a winner. Have a listen above.

Many recordings below come from Freesound.org and have been clearly released as CC0/public domain on the site. It's also good to find audio that is already on Wikimedia Commons that is dedicated by someone as their “Own Work”.

Please feel free to edit your ideas, themes, examples, audio and anything else below.

Themes and ideas of what the logo could represent are in one column. The next column describes examples of what corresponding sounds could be used to show the themes, while the final columns are high-quality, CC0 or public domain audio recordings. You can play multiple recordings at once to get a sense of what feelings can be communicated by mixing sounds together.

Possible combinations

Note: play all sounds at once to hear a combined sound.

The idea here is crowd + typing = enlightenment

Themes, Ideas and Sounds


Idea, Theme	Examples	Sound	Sound	Sound
Puzzle	locking, mechanical clicking	Padlock click Padlock click padlock click	Lock click	Karabiner click
Enlightenment	gong, bell, ding, spark	Gallery of gongs Gallery of Ghana bells Gong Hiroshima peace bell Ghanta	cowbells Typewriter ding	Gallery of Glockenspiel sounds Grandfather clock chime
Flow	Rivers, streams, fluids	Stream	Stream
Crowd	Noisy outdoor crowd, clapping crowd, voices, choir	Crowd Crowd	Applause Applause
Geography	Gravel under boots, commuter jet, commuter train,	Subway train
Literature	Pages flipping in a book, books, typing	Typing	Gallery of sounds of pages turning
Education	markers, chalkboard,	Permanent marker	Chalk on chalkboard
Math science	beeps (sputnik), camera shutter release	Sputnik	Camera shutter	Gallery of achemical elements
Sport	Race cars, basketball dribbling, shoes on gymnasium squeak, scoreboard buzz, Referee whistle	Referee whistle
History	Clock ticking,	Clock ticking
General ambience	Campfires, forests, deserts, wind	Gallery of Ambience
Biology	Heartbeats, cricket chirp	Heartbeat
Art	Music
Connections Forming
Knowledge Growing
Question & Answer
Trusted Information
Free & Open knowledge

Mediawiki audio markup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Sound_file_markup

Tools

Free

These tools are freely licensed (libre) and free from cost (gratis).

Audacity - libre audio editing software
MilkyTracker - libre tracker software (good for waveform editing)
MuseScore - free and open-source scorewriter software
Spek - spectrogram viewer, for visually comparing audio files
LMMS - free & open source, multiplatform digital audio workstation.

Proprietary

These tools don't cost any money (gratis).

OnlineSequencer — helpful for playing with note intervals (only 12-semitone equal temperament supported, however)
- Web browser
Waveform / Tracktion — few limitations to think of. Potentially too simple for advanced users but advanced users would likely already have their own preferred platform...simple to use but advanced sounds
- Linux, macOS, Windows
Pro Tools First — Intro to industry standard; 16 track limit (likely not relevant in the context of the sound logo contest)
- Windows, macOS
Cubase LE — Limited track capacity
- Android smartphone, Windows, macOS Chromebook, iPad, iPhone, other tablets
Ableton Live Lite — Easy sampling + midi; 8 track limit (likely not not relevant in the context of the sound logo contest)
- Windows, macOS

Soundation – A web-based multiplayer DAW with three projects included in the free plan. Virtual instruments and effects plus more that 20k samples

Collaboration

Didn't find the sound you need?

Add your name here and describe what kind of sound you're looking for. Someone may be able to help you record the sound.

MKaur- Sound of water droplet and gentle drizzle sound
Add your name

Help record sounds

Can you record a sound and upload it to Wikimedia Commons under a CC0 license? Please add your name here and any details about the type of sound recording you can make.

Add your name

Thinking about a different theme? Different sound concepts?

If you have a different theme you're thinking about, please share. What is your prompt and what does it feel like? What would it sound like? We'd love to hear from you.

Add theme or concept here