Browse Sounds
Search Freesound.org and YouTube for ambient sounds, without leaving the app.
Don't already have the sound you want? The Browse Sounds tab searches two sources at once and shows the results together in one grid, each tagged with where it came from — no need to pick a source first.
Two sources, combined
| Source | What you get | Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Freesound.org | Community-uploaded sound effects and field recordings, each with a Creative Commons license, tags, a description, and a rating. | Plays instantly in-app. |
| YouTube | Anything on YouTube — a lot of long-form ambience (rain, forest, city) lives here that Freesound doesn't have. | A "Watch ↗" link opens the real video in your browser first, since there's no instant in-app preview for these. |
Type a search, hit Enter (or the Search button), and scroll — more results load automatically as you reach the bottom, from whichever source(s) still have more to show. A sort menu orders results by best match, rating, downloads, length, or newest.
A checkbox next to the search bar turns each source on or off. Turning one off removes its results right away; turning it back on reloads them for your current search.
Previewing Freesound sounds
Press play on a Freesound card and a playback bar appears at the top of the tab, like the one in Remix but with just the playback controls: play/pause, a progress bar you can drag to jump around the sound, the time, and a volume slider. It stays visible while you scroll. A card's name links to the sound's page on freesound.org.
Importing a result
Click Import on any card to add it to your library, exactly like anything else you've imported — it shows up in the Mixer ready to trim, filter, and mix in.
- Freesound imports download only the compressed preview (not the uploader's original file) — plenty for a looping ambient sound, and near-instant.
- YouTube imports download the audio through the same tool Noctívago's "Add from link" feature already uses. They take the first 3 minutes of the video by default — ambience loops in the app, so a short clip is usually plenty — and you can change that on the plugin's own Settings page.
How long a YouTube import takes
YouTube deliberately limits how fast a long video downloads — roughly the speed you would play it at. That is YouTube's doing, not the app's, and nothing can speed it up: importing 10 minutes of audio really does take about five minutes. So the card shows a real progress percentage and an estimate of how long is left, and a Cancel button stops the download if you change your mind.
Only one YouTube import runs at a time. If you click Import on another card while one is running, it will say so rather than quietly doing nothing.
Browse Sounds settings
Open Settings → Browse Sounds for the plugin's own options:
- How much of a YouTube video to import — from the first minute up to the whole video. The page tells you roughly how long each choice will take.
- YouTube: sign in as — YouTube sometimes refuses anonymous downloads. Picking a browser lets an import use that browser's YouTube sign-in (cookies only, never your password, and you must already be signed in there). This is the same setting the app's own "Add from link" uses.
- Search these sources — which of Freesound and YouTube start switched on.
When an import fails
The card tells you why in plain words. The usual reasons are a live stream (there is no finished recording to download yet), a video that is private, removed or blocked in your country, or YouTube asking for a sign-in — which the "sign in as" setting above is there to solve.
If one source is unavailable
The two sources work independently. If Freesound search isn't available in your build, or a YouTube search fails for any reason, the other source keeps working on its own — you'll see a note about which one, but it never blocks the rest of the tab.