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Explore the globe in field recordings

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Why This Matters

Earth Garden is a browser-based globe that lets people explore the world through crowdsourced field recordings, following the model of Radio Garden's radio-by-geography interface. It's a small but resonant example of how open-licensed audio archives like Freesound can be recontextualized into ambient, exploratory experiences for focus, sleep, or active listening.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

Zoom H1essential Handy Recorder — If listening to the world's field recordings makes you want to capture your own burbling brooks or rainy street corners, the Zoom H1essential is a pocketable stereo recorder built exactly for that. Its built-in mic pair and simple one-button operation make it easy to grab ambience on a walk and later fold it into your ambient tracks or upload it to Freesound.

See Zoom H1essential Handy Recorder on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.

I love field recordings. I love making them. I love them when they’re incorporated into my ambient music. They’re great background noise for working or sleeping. But they’re also great for active listening, focusing in on the fine nuances of burbling brooks or urban chaos. Earth Garden gives you a globe to explore with real field recordings taken from various locations. Earth Garden is inspired by Radio Garden (which you should also check out) except, instead of exploring the world via radio, it’s environmental sounds. There are waves lapping at the shores of remote islands in the Atlantic, a chorus of crickets in Tanzania, and rainfall on the streets of Manhattan. (There’s a lot of rainfall, actually.)

The recordings are all pulled from Freesound, which does mean quality can vary, and volume between clips can be inconsistent. It also means that recordings tend to be more concentrated in the US and Europe, especially the UK. But it’s still quite fun and soothing to set the globe to rotate automatically, and as the reticle nears points on the Earth, it transitions to those new sounds. You can even click a button to put some generic ambient drones in the background.