The holidays are over but you can still download the freebies if you buy me a coffee. Get them here!

Last year I received a lot of great feedback for the 2017 Holiday Freebies library so I thought I’d do it again. Over the past 12 months I’ve had the pleasure of traveling to several countries and habitats, from the Arctic Circle to the Equator and from Eastern Europe to Western US. I released several libraries using recordings from these travels, and I’m currently working on a few others that should be out soon.

So what’s in this year’s Freebies? 17 ambiences totaling more than 95 minutes, all at 24/96 quality and recorded in the following locations:

Congo Basin rainforest
Central African savanna
Ethiopia
Scottish islands
Scottish highlands
San Francisco
Brighton
Transylvania
Sweden
Norway

You can use these recordings in your projects as you’d use any commercial library, just don’t repackage or sell them “as is”. The complete terms can be found here.

If you find these sounds useful you’re welcome to purchasing my paid libraries (they’re on sale!) and/or to buying me a coffee. Feel free to share this on social media so others can benefit. Happy Holidays!

George Vlad - Mindful Audio

Field recording tools of the trade

At the lower end of the price spectrum, field recording equipment will yield relatively similar results. A few dB of self noise won’t make a huge difference if the recordist hasn’t mastered the other tools of the trade, the ones that can’t be bought. Let’s examine some lesser known but rather more important tools that are sure to improve your field recording practice.

Introduction to Freestyle field recording

Freestyle field recording is a flexible approach to recording nature and wildlife sounds outside of the studio or any controlled environment, developed by George Vlad. While traditional methods are prescriptive and rigid, Freestyle field recording encourages deliberate experimentation and a very organic workflow.

Listening session at the House of Lords in Westminster

I recently received an invitation to play some of my soundscapes and to tell stories about conservation. While there’s nothing unusual about that, the setting was definitely novel for me.

A collection of Owl sounds

Owls are awesome and worth learning about. What better place to start than a curated selection of owl recordings, captured by your favourite wildlife sound recordist!

The 2025 Soundscape Fund

How can field recording make a difference for conservation and environmental causes? I get this question a lot, and one of the answers is here. Once a year I team up with Thomas Rex Beverly and Andy Martin to raise money for environmental NGOs.