# Free foley sounds and ambience recordings > Free foley sounds and ambience recordings: footsteps, doors, water, rain, forests, city streets and room tone, for music, film and games, with licences. Foley is the sound of things being handled: footsteps, doors, paper, glass, water. Ambience is the sound of a place: rain on a roof, a forest at dawn, a busy street, the hum of an empty room. Producers layer both under beats for texture and space. These collections group free field recordings by subject, many of them CC0 from Freesound, Wikimedia Commons and the BBC Sound Effects archive. Updated 2026-10-23. ## Collections - [Free city ambience](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-city-ambience.md): 33 samples from 4 sources. Free city ambience: street traffic, crowds, cafés, train stations, sirens and night-time cityscapes for film, games, podcasts and music, with licences. - [Free door sound effects](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-door-sound-effects.md): 36 samples from 5 sources. Free door sounds: creaks, slams, knocks, locks, handles and sliding doors, wooden and metal, for film, games and podcasts, with a licence verdict. - [Free footstep sound effects](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-footstep-sounds.md): 28 samples from 4 sources. Free footstep sounds on wood, gravel, snow, concrete and grass, walking and running, for film, games and textured beats, each with a commercial-use verdict. - [Free forest ambience](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-forest-ambience.md): 29 samples from 3 sources. Free forest ambience: birdsong at dawn, wind in trees, insects at night and rainforest soundscapes for music, film, games and relaxation, with licences. - [Free glass sound effects](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-glass-sound-effects.md): 36 samples from 4 sources. Free glass sounds: breaking windows, shattering bottles, clinks, chimes and glass hits for film, games and percussion layers, with a licence verdict. - [Free paper sound effects](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-paper-sound-effects.md): 36 samples from 5 sources. Free paper sounds: page turns, crumpling, tearing, folding and writing, for foley, ASMR, podcasts and crisp percussion in beats, each with a licence verdict. - [Free rain ambience sounds](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-rain-ambience.md): 36 samples from 4 sources. Free rain ambience and storm recordings: light rain, downpours, rain on windows and thunder, as long field recordings with a preview and licence verdict. - [Free room tone recordings](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-room-tone.md): 14 samples from 1 sources. Free room tone and quiet interior ambience: empty rooms, offices, halls and hums to fill silence in film, podcasts and music, with a licence verdict. - [Free water sound effects](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/free-water-sound-effects.md): 36 samples from 4 sources. Free water sounds: drips, splashes, pouring, bubbles, streams and waves for foley, ambient music and games, as one-shots and loops with licences. ## Foley versus ambience Foley is a sound made by a specific action: a footstep, a door, paper, glass, water. Ambience is the sound of a place over time: rain, a forest, a city street, an empty room. Film and game sound uses both together; producers layer them under beats for texture and a sense of space. ## What makes a good recording For foley, look for close, dry recordings of a single action, so you can place them with your own reverb. For ambience, look for long continuous takes without voices, music or passing traffic, which make loops obvious and can hide rights you didn't expect. Stereo and binaural recordings give the strongest sense of place. ## Where the free recordings come from Field recordists share a great deal of their work under CC0 and CC BY on Freesound and Wikimedia Commons, and game audio packs add clean foley. The BBC Sound Effects archive holds decades of professional recordings under personal, educational and research terms, so its results carry a non-commercial verdict. ## Questions **Can I use BBC Sound Effects recordings in a release?** Not under the free RemArc licence, which covers personal, educational and research use. A commercial release needs a separate licence, or a CC0 or CC BY recording instead. **How do I loop an ambience without it sounding repetitive?** Use a long section, crossfade over at least half a second at a point without distinctive events, or layer two recordings of different lengths so they rarely line up. **Are there legal issues with recording in public?** Background sound in public places is usually fine to publish, but avoid recordings where an identifiable person speaks clearly, or where music plays in the background, as both bring rights of their own. ## Guides - [Can I use Freesound samples in a commercial release?](https://sound.shep.bot/guides/freesound-samples-commercial-use.md): Yes for CC0 and CC BY sounds (with a credit), no for CC BY-NC, conditions for Sampling+. How to check a Freesound licence before you release a track. - [How to credit CC BY samples in a song](https://sound.shep.bot/guides/credit-cc-by-samples.md): The credit line a CC BY sample needs (title, author, source, licence, changes), where to put it on Bandcamp, YouTube and streaming, with copy-paste examples. - [Is BBC Sound Effects free to use in music?](https://sound.shep.bot/guides/bbc-sound-effects-for-music.md): BBC Sound Effects is free for personal, educational and research use under the RemArc licence, not for commercial releases. What that means for producers. ## Other kinds - [Free drum samples: kicks, snares, hats and breaks](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/drums.md) - [Free 808 and bass samples](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/bass-808s.md) - [Free loops by genre and tempo](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/loops.md) - [Free vocal samples: chops, a cappellas and shouts](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/vocals.md) - [Free sound effects for music: risers, impacts, sweeps](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/fx.md) - [Free instrument samples: piano, guitar, synth, strings](https://sound.shep.bot/samples/instruments.md) --- Source: https://sound.shep.bot/samples/foley-ambience