Words as texture
A spoken line can set the mood of a track before a note plays: a narrator, a radio announcer, a fragment of an old speech. Ambient, hip hop, techno and lo-fi producers all use spoken samples as intros, breakdowns and hooks. This collection gathers free recordings of speech: readings, field recordings of announcements, public-domain archive material and voice lines recorded for reuse.
Rights and reuse
Spoken samples are where producers most often get into trouble, because the most tempting lines come from films, TV and interviews. Those need clearance. Public-domain archives, such as the many government and historic recordings on Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive, are a better source, but check each one: the Internet Archive relies on what uploaders state, so Sound Server never rates those better than “check the terms”.
When a recording needs a credit, the detail view gives you the line to paste.