A group of sound recordists got busy during the pandemic, recording ambiences that are unusually quiet all in aid of autism research and support. The result of their work was available and with a donation of at least £40/$50/€45, to a specific autism charity. However the offer has now closed, you are no longer able to get the Ambient Isolation sound effects library. The project raised £15,122 for the designated Autism charity.

The Ambient Isolation project was started in March 2020 by Al Sirkett to capture the sonic changes that occurred to our environment during the COVID lockdown of 2020. The result is a truly unique sound effects collection, containing over 1200 individual recordings, all captured between March and June of 2020, during the initial stages of the COVID-19 lockdown.

As you can see from the map above, the library contains recordings sourced from over 120 locations around the world, with many larger cities covered multiple times by different recordists. As the name suggests, the sounds are ambiences that highlight the sense of isolation we all felt when the world went into lockdown.

This is not to say that the recordings are all silence and air tone, far from it. The reduction in background city noise allowed the individual sounds that were still there to give an amazing representation of the deserted spaces left behind. From church bells echoing through the streets of deserted Amsterdam, PA safety announcements over Mexico City, to tannoys breaking the silence of an empty London train station in what would usually be rush hour, most of these sounds will never be heard again.

All of the contributors to this library have their own individual pages​ on the Ambient Isolation website, with an MP3 version of one of the sounds they submitted. You can see where that recording was made and, if known, what format, microphone and recorder were used. Please check it out to hear the amazing range of sounds and locations that are all in this library.

There are a wide range of recording techniques used - Stereo, XY, AB, ORTF, Binaural, Ambisonic and Quad.

As this library is crowd-sourced, please be aware that the metadata and file naming is not consistent throughout the library but all recordings are of great quality.

How To Purchase The Ambient Isolation Sound Effects Library

Note that the offer is now closed and you can no longer get the library this way.

The project raised £15,122 for the designated Autism charity. Al Sirkett tweeted…

“A huge thanks to those that recorded and kindly shared your sounds, and to the many people that bought a copy. It’s been an uplifting project in uncertain times. Cheers”

Want To Know More?

Go to the Ambient Isolation Website, where you can read more about how this project came about, the full list of all the contributors, view their individual pages as well as learn about their other projects Ambient Socialisation and Dawn.