Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1335892
72 I M PS E . O R G 72 I M PS E . O R G like this, the differences between what it's actually worth and how much you want to charge for it are two wildly different amounts. Looking around at various sound effects retail websites, and comparing the costs of other ambience libraries, it could easily have been sold for a few hundred dollars, but I knew this would put it out of reach of lots of people at a time when the thought of where the next project and paycheck was coming from could be a concern. After a chat with a couple of the participants, thank you Anna Bertmark and James Harrison, it seemed that £40 (US $50), although remarkably cheap for the scale of what was being offered, was a good amount that would give it the best chance of selling enough copies so that the National Autistic Society would get a reasonable donation. Having a unique sound effects library is a great asset, artistically, as well as mentally when working, but as I've always believed, it's not what you've got when it comes to sounds. It's what you do with them in relation to the work in front of you. Having it sold at this lower price, I hoped, would allow many more people to be able to access the library, and I hope it has enough different and interesting sounds within it to see it last as a resource that people will continue to use for a number of years. In September, the library moved on a step further. Whilst the project was still accepting submissions, Tim Nielsen released his proposed 'Universal Category System' for the classifi cation and naming of sound effects. As we'd already accepted so many submissions, it would have been as impossible to go back and ask everyone to rename their fi les to fi t this great new naming system. However, Tim and his team very kindly offered to take the library, having purchased a copy, and rename all the sounds to fi t this protocol. This was done very quickly and is now what everyone who purchases the library will receive, as well as allowing all of those that had participated, a way of renaming their already held fi les. At the time of writing, the project has raised nearly £10,500 ($14,500) for the National Austistic Society. It's an incredible amount, and wouldn't have been possible without the support and kindness of the charitable sound community that recorded all of the sounds, and allowed me to share their work and experiences. During the entire project, there has only been one cost, that of £12.99 (US $17) I spent purchasing the website domain name … although I will be invoicing my daughter at some point for the time I spent on it, I think she's in for a bit of a shock! Alastair is currently working on a follow-up crowdsourced 'crowd' library titled Ambient Socialisation. You can fi nd out more information, listen to clips from Ambient Isolation, and discover how to purchase the libraries by visiting www.ambientisolation.com From top: San Francisco Union Square, California. Photo courtesy Jeremiah Moore; Reed College, Portland, Oregon. Photo courtesy Jeff Brice; Sokolana Park, Kragujevac, Serbia. Photo courtesy Danilo Crnogorac; Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo courtesy Peter Albrechtsen; Level 3 Harbour, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo courtesy Matt Gerstenberger