Free Ambient Sounds and Background Loops for Video, Podcasts, and Games

About these ambience sounds

Ambient sounds sit behind the talking, the music and the effects. They hold a scene together and tell people where they are, even when nothing much is happening. A restaurant kitchen makes a food vlog feel alive. Big city ambiance makes an outside shot feel real. A harbor or a village does the same for travel footage. A workshop keeps a tutorial from feeling empty. You'll find big city ambiance, a monsoon downpour, restaurant and home kitchens, subway rides and station boarding chatter. There's also a harbor, village chatter, a bowling alley, a grocery store, a hockey game and workshops. And there are some abstract ones, like solar static. Outdoor ones like rainforest, ocean winds and desert winds are over in the Nature category.

Use them in YouTube videos, podcasts and games. The right one can make a low-budget project feel like it was done on purpose. You don't have to go record a place yourself or leave a scene dead quiet. Just pick a background that fits the mood and keeps people in it.

A good background sound is steady, believable and easy to loop. It needs enough going on to feel alive, but not so much that it pulls attention off the voiceover. If a track has a loud horn, a shout, a bark or a pattern you can hear repeating, it's probably better as an effect for one scene than as a general loop. For anything long, pick ones that stay smooth in volume. Skip harsh highs too, since they wear people out.

Go easy when you mix it in. Start low and bring it up until the scene feels full, not until you notice the ambience. On a podcast, keep it quieter than the music. In a game, stack a few so you can fade between calm and tense, inside and outside, near and far. In a film, match it to the camera. A close shot inside should sound different from a wide shot of the whole place.

Every sound here is free for personal and commercial projects, with no credit required. Read the license.