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melo

About Melo

Melo is a free, open-source guide to sounds and music that already exist on the internet — rain and ocean recordings, ASMR textures, ambient music, lo-fi and steady noise. It’s a side project with no accounts, no ads and no paid features.

How sounds are presented

  • Plays in Melo — openly licensed or public-domain files, streamed directly from the source’s own servers.
  • Provider’s player — the platform’s official embedded player, loaded only when you ask for it.
  • Link out — when neither is permitted, Melo describes the sound and sends you to the original page.

Every sound links to its original page, credits its creator where known, and shows the license as stated by the source. Melo doesn’t download, copy or rehost recordings, and a public web page isn’t treated as permission to reuse its audio.

Sources

  • Wikimedia CommonsFiles are freely licensed or public domain. Melo plays them directly from Wikimedia's servers and credits the creator and license as shown on the file page.
  • Internet ArchiveItems are openly licensed or public domain as stated by the uploader. Melo streams the file directly from archive.org and credits the artist and license shown on the item page. Non-commercial (NC) licenses are honoured because Melo is free and non-commercial.
  • SoundCloudPlayed only through SoundCloud's official embedded widget. Melo never extracts or rehosts the audio.
  • BandcampPlayed only through Bandcamp's official embedded player. Buying on Bandcamp supports the artist directly.
  • FreesoundPlayed only through Freesound's official embedded player, credited to the recordist with the license shown on the sound page.
  • YouTubePlayed only through YouTube's official embedded player, which the creator can disable. Melo never extracts or rehosts the audio.
  • U.S. National Park ServiceLinked only. Listen on nps.gov.
  • BBC Sound EffectsLinked only. Listen on the BBC's site and check the BBC's own licence terms before any reuse.

Upvotes, rankings and data

You can upvote sounds without an account. Each browser gets a random id that is stored only as a salted hash, so Melo can count one vote per sound per browser. No names or emails are collected. To slow down spam, a salted hash of your network address is kept for about 20 minutes and then deleted. Upvotes can still be gamed by anyone willing to clear their browser, so treat them as a friendly signal, not a chart.

“Today’s Best” is chosen by hand. “Trending” ranks sounds by upvotes from the past week once there are enough of them, and is hand-picked until then. Melo doesn’t count plays or run analytics. Saved sounds and player settings stay in your browser’s local storage.

Ambient mode

Ambient mode shows a slow animated scene in your browser’s fullscreen view while your sound keeps playing. It’s an ordinary web page, not a system screensaver, and it can only react to sounds whose source allows browser audio analysis.

Corrections

If a credit or license is wrong, or you’re a creator who’d like a sound removed, please open an issue on the project’s repository. The full sourcing policy lives in CONTENT_POLICY.md.

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