Why these are the best sounds of spring and how you can record them

The season that breaks the bitterness of winter is truly magical. From buzzing bees to singing birds, we pulled together the most iconic sounds that make us feel it’s finally springtime. Go out, enjoy the sun and record the sounds!

Enjoy the outdoors by noticing the sounds around you.
Image by Madison Nickel via Unspslash

Nature Awakens

With the sun finally poking out behind dark clouds so does the nature around you: everywhere we go, the chirping sound of birds can be heard. Research at the University of Surrey looked at the impact of birdsong in people’s lives and it’s calming effects compared to more urban soundscapes. Listen to the joyful chorus of birds in our latest Sound Collection. Notice how these sounds make you feel.

Little birds with powerful voices.
Image by Will Bolding via Unsplash

Can’t get enough of bird songs? Then listen to the Sound Collection on British Birds

Cheryl Tipp natural sound curator at the British Library agrees on the relaxing effect, but suggests that we may differ in what would constitute our favourite sound to soothe our busy minds. For some it’s the tinkling of a stream, the deep sea or binaural beach sounds.

Binaural Beach Sounds in Greece.
Image by LLoyd Dirks via Unsplash

Take inspiration from small moments

During spring, one’s commute to work or a walk in the park suddenly seems less rushed. Most people start to slow down the pace and so allow themselves to notice their surroundings. Audio discoveries can now be made with the best moments being those that appear unimportant at first.

We’ve captured our favourites the busy buzz of honeybees, the hustling of the wind and a mighty rain shower as seasonal highlights. More so, with Easter being a spring holiday for many, we’ve included the unique bleating of lambs as a sign that spring has finally arrived. 

Busy bees create a warm soundscape in spring.
Image by David Clode via Unsplash

Be a Sound Catcher

Many listeners feel inspired to notice their environment more closely and capture their unique experience with Aroundsound. Record the soundscape of where you live, the sound of the birds in your garden or children laughing while hunting Easter eggs. With the touch of a button on iOS and Android you can catch moments that matter to you. Take advantage of creating aural memories led by the beautiful season of spring.

Pause and record the sounds around you.
Image by Tim Gouw via Unsplash

Have we missed a spring sound? Let us know which one so we can add it to the Sounds of Spring Collection

Photo credit Alisa Anton via Unsplash

Record a book on World Book Day

In March, the UK celebrates the World Book Day, part of a worldwide movement, marking a particular day in which people all over the world are encouraged to read and share stories with children. Children all over the country will be spotted heading to school in a book character of their choosing and spending time huddled around stories in all shapes and forms.

Dressed up as their favourite book character.
Image by Jessica Rockowitz via Unsplash

Reading to one another

Having a book read is a pleasure that every child should experience regularly, helping to build a lifelong love of books, reading and stories. It is also a gift that any reader can offer to a child – sharing a book that they love, with their own voice.

Reading to your child creates a special bond.
Image by Picsea via Unsplash

If you want to take part in reading a book to a special young person, but you don’t live close by, then Aroundsound offers you a wonderful way to take part. Simply grab a book that you enjoy (visit the local library if you don’t have one to hand), sit somewhere comfortable and hit the big red button on your Aroundsound app to record. When you’re done, you can trim any unwanted parts at the beginning or end, give your recording a title, and simply hit share to send the recording via a unique link – the person receiving doesn’t need the app to listen.

Hit the big red button to record your stories.
Aroundsound App for iOS and Android

Memories that last

If you’re feeling pro, you could even start a Collection, recording a few stories and sharing under one umbrella folder. If you invite another person to join that Collection, such as the parent or carer of the child, then they can be notified any time you add a new recording.

Share your recordings with friends and family.
Image by Steven Libralon via Unsplash

Steve Evatt, grandad to Iris (age 5) and Edith (age 3), has become a pro at recording stories and he has created a ‘Grandad’s Bedtimes Stories’ Collection now containing more than 120 recordings. His grandchildren listen to a new one each night, with the lights out, drifting off to sleep. “The girls have stories read to them in person each night, and this is a wonderful addition to that. For me, it’s really special to know they are listening to me read them a book as well and it’s something I can do from home, over 200 miles from where they live. They have their favourites that they have listened to tens of times over!”

Record your grandchild’s favourite bedtime story.
Image by Annie Spratt via Unsplash

Steve says that the best way is to simply get started. “Don’t worry about making a mistake – just get started and be yourself. I’m always making little slips when I read and the girls enjoy those parts too – especially when I make a little joke out of it”. Why not listen to a few (copyright free) stories from Grandad Evatt for inspiration?

If you fancy having a go recording on World Book Day, just download Aroundsound for iPhone or Android and start recording. You can share a link to your recording without the recipient needing to have the app. Your story will be a gift that keeps on giving!

Photo credit Josh Applegate via Unsplash

Inspiring Women, Inspiring Voices

Early March marks a global event – International Women’s Day which celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world. Attached is a call to action for accelerating women’s equality across a wide range of sectors from politics, sports to business. We’d like to to celebrate this day by encouraging everyone to send a recorded message to a woman that inspires you today: your mother, your boss or neighbour.

Blast from the past

If you’re searching for inspiring voices from women of past times, then look no further than the British Library of Sounds. The vast array for topics is a joy for any fan as you can listen to early spoken word recordings by Elizabeth Barret Browning or Charlotte Bronte or pioneering women – a section not to be missed with recordings from the Suffragettes or other women that changed the course of politics.

Women that led the way for equality
Image by Library of Congress via Unsplash

One of the more recent aural discoveries has been the only sound recording of Frida Kahlo which the National Sound Library of Mexico has made available. For more contemporary voices of women, do not miss the BBC’s programme Woman’s Hour: a daily dose that offers a female perspective on the world.

Frida Kahlo painting
Image via Unsplash

It’s not you, it’s Alexa

Plenty of great initiatives are looking at increasing the presence of women in various professional fields, often led by looking to grow the number of women in STEM. Another area that still sees slow progress is voice recognition with notable gender bias in Google’s voice recognition capabilities.

Women in Tech often still a minority.
Image by Christina Wocin via Unsplash

With her book Invisible Women the author Caroline Criado-Perez exposes the gender data gap that has created a pervasive bias with a profound effect on women’s lives. From government policy and medical research to technology, her research reveals the biased data that excludes women in everyday life. Another recent and inspiring publication looks at how women are transforming tech and why a group photo of women doesn’t cut it anymore on International Women’s Day today. 

Record a message, create memories

While looking at great names from Marie Curie to Virgina Woolf we won’t want to forget the inspiring women that we’re surrounded by day to day. For this reason, we encourage you to not only listen closely to females around you, but more so to record these voices. Preserve the stories of your grandmother, the sound of your growing toddler daughter, or your mother.

Preserve the aural memories of the women around you.
Image by Eberhard Grossgasteiger via Unsplash

Moreover, why not send these women around you a recorded message to tell them what they mean to you. Instead of sending a card, you save paper and create your own eco-friendly card by sending a recording that can be accessed from any device. 

Feeling inspired? Then why not start recording now by downloading Aroundsound for Android and iOS now. Never miss an inspiring talk, a conversation with a female friend or mentor. Let us know which women inspired you today or on Internationals Women’s Day.

Photo credit Bruce Mars @Unsplash

How sounds can help improve your focus and sleep

We’re excited to update you on the latest additions to our Public Sound Collections. We introduced these themed sound collections as a source of inspiration as to which sounds you could record in your every day. Many of our users told us that Collections like the Wonderous Waters or Nature Sounds from Andalusia have helped them to be more focused at work or improve their sleep. So it’s about time for us to make some exciting new sounds available.

Increase productivity with nature’s sounds

These days, finding a place to think and getting things done can be very hard whether you’re working from home, in an open plan office or you’re simply surrounded by noisy children. When it feels that the whole world decided to distract you with noise the solution might be: to combat the noise with sound. Especially sounds from nature have been found to have a relaxing and productivity enhancing effect on workers.

As sound preferences differ, we took the opportunity to create collections based on sounds provided by Aroundsound fans and partner, sound editor Rick Blything got us hooked with his rich Sounds from Costa Rica. Listen here to the soothing droplets of the rainforest.

Soothing sounds of nature
Image by Raphael Menesclo @Unsplash

Others however prefer the opposite and enter a state of focus using white noise which can include a wide range of sounds. Our new Collection “Guess the Sound” offers one such variety: with sounds like galloping horses or a NASA space shuttle lift off anyone can find a moment of background noise cancellation by deciding which noises to focus on. 

Extraordinary soundscapes
SpaceX by NASA @Unsplash

Sleep better with Binaural Beats

Modern times have impacted not only our working lives but have blurred the lines between office and home in as much that people find it increasingly difficult to fall asleep. A research team at Stanford showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention so one could argue that using white noise or any other background noise helps you to pay attention to counting those sheep rather than follow your wandering (or perhaps worrying) thoughts back to what keeps you awake.

Improve your sleep with gentle background noise
Image by Kinga Cichewicz @Unsplash

Binaural beats have been a hotly discussed topic lately and no wonder as it’s capacity to move you into a deep state of relaxation is fascinating. Experts suggest that the technology harnesses the brain’s responsiveness to sound which helps you lower anxiety and improve sleep. As many users confirmed, we’ve created a collection that consists of longer recordings including this binaural beach sound to help you transition into a relaxed state whenever you need to.

Whether you want to be more productive or simply improve your sleep, download the Aroundsound app for Android and iOS to create the sound environment that you need. Let us know which sounds help you focus or make you fall asleep more easily at feedback@aroundsound.com

Photo credit Gregory Pappas via Unsplash

Go paperless with audio greeting cards

It may be easier than you think to go paperless and do your bit for the environment. Be it at home or at work, channeling your digital skills to support the eco-movement this year comes easy – just turn a recording into an audio card.

Message for Mum

Flowers, chocolate and of course greeting cards are items that mum’s can expect on Mother’s Day which the UK celebrates in March, many other countries follow suit in May. Most often than not these cards will produce a short burst of affection yet longer term damage to our environment. We suggest to record and share a message with your mama which she can keep and listen to anywhere, anytime. It’s ideal for those who live away from their families and want to create memories that last.

A mother with her son on Mother’s Day.
Image by Bruno Nascimento via Unsplash

How to have a green Christmas

According to Andy Williams, it’s “the most wonderful time of the year” yet without taking the time to reflect your good intentions to become more environmentally aware, may quickly turn into wasteful wishful thinking. You may be in the midst of being torn between sending personal messages to friends and family who live elsewhere and reducing your paper consumption but worry not: create bespoke audio greeting cards with Aroundsound by adding the respective hashtag and you won’t miss out on spreading the end of year love.

Create Audio Greetings with Aroundsound

How to make your audio greeting cards

We like things to be easy so here are the simple steps to creating your e-card with Aroundsound:

  1. Open the app on Android or iOS and hit record
  2. For the Christmas theme simply add #xmas, #Christmas or #holidays to your title, for New Year’s it will be NewYear, #HappyNewYear or #HappyNewYear2020 – the hashtag will trigger the festive theme respectively (truly magical)
  3. Share with friends and family, upon them opening the link you sent they’ll be listening to your lovely message while looking at the seasonal backdrop to the recording
Continue with paperless intentions using audio cards

Reducing waste by sending personalised voice messages that are also appealing to look at is a winning strategy. If you then also think about the time saved quickly producing and instantly sharing your recording, you’d soon wonder how you’d done without audio greeting cards before. No more queuing at the post office or buying stamps. Sit down one afternoon or record a message on the go – by simply adding one of the hashtags you’ll turn your already warm wishes into a pretty one while doing something for the environment. What’s not to like?

Going paperless at home or at work

Besides the seasonal appeal, how many times have you thought that pile of paper bills and documents gives you the creeps? While you’d still need paper documents like your birth or company certificate you may find that for most parts of your personal and professional life audio records work just as well if not better. Record your to-do and shopping list, record messages for the family and add to them to your family Collection – members will be notified of new recordings and can comment; same applies for your work context. Instead of keeping your written diary start recording your thoughts anytime, anywhere. There are so many good (and productivity enhancing) reasons for using audio recording in your everyday life. Hit record and ditch the notepad during meetings.

Recording your audio card on the go with Aroundsound

There’s a plethora of simple yet effective ways to remove paper from your life, starting with audio recording and documenting. Feel like giving it a try? Be your green best this year and download the Aroundsound app for Android and iOS to create your bespoke audio greeting card. Going paperless couldn’t be more straightforward.

Photo Credit Luke Porter @Unsplash

Originally published Dec 16, 2019 updated Mar 11, 2020

Audio Recording at university with Vladimir

The start of university is a new chapter in life, one you may want to try new things to get a head start. While old-fashioned pen and paper note taking might work for you, others are turning increasingly to their smartphones to do the hard work for them.

Smart tech at uni

A recent study found that over 96% of Americans now own a smartphone, so it’s now surprise that Valdimir one of our early supporters, mastering in Biomedical Engineering at the Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy), is doing just that: he’s been using the Aroundsound to capture his university lectures.

After studying at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, he moved to Turin to start his Masters degree. Upon arriving in Turin he soon learnt that the pace of his study is much faster there.

“Here [in Turin] it’s more concentrated, there is more to do in less time. It was at the start of the year when I first arrived many colleagues recorded their lessons and told me that it was very useful to them so I tried it too and it was indeed very useful to me.”

So in order to keep up with the pace, he turned to audio recording with Aroundsound.  “That’s why I needed something to better recount the lessons.” The ability to capture audio instantly by customising his Android Quick Settings Tile got Vladimir hooked. Whenever he attends a lecture he’d simply takes out the phone, hits record without the need to unlock it. He finds that “for university that’s more comfortable and so easy to use.”

Quick Settings Tile to record when the phone is locked

Be a productivity ninja

Vladimir adds Pins while the recording is ongoing, knowing that by marking a specific point in time he knows which point to pay special attention to when listening back at home. He typically renames his recordings the latest when he’s at home to find his recordings more easily. He takes about two or three in a day so naming his recordings is key to adding structure. He might also crop recordings to keep only the essential bits. More so, he uses Aroundsound to share the content of the lecture with his fellow students if they’ve missed the lecture. Often there would be an exam 3 Months later “I can’t remember the beginning so I will listen to all my recordings from start to finish” almost recreating the lecture at home which proves essential to him. 

Vladimir and many other students using Aroundsound show how technology not only helps to be fully present when attending lectures; it allows to collaborate with fellow students and encourages self-paced learning which makes audio recording a highly inclusive tool. As a foreign student, you’ll be enjoying your lecture stress-free aware that you can take as much time post lesson to digest the recorded information at your own pace. Enriching your recordings with Pins and Notes or organising them into Collection are great ways to customise the app in a way that’s most productive for you.

Record lectures, study at your pace

Be it lectures, group-study projects or your next research assignment: making audio notes enables you to lean back knowing that incomprehensive scribbles are a thing of the past. Start making smarter notes with audio recording and download the Aroundsound app on Android or iOS to never miss an important update. 
Have you been using Aroundsound for audio recording at university? We’d love to hear your story! Email us at feedback@aroundsound.com

Photo Credit Nicole Honeywill @Unsplash

Top 10 reasons to record audio with Aroundsound

Why should you start audio recording we hear you ask? From working smarter not harder by making your commute to work ten times more efficient, to creating memories that last, we’re giving you the low-down of how exactly you can use Aroundsound to record on iPhone or Android to make the most of audio recording in your everyday. Spoiler: you’ll wonder how you managed without. 

1. Enhance your productivity

We all love to be that little bit more efficient with our time, being more organised, multi-tasking while excelling at our agile best. Enter audio recording to help with all that. Record and use just one tap to note important parts, so you can stay fully in the present, knowing Aroundsound has got your memory covered. Optimise every minute by adding Aroundsound to your Quick Settings Tile when using Android, or our widget for iOS, to record even when your phone is locked and to never miss a beat when going into a meeting.

Add Aroundsound to your Quick Settings Tile

Make smarter notes just by recording your meetings – pop in a Pin for longer recordings, add a note to a particularly important point and listen back in your own time. More so, you can suggest to attend a meeting on behalf of your team members and share the recording later on. 

Get organised with Collections to which you invite your team members. Every time you created a recording for that specific topic for example ‘Team Updates’, they’ll get notified and can comment in that Collection. As a team leader responsible for an international, perhaps remote team the fact that members can listen to updates can help misinterpreting written content. Are you attending many conferences? Rather than scribbling away, hit record and really tune into the presentation. Again you’ll be able to share the recordings with everyone – best use of everyone’s time and (the company’s) money.

Make team meetings much more efficient with audio recording

2. While at Uni

Not yet in a professional environment? Audio recording will reinvent how productive you are at university. Next time you’ll attend a lecture or are doing an interview for a research project, record it, knowing that you can fully concentrate on what’s being said. Create Collections per subject and share these with anyone in your course. Ideal for when a fellow student couldn’t attend. Studying for your next exam will be a walk in the park as you’ve got your recordings to go back to. Don’t forget to add a Pin as especially longer recordings will be much easier to navigate. 

Add Pins and Notes to your ongoing recording

3. Enhance your daily well being

As well as increasing productivity in your professional life, enhancing your personal well being couldn’t be of equally (if not greater) importance. Create daily recordings for the things you are or have been grateful for – it will help you reflect on the day and your achievements with so much more output and possibly relieve you of negative thoughts too. Want to become more mindful?  Enforce a habit, for example to meditate in the morning by taking a recording and setting a daily reminder. Another way to use this is to create a dream journal. Fearing you’d miss your favourite yoga class while travelling for work? Record the class and go through your practice by listening in your hotel room. 

4. Sound Professionals

From recording your musical ideas to jazz riffs to the next big hit: sound recording will help you keep track of it all. Improve your melodies, share your sounds with your band mates instantly and let them comment. If they’ve got the app they can add their own sounds into a Collection. Collaboration couldn’t be easier. As a sound engineer you’ll be effortlessly creating a bank of samples and be able to enrich them with plenty of metadata. Collaborate on sound design projects with clients and colleagues alike. 

Collaborate with ‘members’ of your Collections on musical ideas

5. Blogstars

Whether you’re starting out or calling yourself an influencer already, anything that can help with optimising your blog should be a Godsend. Capture your blog post ideas while on the go. Record yourself for your next YouTube clip to focus on what you say not only how you look. Planning to launch a podcast? Again just use Aroundsound as you can access your files on the web should you need it to upload into your blog. 

6. Life’s a stage

Make your next spoken word or poetry slam hit the ground running. Record your ideas and memorise your piece while on the go. Listen back to fine tune your speech performance. Are you working on a theater performance within a team? Again, bouncing off ideas especially over a long distance will avoid a long stream of voice messages in your WhatsApp group.

Make your next on stage performance the best

7. Teaching

Learn a language or improve your piano skills with audio recording. As a teacher you’ll be able to teach and improve your students not only locally but globally. Add a Pin with a note to where in the recording you’d like your student to pay particular attention to. With recordings you’re keeping a wonderful record of your journey through that Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. 

Track how you improve your skills with audio recording

8. Create memories that last

Time is our greatest resources and parents and grandparents alike will know too well how fast it is running out. Recording your child’s first words, bath time giggles or nursery rhymes will be moments you can treasure forever with sound recording. In fact, that’s how Aroundsound was founded. Grandparents will be able to record their own life story to pass on as well as bedtime stories and thus share moments with their grandchildren even when living far away. 

Create memories that last by recording life’s special moments

Friends will enjoy listening back to nights out full of laughter whenever they need a small pick me up. ‘Besties’ talks with your friend live in a different time zone will become a breeze as you can create a recording and add it to your ‘Bestie’s Collection. You’re friend gets notified and can respond anytime. 

9. Travel- and Holiday-scapes

Next time you’re travelling think about the sounds of cities and buskers. Your memories will come to life differently if not much more intense. Enhance any picture you’ve taken of a place by adding the soundscapes you create when visiting Istanbul or New York. Make holidays with your children much more fun when listening back to the crunchy sounds of their feet in the sandy beach or the splash of fun in the pool.

10. Sounds around you

We often hear people say that “it smells of spring” or that they can hear a specific type of bird. Capturing bird calls and other animal sounds is an amazing way to tune in to one’s surrounding when in the outdoors. However don’t underestimate the amazing sound a city has to offer: buzzling cars, trains, trams and planes are only a small selection of the rich acoustics around you. Sample water, wind or rain, or create a spooky Halloween Collection with sounds of lightning and a squeaky door. 

Capture the sounds around you with instant audio recording

Whatever you do, just get started today. Simply download the Aroundsound app for Android and iOS and try audio recording. Once you get into it, you’ll find plenty more reasons for why you want to continue. Please share you ideas and feedback with us at feedback@aroundsound.com

Photo credit Kari Shea @Unsplash

Marking the Moments in Sounds

Want to make sense of a long recording? Mark important parts and add notes while listening? Look no further than Pins and Notes. Formerly known as ‘Key Moments’ we’ve updated these features so you can be efficient with your recordings.

Pin it

Upon starting your recording you’ll see that you can add Sound Notes or Pins to your recording both on Android and iOS. But how do they work? While you’re recording you might feel like marking an important moment in the sound. Simply ‘drop in a Pin’ with a single tap (no need to stop the recording!) and, if you wish, add in a quick note to describe what the Pin is about. Physical notes taking becomes a thing of the past as you’ll have everything in one place.

Adding Pins and Notes to your Sounds on Android and iOS

Easy Browsing

Pins help you browse between important parts of your recording. Be it in a lecture or while you’re in a meeting simply add a pin without interrupting the flow of the discussion. You know which point to reflect on as you marked the moment. Have you recorded a longer musical inspiration? Adding notes to the Pins will help you enrich the audio with context when sharing it with your band mates.

Browsing through your longer Sounds
Photo credit Timi David

Share the moment

Are you finding yourself recording a number of similar recordings – uni lectures, weekly team updates or band practice? Get organised with Collections and de-clutter your space. Collections are easy to create: once you’ve created a recording you tap on the three dots and choose “Add to Collections”. When organising sound simply go to ‘+’ button of your Collections tab.  What’s more, you can invite others to become ‘members’ of your Collection.

How to share your Collections with your network

That allows them to listen to your recording but more so, see your Pins and read your Notes. Perfect for if you’re sharing a class or a speaker event you’ve attended, but your friends and colleagues couldn’t join. 

Collaborate to Succeed

By amending the privacy settings in your Collections you allow chosen members of your network to not only join in, but also comment even adding their own sounds. Attending a training or discussing a group project couldn’t be easier. Instead of creating WhatsApp groups with multiple voice messages, you keep all those and comments in one place. Members of the group get notified anytime a new sound is added.

Attending training while staying present
Photo credit Austin Distel

Safe time and energy

Recording everyday moments will allow you to stay present with limited distraction. You can focus on what’s in front of you knowing that you can add a quick Note to mark important parts and listen back in your own time. Should you need to access your files you can do this from any device. Log into your account from your desktop for example presents you with a truly multi-platform experience. Download the Aroundsound app for Android and iOS now and get started with sound recording. You’ll be surprised how many moments you’ll quickly find yourself recording. 

Photo Credit Ezra-Jeffrey Comeau @ Unsplash

How to get organised with Sound Collections

You’ve got lots of loose recordings, but you’re unsure what to do? How to de-clutter your stream of sounds? Let’s get you organised with Collections so you can get the most out of your audio recordings.

A place for everything, and everything in its place

As a good old saying by Mrs Beeton goes, there is a place for all your recordings or what we call Collections. A Collection is a place in Aroundsound where you can organise your recordings in a way that makes intuitive sense to you. You might like to think of Collections as an album of topic related sounds e.g. bedtime stories, lessons and lectures, musical notes or work related sounds.

Colourful Collections of sounds

For every minute spent in organising, an hour is earned

Whether you’re going through your recent sounds or starting out recording, a Collection is created as easily as giving your recording a title. Here’s how:

  • Go to the Collections tab and hit the ‘+’ button
  • You can ‘add sounds’ directly from that new Collection, or you can select a recording directly from the sounds tab
  • Tap on the menu and then choose ‘add to a Collection’
  • Alternatively, when you create a recording, tab on the three dots on the right – “Add to Collection” is one of your options
Audio recordings in a Collection in the Aroundsound App
Get organised with audio Collections

Aroundsound also provides ‘Smart Collections, which are auto-filled with relevant sounds. Just now you will find one for any sounds that have been shared with you called ‘Incoming’ and another for sounds you have shared called ‘Shared’.

How many things are there I do not want?

While you’re busy organising your audio recordings you may realise you’ve got too many of the same sounding laughs and words or acoustic inspiration for your musical practice. Hit delete and make space in your storage for available synced minutes. Likewise, you can trim or crop a recording to keep (and share) the best bit. Our handy how-to guide can give you further ideas to optimise your sounds.

Getting organised with your sounds

Collaborate with Collections

In some cases you’re being organised just for your own piece of mind. However, in many ways there is the option to share a Collection with others – friends and family, band mates or colleagues from work. Try this: when you invite others to your Collection they become a member and can comment and add their own sounds.

What’s more – members that joined can be notified when you add a new sound. It’s a collaborative tool allowing you to share efficiently and securely.  When you’re ready to share and thus invite others to join your Collection, you’ll be asked to set the current status of the Collection from ‘private’ to ‘visible to the group’. Of course you can revert back to ‘private’ anytime. Getting organised with your sounds is easy. And it can be collaborative too! Download the app for Android or iOS and try it for yourself. Don’t forget to tell us what you think!

Photo Credit Oleg Ivanov @Unsplash

How to customise your Quick Settings Tile

Hit record even when your phone is locked. Sounds too good to be true? With Aroundsound you can do just that. We’ve put together a short guide on how to customise your Quick Settings Tile so you can record with one swipe and tap.

What is a Quick Settings Tile?

You may already be familiar with quickly checking your phone’s battery level or sending your phone into airplane mode, but not knows that you can customize the menu. Quick Settings Tiles are powerful additions to Android, if your running Android 7.0 (Nougat) or later versions. 

There are two Quick Settings Tiles that you can add with Aroundsound:

  • Start (and stopping) a recording
  • Add a Key Moment to the recording
Quick Settings Tile on Android

Why are Quick Settings Tiles powerful?

With Aroundsound’s Quick Settings Tile you can start a new recording with just one tap. You can follow the steps below or fast track the set up and watch this video. Whether you’re listening to the sounds of birds in your neighbourhood or happen to pass by some brilliant buskers –  it’s the fastest way possible to start a recording and stay in the moment even if the device is locked down.

Capture Sounds of Buskers with Aroundsound

How do I add a quick settings tile to Android?

Quick Settings Tiles give you easy access to specific actions like switching your phone on silent, WIFI or airplane more. However it’s not evident how you can customise this part of your phone.

To add Aroundsound’s Quick Settings Tiles follow these simple steps:

  • Fully slide down the Quick Settings bar  
  • Tap the pencil icon (or if you have a Samsung device, the 3 dot icon) to start editing your Quick Tile Settings
  • Scroll down or sideways to find the tile you want to add
  • To add a tile, drag it up to the active tiles

Alternatively and if you’ve got a Samsung device check out this video. Lastly, also check the “Recording with one tap” description directly in the app. Please visit the “More” tap, then under the “Help” section, you’ll find “Recording with one tap” which entails plenty of screenshots.

Music being played on an electrical piano.
Recording music lessons with Aroundsound

Sound recording made easy

Capturing your everyday using sound is an exciting way to engage with the world around you. You might be a music teacher familiar with recording or already enjoying compiling sounds of your everyday such as your summer sounds ; for those who are new to sound recording our app has made it easy on both Android and iOS to hit record with one tab and share these sounds with your friends and family. If you’re still a little unsure then check out our short guide for how to get the most out of our app. Try and record a sound next time you’d want to take a picture.

Photo credit James Prestion @Unsplash