GOHP Podcasting Resources

GOHP Podcasting Resources

There’s more than just the interview itself to consider when creating oral history podcasts for broadcast. When you create a podcast you want to create a listening experience for your audience.

To do that, you might want to  create musical intros and outros, add sound effects at appropriate moments, use background noises or music, or even add illustrative photographs and images to the download webpage. It sounds like a lot of work, but you don’t have to do it all yourself, there are some great websites out there that will help you, letting you download free-to-use audio clips, music tracks and stock photographs.

We’re putting together a little library of some of the best resources we know, and some of our favourite ones to use. Click on any of the links below to find audio and visual resources to help your podcast interviews take the next step.


Copyright and Creative Commons

But First!

Whether it’s music for you intros or photos for your webpage, it’s really important to keep copyright restrictions in mind.

Copyright laws exist to protect artists and creators, to make sure that their work is only used in the ways that they want it to be used. It’s really important when making podcasts that you only use resources that you are legally allowed to under copyright law.

Creative Commons is a system of copyright licences designed to help artists and creators release their work to the public while still retaining control over usage. There are different levels of Creative Commons licence, which allow different levels of usage. 

It’s a good idea to head over to the Creative Commons website and check out the different types of licences and work out what you can do with works under each licence. Then, when you delve into all the resources below – most of which make their content available under Creative Commons licences – you’ll be able to get a clear picture of what you can and can’t use.


Audio Resources 

Whether you need intro or outro music, background sounds, or audio samples, there are some great sites on the web that let you download free audio files to use when putting together your podcasts. They are great resources to know about for when you are creating audio files like podcasts, radio shows and anything else involving audio!

The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads where you can find all sorts of free music to listen to, use and remix as you like. It’s one of the best resources on the web for podcasters and gives you all sorts of options for intros, outros and background music.

Freesound is a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, and bleeps, all released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse

Musopen is a non-profit focused on increasing access to music by creating free resources and educational materials. You can get recordings, sheet music, and textbooks for free, and without copyright restrictions.

At ibeat.org you can get Download beats, loops and breaks, and samples available under Creative Commons licensing, to use for background music, radio jingles, podcasting

Audionautix is an online collection of production music created by Jason Shaw. Released under Creative Commons License 3.0, and as long as you attribute the website, you are free to use the music in any way you wish


Stock Photography Sites

There’s more to podcasting than just recording an interview, and bio and illustrative photos on the interview webpage often provide that extra dimension to the listener’s experience. Luckily, you don’t have to do these all yourself, there are plenty of sites out there with some great stock images you can use on your interview webpage.

Pixabay is a community of creatives, sharing free images and videos, all released under Creative Commons (CC0) licences, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist! (But you can always leave them a donation to buy a coffee)

Freeimages.red, a stock image site from Germany, is another good resource for photos, with all their high-quality images available under a Creative Commons (CC0) licence, meaning you’re completely free to use them for whatever purpose you need.

Stocksnap.io is another great site for beautiful Creative Commons (CC0) licence stock images. While you can use the images without attribution, Stocksnap also provides you with a link to the artist’s site and all the information you need to give credit to the creatives who have freely given their work.

Pexels is a website that offers high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license to help millions of designers, writers, artists, programmers and other creators design amazing products.

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