Upload — soundbuttons-click

What this page covers

This page explains how a sound gets onto the site, what a submission has to contain, and what gets rejected. It is written as policy rather than as a form, because the site does not run an open upload form: submissions arrive by email, are reviewed by a person, and only reach a table after they pass the checks below.

If you have a clip you made yourself and you want it in a board, this page tells you exactly what to send. If you are looking for a button that adds your file to the site instantly, that button does not exist here, and the reason is in the next section.

Why there is no instant upload

A soundboard that accepts anything becomes a file dump within a week. The rows stop describing anything, the tables fill with duplicates, and the site turns into a worse search engine for audio. Every board on this site is built on the claim that its table is the complete set of sounds belonging to that family — a claim that only survives if somebody checks what goes in.

There is a second reason, and it is the one that matters legally. A large share of the clips people want to upload are not theirs: they are captures from games, shows or other soundboards. An open form would make the site a distribution point for other people's audio, which is exactly the situation the takedown page exists to clean up after. Reviewing submissions before publication is cheaper than cleaning up afterwards.

What a submission has to contain

Five things, and a submission missing any of them gets a reply asking for it rather than a row.

The audio file, as an attachment or a link that does not expire. WAV or MP3 is fine; anything under a second or over thirty seconds is almost always wrong for this site.

A title. The title should say what the sound is, in the words someone would search for. Cute names do not survive contact with a table.

The source. If you recorded it, say so. If it came from a game, name the game and, if you know it, the scene. If you do not know where it came from, say that too — an honest unknown is reviewable, a confident guess is not.

The permission. For anything you did not record, say what basis you have for submitting it: your own capture from a game you own, a licence, or explicit permission from the person who made it.

A contact address for the reply. One line is enough.

What gets rejected

Clips that are not the submitter's to share, with no basis given. This is the largest category by far.

Clips that duplicate an existing row and add nothing: same audio, same length, same processing. If a new upload differs in pitch, speed or length, that is a different row and it may be accepted.

Clips that fail the site's content screen. Some sounds are funny because they are transgressive; a table printed on a public page is not the place for slurs, sexual content involving minors, or audio of real people being harmed.

Clips with no usable title. "Untitled", "audio", "sound1" and a string of numbers are not titles, and renaming them is the reviewer's job only when the sound is obviously recognisable.

Anything that requires an account, an app or a paywall to hear. The site plays files in the browser; a submission that cannot be played that way cannot be a row.

Preparing a file that will pass

Record or capture at the highest quality you have, then trim. The useful length for this site is between half a second and four seconds; a clip that runs longer usually has a good half-second inside it and a lot of context around it.

Normalise to roughly minus three decibels peak. Do not compress the life out of it: the artefacts in these families are often the joke, and a clip that has been through three rounds of noise reduction sounds like a different sound.

Export one file per sound, with a filename that matches the title you are proposing. Spaces and punctuation in filenames cause problems on some servers, so use hyphens and keep the words.

Do not layer, do not add music, and do not "improve" the clip. If the version you are submitting is a remix, say so in the title, because a remix is a different row from the original and the table has to be able to tell them apart.

What happens after you send it

A human listens to the clip, checks the source claim, and compares it against the existing rows on the board it belongs to. If it passes, it joins the inventory and the count in the heading changes on the next build. If it does not, you get a reply saying which check it failed — not a form letter, because the reasons are specific and repeating them is how people learn what the site wants.

There is no queue position and no promised turnaround. The site is maintained in batches, and a submission that arrives during a batch gets looked at sooner than one that arrives between them.

Questions people ask

Can I submit a sound I did not make? Only with a basis: a licence, permission, or a capture you are allowed to share. "I found it" is not a basis.

Can I ask for a row to be removed? Yes, and the takedown page is the route. You do not have to be the original creator to report a problem, but the request is easier to act on if you say what the clip is and where you saw it.

Will you credit me? If you recorded the clip, say how you want to be credited and the title will carry it. The table has one column and the title is where provenance lives.

Where do I send it? The address is on the about page, along with who is accountable for what happens to your file.

How this policy changes

If the site ever runs an open submission form, this page will describe the form rather than the email route, and the review checks will not change. The checks are the part that matters; the transport is an implementation detail.