SonicMaps

Turn traditional maps into interactive audiovisual journeys that transform your sense of place.

Create and explore location-based immersive experiences

  • Walking tours
  • Music
  • Poetry
  • Storytelling
  • Art installations

The SonicMaps platform gives you everything you need

  • Online Editor
  • Player app
  • Analytics
  • Text to speech
  • Embedding

Trusted by artists, festivals, schools and cultural institutions

  • National Arts Centre
  • Oxford Botanic Garden
  • Live Life Aberdeenshire
  • Canal & River Trust
  • Big Bang Festival
  • Halton District School Board
  • Calvary Chapel
  • Ordine dei Cavalieri delle Langhe
  • STN Media Group
What is SonicMaps

Like a personal tour guide, in your visitors’ pocket

Use geolocated sound, voice, text and images to craft engaging experiences for your audience. Outdoors, SonicMaps uses location services such as GPS to deliver audiovisual content automatically as people move.

At the heart of the platform is our easy-to-use online Editor, giving you a flexible, multi-layer approach to storytelling and audio tour creation.

Outdoors Content plays automatically as visitors enter each area — just a smartphone and headphones, no QR codes or manual steps.
At home Anyone can still explore your project with remote listening, in the SonicMaps Player or embedded on your site.
Layered storytelling Stack voice-over, ambience and music to create unique mixes that evolve as visitors move.

SonicMaps Editor

A feature-rich authoring tool for geolocated media.

Whether you're a tour guide, museum, artist or educator, SonicMaps helps you organise media and control playback by location and time, creating dynamic, personalised journeys.

Professional results, made easy

Go to the Editor Works on desktop, laptop, tablet and iPad in Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari.

SonicMaps Player

Explore immersive soundscapes and self-guided tours around the world with your phone. Sound plays automatically as you enter each area.

No app store needed A web app you add to your home screen for a full-screen experience.
Snap-to-path Locks your position to nearby routes, smoothing out GPS jumps.
Offline mode Save projects for areas with poor coverage.
Remote listening Too far to visit? Drag the virtual listener around the map.
Spatial audio Sounds fade with distance from their source, like in the real world.
Easy sharing Find projects near you, or share any of yours with a single link.
Open the Player

SonicMaps Embed

Not every audience can be on site. Embed an interactive sound map in your own website or blog and tell the rest of the story around it.

Get the embed code for any project from the SonicMaps Editor.

A soundscape composition by Pete Stollery and Suk-Jun Kim. Drag the listener to explore.

What our users are saying

“SonicMaps is the most efficient and uncluttered locative software on the market.”

“SonicMaps is the most efficient and uncluttered locative software on the market. Simplicity of use is at the core, whether designing in the Editor where all data entry fields for each zone is onscreen rather than behind a menu, or the Player which is browser-based so users don’t need the extra step of having to download an app. Feedback from Recursive Arts is always quick and detailed and user suggestions are regularly taken on board. Excellent package and excellent support.”

Pete Stollery Prof. of EA Music and Composition, University of Aberdeen

“What I like most is the human presence behind this platform: reactive, competent, reliable, friendly.”

“I really like the variety of editing options available that stimulate and support creativity. SonicMaps continues to evolve responding to user needs, and it's affordable, even for associative or artistic use. I also love finding out how others have used SonicMaps—public sharing of projects is very inspiring. And, last but not least, what I like most is the human presence behind this platform: reactive, competent, reliable, friendly. I send a question or suggestion and in the following hours I receive an answer and a dialogue can be established. This is precious!”

Anne Versailles Geopoet and sound artist, Brussels

“SonicMaps has proved to be the ideal solution to my soundwalk projects, after years of experimenting with different platforms.”

“SonicMaps has proved to be the ideal solution to my soundwalk projects, after years of experimenting with different platforms. It is easy and fast to upload and convert sounds, and get straight to work ‘in the field’ with testing and adjustment. Their team has been extremely responsive to requests for improvements or identification of bugs across all platforms. The implementation through a web browser instead of a downloadable app has proved to work well for my listeners and enables quick updates without requiring the user to download new software. Currently, SonicMaps beats the other platforms I have tried for flexibility and smoothness in the creative process.”

Hugh Livingston Artistic Director, Livingston Sound, Oakland

“I’ve found using the product intuitive, straight-forward and robust.”

“My work is a mixture of music and spoken word, part fiction, part non-fiction, and I’ve used SonicMaps for several projects, a couple of audio tours and a music-based release. It’s a really interesting way to release material and I like using it in this way. I’ve found using the product intuitive, straight-forward and robust, and it embeds into my website in a really responsive way and looks great there as well. The team are always supportive and helpful, often suggesting improvements in the way I use the product, and I highly recommend SonicMaps.”

Kim Halliday Composer and musician, London

Create your first sound map

Start with a 10-day free trial. No charge until it ends.