Trusted by artists, festivals, schools and cultural institutions
The map is your score
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 locative composition.
Creators keep finding uses we didn't expect: see what they have made with it.
SonicMaps Editor
An 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
Also in the Editor
- Intro Audio Plays before any zone can start, and you decide whether it can be skipped.
- Distance attenuation Volume that rises and falls with the distance to a circular zone's centre.
- Invisible zones Trigger content without drawing the zone on the visitor's map.
- Zone volume and fade in/out Set each zone's level, and both fade times in seconds.
- On exit and on end Decide what a zone's audio does when the visitor leaves or it finishes.
- Playback progress bar Show how far a zone has got, in the Player.
- Map style Dark, light or satellite, whichever makes it easiest to find a spot and place your zones.
- Text to speech Generate narration with 14 natural voices in 13 languages.
- Publish visibility Keep a project public, unlisted or private.
SonicMaps Player
Explore immersive soundscapes and self-guided tours around the world with your phone. Public projects are open to anyone: no sign-up, no payment. The Player's interface is in English, Spanish, French and German.
Featured projects
Need some inspiration? These are some of our favourite audio walks, installations and site-specific compositions by SonicMaps artists and creators.
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.