Licenses
HitJam is built from recordings and code that other people made and shared. This page names every one of them and the licence it comes under. Nothing here is ours to keep quiet about.
The sounds
These instruments are recordings. Each one is trimmed and encoded by HitJam and served from this site; the original library is linked.
| Instrument | Library | Made by | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Piano | Salamander Grand Piano V3 Thirty recordings of a Yamaha C5, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Alexander Holm | CC BY 3.0 |
| Xylophone | University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples · Xylophone Rosewood (hard wood) mallets, one recording per bar from F4 to C8, split out of the university’s per-octave takes and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. The university states these recordings may be downloaded and used for any projects without restrictions. | Lawrence Fritts (Electronic Music Studios, University of Iowa); performed by Andrew Thierauf | Free for any project, without restrictions |
| Marimba | University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples · Marimba Yarn mallets, one recording per bar from C2 to C7, transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. One bar arrives misnamed in the source set and is corrected here after measuring its pitch. | Lawrence Fritts (Electronic Music Studios, University of Iowa); performed by Andrew Thierauf | Free for any project, without restrictions |
| Glockenspiel | University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples · Bells Brass mallets, one recording per bar from C5 to E8, transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. Filed by the university as “bells”, which is the orchestral name for the instrument. | Lawrence Fritts (Electronic Music Studios, University of Iowa); performed by Andrew Thierauf | Free for any project, without restrictions |
| Standard Drum Kit | Salamander Drumkit Overhead recordings of a real kit, trimmed and transcoded by HitJam. The derived files carry the same licence. | Alexander Holm | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
| Drum Machine | Roland TR-808 Hydrogen Kit (99 kits, Linux Multimedia Sprint) One recording per pad, trimmed and level-matched by HitJam. The per-author licence files are linked. | Klaatu, from samples by their authors | CC BY-SA 3.0 compilation; samples CC Sampling Plus 1.0 and CC0 |
| Trumpet | VSCO 2 Community Edition · Trumpet Held notes with vibrato and loud straight notes, each measured and retuned to concert pitch, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Versilian Studios | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| Trombone | VSCO 2 Community Edition · Tenor Trombone Held notes at two strengths, each measured and retuned to concert pitch, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Versilian Studios | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| Tuba | VSCO 2 Community Edition · Tuba Held notes at three strengths, each measured and retuned to concert pitch, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Versilian Studios | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| Full Strings, Pizzicato Strings, Spiccato Strings | VSCO 2 Community Edition · Violin, Viola and Cello Sections Held (with vibrato), pizzicato and spiccato notes from the three sections, split across the keyboard by range, each measured and retuned to concert pitch, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Versilian Studios | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| Flute, Clarinet, Oboe, Bassoon | VSCO 2 Community Edition · Flute, Clarinet, Oboe, Bassoon Held notes at two strengths each (with vibrato on the flute and oboe), each measured and retuned to concert pitch, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. One clarinet note filed under the wrong pitch in the source set is left out. | Versilian Studios | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| Upright Bass | VSCO 2 Community Edition · Solo Contrabass Plucked (pizzicato) notes, each measured from its overtones and retuned to concert pitch, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Versilian Studios | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| Wurlitzer | Wurlitzer EP200 Electric Piano v1.1 (SFZ mapping by kinwie) Soft and loud takes, each measured and retuned to concert pitch, a few soft notes shifted up to three semitones to sit on the loud notes, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Greg Sullivan | CC BY 3.0 |
| Church Organ | VSCO 2 Community Edition · Keys/Organ Loud and quiet takes of the manual and the pedal pipes, each measured and retuned to concert pitch, given a seamless loop so a held key keeps sounding, and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. One damaged quiet take (F#2) was rebuilt from its neighbour. | Simon Dalzell (Ivy Audio) for Versilian Studios | Redistribution granted by Versilian Studios |
| Saxophone | University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples · Eb Alto Saxophone Loud held notes with vibrato, every other semitone from D-flat 3 to A-flat 5, each measured and retuned to concert pitch, trimmed and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | Lawrence Fritts (Electronic Music Studios, University of Iowa) | Free for any project, without restrictions |
| Congas & Bongos | Virtuosity Drums (auxiliary percussion, from VSCO 2 Pro) Tumba, conga (open and muted), bongos, shaker, guiro, claves and agogo: close-mic takes, trimmed, level-matched and transcoded by HitJam. | Versilian Studios and Karoryfer Samples | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| Congas & Bongos (quinto, conga slap, bongo slap) | Bongos and Conga Hits Three single hits on LP drums: “LP Congas Quinto Open Tone”, “LP Congas Quinto Muted Slap” and “LP Bongos Hi Slap”. Changed by HitJam: one of the two microphone channels kept, trimmed, level-matched and transcoded to MP3. | MrRentAPercussionist (Freesound) | CC BY 4.0 |
| 80s Drum Kit | Linn LM-1 Drum Computer Samples Kick, clap, hats, rimshot, toms, cowbell, tambourine and ride. Freesound preview files, trimmed, level-matched and transcoded to MP3 by HitJam. | PJCmusic (Freesound) | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| 80s Drum Kit (Simmons kick, toms, crash) | simmons_emu1 Simmons-style hits made with the Stomper drum synth. Freesound preview files, trimmed, level-matched and transcoded by HitJam. | yaplasut1843 (Freesound) | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| 80s Drum Kit (gated and DMX snares) | Gated Reverb Snare; Oberheim DMX snare Also https://freesound.org/s/338705/. Freesound preview files, trimmed, level-matched and transcoded by HitJam. | HenryRichard; T_roy_920 (Freesound) | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| EDM Drum Kit | TR-909 Drum Hits 909-style kick, snare, claps, hats, rim and reverse cymbal, played on a Roland JD-Xi. Freesound preview files, trimmed, level-matched and transcoded by HitJam. | GRD-music- (Freesound) | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| EDM Drum Kit (house and techno kicks, tight hat, snare 2, snap, ride, perc) | Sonic Pi bundled samples bd_haus, bd_tek, hat_zild, sn_dolf, perc_snap, ride_via and elec_bong. Trimmed, level-matched and transcoded by HitJam. | Sonic Pi contributors, from freesound.org | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
| EDM Drum Kit (crash) | Normalized 909 Crash Cymbal Freesound preview file, trimmed, level-matched and transcoded by HitJam. | 3nderium (Freesound) | CC0 1.0 (public domain) |
Grand Piano: Salamander Grand Piano V3 by Alexander Holm, licensed CC BY 3.0. Trimmed and transcoded by HitJam. Standard Drum Kit: Salamander Drumkit by Alexander Holm, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Trimmed and transcoded by HitJam. Drum Machine: Roland TR-808 Hydrogen Kit by Klaatu (99 kits, Linux Multimedia Sprint), CC BY-SA 3.0, from Sampling+ and CC0 samples by their authors.
The synthesized sounds (the electric piano, the synths and the basses) are HitJam's own recipes: nothing is sampled from anyone.
The code
The site is built with open-source libraries, all under the permissive MIT licence. Nothing copyleft ships to your browser.
| Library | What it does here | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Next.js | the site framework (static export) | MIT |
| React | the user interface | MIT |
| next-intl | translations and locale routing | MIT |
| Zod | checks every instrument definition | MIT |
| Tailwind CSS | layout utilities | MIT |
Fonts are your system's own; HitJam ships none. The artwork on the instrument pages was made for HitJam.
What the licences mean for you
You can play everything here for free, for any purpose, and record what you play. The Creative Commons licences on the recordings ask for credit when the sound files themselves are passed on, and the share-alike ones ask that any edited copies of those files stay under the same terms. Music you make with them is yours.
If you think something here is credited wrongly, write to support@hitjam.io and it will be fixed.