30K Free Sound Effects & Resources for Sound Design
Over 30K Free Sound Effects & Resources for Sound Design
As a sound designer, having access to high-quality sounds is crucial for developing your skills and creating impressive projects. It can be difficult to know where to start when working on student projects that have no budget.
The first resource you’ve probably heard of is www.freesound.org. While it’s a widely used platform, it can be challenging to find useful, high-quality sounds that fit your project's needs.
This guide presents a curated list of free, top-notch resources that will give you access to over 30,000 sound effects for your projects!
Software and Sound Libraries
1. Basehead
Basehead is a powerful desktop app and sound effects organizer that helps you find sounds quickly by using metadata, thesaurus and the Universal Category System (UCS). It also allows you to import sounds into your projects with ease. The free version gives you access to over 27 thousand sound effects through their free cloud packs from trusted sound designers and field recordists. You can also find some of our sounds there as well!
I should add that the BBC Library included in the Basehead cloud packs can only be used for non-commercial projects. That means you can use them in student projects or your sound design reel without risking copyright infringement.
Upgrade discount code: BHAHA for 30% off (affiliate link)
2. Soundly
Soundly is similar to Basehead and the free version includes access to 3000 sounds! They also have a free EQ plugin and a free Impulse Response Reverb plugin that is great for placing your sounds in specific real places and futz-ing dialogue to sound like it’s coming from things like a walkie talkie or cell phone.
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Community Resources
SFX Swap
The SFX swap is a community that shares sound effects every month.
If you contribute some of your personally recorded sounds, you get access to all the sounds contributed from that month. (Make sure your submission doesn't contain any copyrighted material), The number of sounds is always varied, but it’s usually around 10 thousand sound effects every month. Additionally, they always have some kind of reward for contributing.
YouTube Channels | Blogs | ETC.Join these other communities for helpful sound design tips, tricks, information, contests, challenges, deals, and sometimes even job postings:
Aftertouch Audio | YouTube | Discord Community
Sound design tips | Challenges on Discord | Occasional job offerings
David Dumais Audio | YouTube
Sound design tips | Free sound pack
Game Audio Analysis | YouTube
Sound design tips | Industry advice
Akash Thakkar | YouTube
Sound design tips | Industry advice
Robert Dudzic | YouTube
Sound design tips | Field recording tips
Creative Field Recording | Blog
Field recording tips | Technical info (a bit outdated but still useful)
Pro Sound Effects | Instagram
Sound design tips | Contests
Production Expert | Blog
Technical info | Industry info | How-to
Airwiggles | Community
Basically everything about sound design
By utilizing these resources, you'll have a wealth of high-quality sounds at your fingertips and access to helpful communities to support your sound design journey.
Note: The Basehead link and code are affiliate links. If you make any purchases through them, we will receive a small commission.
Have questions or additional resources to share? Let me know at [email protected] and I'll update this post as needed.
