Free Sound Effects Online

Sites that offer free sound effects should be checked out very carefully before you use them. If a site allows you to download a sound effect for free and it turns out to be given away illegally, then YOU are ultimately responsible for any copyright infringement that occurs if you use it in a project illegally. Protect yourself if you are going to use such sites by checking out their licensing terms.  Legitimate free sound effect sites will make you agree to some form of licence agreement; it will just be one that doesn’t require a payment/fee.

I have constructed a list of free sound effect websites here:

http://www.soundsnap.com

http://www.freesound.org

http://www.freesfx.co.uk

http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com

http://www.grsites.com/sounds

http://www.freesoundeffectsandloops.com

http://www.soundjay.com

Online Sound Effect Libraries

I have been using internet sound libraries only for about 3 years and although they are still not the main source of sounds for me, I use them quite a bit when I just have not got time to revert back to my libraries on my hard drives.  In this time I have used many and I now return to only a few. It’s safe to say I have found the following four sites the best in terms of content quality, quantity and ease of use. They also seem to be the most popular amongst many of my colleagues and we all agree are safe, secure and just very helpful:

1)      www.sounddogs.com

The ‘Daddy’ of all internet sound libraries in terms of content but the website is now very outdated and is hard to use in relation to the competition. Sound effects are priced according to file size and rarity.

2)      www.sonomic.com

I love Sonomic as it has a massive database of sound effects and is relatively easy to use. They are also great with customer service when I have had problems. Price wise they seem to have a static system in place where all sound effects are $4.99. Great for the long sounds but not so great when I just need a 0.5 second long blip!

3)      www.sound-effects-library.com

This site is a lot like Sounddogs in terms of its content and pricing. I can’t work out what’s going on with prices as they keep fluctuating.  Good website in general but a little slow to use.

4)      www.soundscalpel.com

What I like about this website is it has always been modern and fresh. They update its design and usability as internet trends change. Ok so they don’t have as much content as the above but each time I log in they seem to have gained the respect and content of another major contributor and have managed to keep prices low.  This is one to watch!

Other sound effect library sites I have also used but would not consider essential:

www.audiosparx.com (some content a little dodgy)

www.soundrangers.com (Multimedia based but great for beeps, clicks etc)

www.shockwave-sound.com (Not bad but mainly a stock music site)

There are more that I will add here when I have time!