Soundly 2 is here Asbjoern Andersen


It’s no secret that there are dozens of apps that help manage sound fx libraries. Both Mac and PC users can find many options that help sound pros sort and find collections of sound clips.

However, as soon as Soundly launched it was doing things differently. How? In this post by sound effects guru Paul Virostek, he highlights five killer features that make Soundly break away from the pack.


Written by Paul Virostek
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The Soundly How-To Series:

This is the fifth installment in the Soundly series by SFX guru Paul Virostek – here are the previous ones:

1. An introduction to Soundly
2. The Soundly Quick-Start Guide
3. How to Organize Sound Libraries with Soundly
4. How to Find and Use Sound FX Clips with Soundly

 

Special offer: Try Soundly PRO for free, for 14 days – here’s how:

 
I just got word that Soundly kicked off a very special offer today, giving access to the full Soundly Pro version (with its approx 40.000 cloud sound effects & more) for free: All new and registered users can use the promo code SUMMER to unlock all the pro features for 14 days – no payment information needed.

How to get up and running:

New users, download Soundly for free for Windows here, and Mac here – and then enter the promo code SUMMER while registering. If you’re already registered, go to user -> profile within the Soundly app, and enter the code SUMMER in the promo box.

 

1. Organize Your Sound Library

Organize sound libraries.
What it does: Soundly makes it easy to add, sort, and search sound libraries. It can index local, cloud, and network clip collections. Adding sound fx is as simple as dragging and dropping them onto Soundly’s window. Each library is displayed separately, so filtering results is easy. The app provides search suggestions and tracks search history. Playback – including from the cloud – is fast and fluid. A slick waveform display allows playing and processing whole clips, and even smaller portions, too.

Why it’s cool: It’s a common problem. You have some sound fx on your laptop. Others are on an external drive on your desk. More still are scattered across a network NAS drive. It’s tedious to hunt and peck across a handful of locations to find the sound you need. It’s worse when you have the pressure of a deadline. Soundly keeps all your sounds in one place, lets you search them swiftly and audition them easily. It’s fast, effortless, and, with its new 2.0 interface, attractive, too.
 

2. Import Clips to Apps

Select audio and send to Pro Tools.
What it is: Adding and finding clips is great, but sound pros need to use them, too. Soundly allows sound clips to be transferred to editing apps with a tap of a button. The app can send entire clips, or selected, small portions of longer files. It’s simple: just drag the section into an editing app and the clips is transferred. Pro Tools users have bonus features: single or multiple clips can be transferred with “handles” either to the cursor location in an editing timeline or the bin.

Why it’s cool: No one wants to be slowed down by digging through folders and navigating editing app file browsers. That slows work and kills creativity. With Soundly, a simple mouse drag can take the cool sound you’ve found and send it to any other app. It’s even quicker for Pro Tools and Reaper users: just click the Pro Tools icon to send the clip selection to the timeline cursor. That makes it faster to get clips into your project and get back to work.
 

3. Cloud Sound Library

Cloud sound library.
What it is: Soundly doesn’t just manage clips, sort them, and send them to other apps. It launches with access to a professionally recorded sound library that is streamed instantly from the cloud. Any user can access 1000 popular clips, and Pro subscribers can choose from around 40,000. The sound library features everyday sounds that will are useful in any project, as well as elite recordings such as military vehicles, too. Want more? No problem. The Soundly store offers the Freesound.org library, as well as collections from independent community field recordists and sound designers.

Why it’s cool: Merely downloading the app gives users access to 1000 pro sound effects completely free of charge. That’s a good way for budget-conscious sound pros to enhance their existing sound collections. And, when you have a little more cash or are working on more demanding projects, getting instant access to 40,000 more clips is only a few clicks away. Soundly’s cloud library makes worrying about finding the right sound effect a thing of the past.


Popular on A Sound Effect right now - article continues below:


Trending right now:

  • Shine and Glitter brings shiny, elegant sounds to your local sound library. Find the true sound of it with Vadi Sound Library.

    About Shine and Glitter SFX Pack

    From glittering transitions and fairy dust to tonal sparkle sounds in 150+ stereo 24bit/96kHz .WAV files.

    This pack has designed transitions, resonance, shining, synth, particles, tonal sparkles and doppler of magical shine and glitter elements; crunchy, noisy, glassy.

    The texture of the sounds is realistic and flexible for customization. Great for film, video, game, advertisements, and suitable further as sweeteners outside of the magic genre as well.

    Here’s a studio-grade pack for all your projects and games with the usual Vadi Sound craft and attention to detail.

    Keywords, Elements, Mood and Style
    Shine, magic, effect, glitter, star, dust, doppler, transition, spell, angelic, supernatural, synth, tonal, sparkles, long, double, LPF, HPF, movement, reverse, underwater, chime, crunchy, crackle, particles, noisy, free, reed, glassy, envelope, classic, shining, motion, coin, purse, tabletop, alarm, precious, stone, pitch, oil, can, resonance, drop, downward.

    What else you may need
    You may also want to check out our Cinematic Whooshes & Transitions for 294 files of organic and processed sounds of transitions and whooshes, including swipes, futuristic sci-fi sounds, tonal, pass by, power ups/ downs, movement, machine, and more. Essential Magic SFX Pack may also help with 182 files of the dark side of essential 4 elements of fire, water, earth, air as well as electricity, cyber-magic, magicka, hits, buffing, whooshes, squeaks, sparkling, explosions, bubbles, chimes and selective green magic sounds.

    25 %
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    Ends 1747778400
  • AudioHero’s Cartoon collection Volume 5 features 100 professionally produced sound effects, ready for use in your productions. This library includes everything you need to turn your production into a cartoon masterpiece! These sounds are all hand-picked from the Sound Ideas Cartoon Express, General HD and Digiffects Complete libraries.

  • AudioHero’s Cartoon collection Volume 4 features 200 professionally produced sound effects, ready for use in your productions.  This library includes everything you need to turn your production into a cartoon masterpiece!  These sounds are all hand-picked from the Sound Ideas Cartoon Express and Hollywood Edge Cartoon Trax 1 and 2 sound effects libraries.  Included are musical accents, bells, boings, hits, skids, honks, squeaks, bounces, crashes and more.

  • ‘Cartoon & Comedy Sounds’ by Cinematic Sound Design features a collection of more than 250 hand-crafted sounds. Designed & recorded at pristine 24 Bit / 96 Khz resolution using the highest quality equipment providing a discrete signal path, these unique sounds are ready to be used within your audio-visual project straight away, 100% Royalty Free.

    This collection was designed & recorded using top quality equipment providing a discrete signal path: Sound Devices 702 field recorder, a pair of Neumann KM184 microphones, Access Virus Ti virtual analog synthesiser, DSI Prophet analog synthesiser, Waldorf Pulse 2. We have also used an Apogee Symphony AD/DA for additional processing and routing.

    Please note: The background music heard in the product demo is for promotional purposes and is not included in this pack.


Latest releases:

  • Step into the shadows with Dark Dungeon Soundscapes Pt. 2, the soundscapes collection for game developers, filmmakers, and creators seeking spine-chilling atmosphere. This second edition brings you even deeper into the abyss with haunting ambient textures, eerie whispers, unsettling drips, distant screams, and the deep echoes of forgotten catacombs.

    Designed for horror and cinematic projects, these soundscapes will set the perfect tone for dark fantasy, gothic horror, or deep dungeon-crawling adventures. Whether you’re unveiling an ancient crypt, leading players into a cursed temple, or orchestrating a demonic ritual, these immersive sounds will pull your audience into the darkness.

    🔥 Features:

    Diverse environments, from eerie ruins to underground horrors

    Seamless looping for extended play sessions

     

  • Car Sound Effects Speed Engines Play Track 102 sounds included, 15 mins total $10

    Rev up your creativity with Speed Engines Sound Effects, a collection of roaring, revving, and accelerating engine sounds. Perfect for game developers, filmmakers, and content creators, this pack features a variety of engine types, from thunderous muscle cars to high-speed motorcycles.

    Each sound is recorded to deliver crisp, immersive audio that brings speed and power to life. Whether you’re working on a racing game, an action-packed movie, or a thrilling YouTube video, these sound effects will add adrenaline-pumping realism to your project.

    🔥 Features:
    ✅25 – Engine SFX / 77 – Pass By
    ✅ Variety of engine types and variations
    Royalty-free – use in commercial & personal projects with no extra fees
    ✅ Ready for use in games, films, and multimedia projects

  • Hum, Buzz & Glitch Sound Effects Raw Buffers Play Track 14 sounds included, 23 mins total $25

    RAW BUFFERS – a Discman glitch library.
    Abrasive glitch clicks, scrambles, tones and bursts.



    RAW BUFFERS – a Discman glitch library


    Harvesting the glitches from short-circuiting the “electronic skip protection” chip on a late 90’s Discman player.
    Connecting the legs of this chip mangles and scrambles the buffer data, resulting in abrasive digital clicks, stutters, tones and bursts.

    23 minutes (1.6GB) of 192kHz/24 bit recordings
    UCS compliant and with relevant metadata.

  • All files are recorded 32bit, 192 kHz, with RØDE NTG1, Line Audio Omni1 and FEL Clippy XLR EM272 microphones, Sound Devices MixPre-6 II recorder. Library contains wav files of driving, foley, mechanical and electrical sounds. It is also available in UCS.

  • Enhance your projects with our 196 Carefully Recorded and Designed Fabric Sound Effects. This diverse collection of high-quality fabric sounds is perfect for adding realism and dynamic movement to your characters and environments. From the rustling of clothing to the swishing of fabrics in motion, each sound has been meticulously recorded and designed to bring your scenes to life. Ideal for game developers, filmmakers, and sound designers, these fabric sound effects will add depth and authenticity to every wardrobe, interaction, and environmental detail. Whether you’re working on character animations, environmental design, or immersive storytelling, these sounds provide the perfect touch to elevate your work.

    Features:

    •  Body Armor Mesh – 70 SFX
    •  Clothing / Textile Drops – 61 SFX
    •  Fabrics – 57 SFX
    • Zips – 8 SFX
Need specific sound effects? Try a search below:


4. Metadata Editor

What it is: Soundly can embed invisible bonus metadata text to sound files. It reads popular iXML, BWAV, and MP3 formats, and writes back to the universal BWAV standard description field.

Why it’s cool: metadata’s bonus text information helps organize sound collections and find clips within them. That eliminates mental clutter, speeds sound clip selection, and help you make better choices. For sound librarians, Soundly can apply metadata in batches, too, making it easy to enhance existing sound collections with helpful metadata text. Worried that it will cost hundreds of dollars to do this, like any other metadata app? Don’t be. Soundly embeds metadata free of charge.
 

5. Cloud Collaboration

Sharing sound library contacts.
What it is: You’re hooked on Soundly. You’ve converted your colleagues and friends, too. That’s how Soundly’s fifth killer feature helps: Soundly’s cloud collaboration tools allow you to share sound libraries and playlists of clips with others. You can even upload your own sound libraries to the cloud so they can be shared, too.

Why it’s cool: Did you find the perfect bird ambience for a studio project? Maybe you found a fighter jet pass that’s the ideal building block for a starship. It’s easy to save it to a playlist, then email the sound supervisor or other editors your list of selections. When they have a license to the same library they can start working with those clips right away. Are you a lone wolf working on your own? Soundly hasn’t forgotten you, either. Soundly’s cloud storage allows you to upload your own clips to the cloud. That means you can access them at other facilities, or at home, after work.

These are just five cool features in Soundly. There are many others: granular search results sorting, text file import and export, audio processing, and much more.

Bonus: New features added in the just-released version:

Soundly released a brand new version last week, and here are some of the highlights from the release notes:

• Related Searches
Traversing through millions of past searches, Soundly’s AI-powered search algorithm now suggest related keywords for you. That means less time searching and more time discovering!

• Multi DB Support
Soundly can now simultaneously connect to multiple shared databases, making file and database organization even easier.

• Channel Select
A much asked for feature is finally here with Channel Select, making it incredibly easy to extract one or more specific channels from multichannel files.

• Portable Mode
Copy the Soundly application to a USB stick or similar and take it anywhere you go. Great for professionals using multiple studios!

• Did you Mean
Google-style Did You Mean Functionality helps you spell your searches correctly! Combined with Related Searches and the Sound Effect Thesaurus, Soundly’s search capabilities now stands in a class of its own.

• Thesaurus Update
Soundly’s specially built Sound Effect Thesaurus has grown and is now even more accurate.

 

A big thanks to Paul Virostek for this Soundly guide!

Try Soundly for free:

If you want to take Soundly for a spin, download it for free
for Windows here, and Mac here.
 

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THE WORLD’S EASIEST WAY TO GET INDEPENDENT SOUND EFFECTS:
 
A Sound Effect gives you easy access to an absolutely huge sound effects catalog from a myriad of independent sound creators, all covered by one license agreement - a few highlights:

  • 96KHZ 24BIT • 547MB • 297 FILES • UCS

    Fiery Movements is a high-quality, new PMSFX library built for creators who need fire to move fast, slow, eruptive, or scorched into the air. Crafted for modern cinematic sound design, this collection delivers an arsenal of over 297 meticulously designed fire-based motion effects, from aggressive whooshes and trails to bursting impacts.

    What sets this collection apart is its origin: over 90% of the fire movement sounds were synthesized in Bitwig Studio’s GRID, where analog-style synthesis, FM, distortion, and spectral shaping were combined with macro-modulated dynamics and convolution layering. The result? Fire that doesn’t just sound real – it sounds scorching hot!

    Perfect for sound designers working on:

    • Trailers
    • Fire magic
    • Explosive transitions and cinematic sequences

    From fast-passing flame whips and pressure-heavy blasts to longer, smoky, and textured burn trails — this pack offers a versatile range of fire movement textures ready for layering or as stand-alone assets.

    DESIGNED IN: Bitwig
    EDITED AND MASTERED WITH: Bitwig, Pro Tools

  • Step into a world of spells, mysticism, and creative power with Spells Variations Vol. 2, the follow-up to our acclaimed magical sound collection. This time, we’ve expanded the elemental and thematic range, offering 405 professionally crafted sound effects that are fully categorized and ready to use.
    Inside, you’ll find a wide variety of magical types:
    🔥 Fire
    💧 Water
    🌪️ Air
    🌍 Earth
    Electricity
    ❄️ Ice
    ☠️ Poison, Mud, Rocks
    ✨ As well as Arcane, Dark, Monstrous, and other mystical spell types.

    Each category is organized into individual folders, with multiple variations for every spell, giving you complete flexibility to choose the perfect sound for each moment, All this makes a total of 44 different spells.
    Just like in Volume 1, every sound in this collection was recorded, edited, and mastered at 192 kHz / 24-bit, ensuring top-tier quality and adaptability—perfect for professional sound designers or anyone looking for drag-and-drop magical effects for games, trailers, animations, or any audio-visual production.

    More about the pack
    – Intuitive file naming
    – All you’ll ever need regarding magical sounds [Use them again & again
    – Use the sound effects over and over, in any of your projects or productions, forever without any additional fees or royalties. Use the SFX in your game, in your trailer, in a Kickstarter campaign, wherever you need to, as much as you want to.
    – Totally mono compatibility
    – All sounds have several variations.
    – Use your imagination and feel free to use any sound for a creature other than the one described, remember that the world of sound is totally subjective.
    – For any questions or problems: khronstudio@gmail.com

    Features
    – 405 spell sounds
    – Format: 192KHz / 24 bits
    – Win/Mac: Yes
    – Minutes of audio provided: 22:26

  • Cinematic & Trailer Sound Effects Blade Sound Pack Play Track 1400 sounds included, 83 mins total $30

    1400 meticulously processed stereo blades sound effects recorded in 96 khz and 24 bits for high audio definition.

    The collection comes with hundreds of variations and many different weapon types. It also includes raw files for more flexibility for your projets and each asset has a version with and without reverb for more control.

    This collection is perfect for any films, video games or trailers.

    Recorded weapons: katana, kris knife, khukuri dagger, big and medium kitchen knife and hunting knife.

    This sound library includes various type of sounds:  blades scraping, single or multiple impacts, whooshes, designed and powerful sword sounds for trailer and cinematic, gore slashing and stabbing, blade sheathing and unsheathing, short and long combat sequences, background  sword battle, and more.

    25 %
    OFF
Explore the full, unique collection here

Latest sound effects libraries:
 
  • Step into the shadows with Dark Dungeon Soundscapes Pt. 2, the soundscapes collection for game developers, filmmakers, and creators seeking spine-chilling atmosphere. This second edition brings you even deeper into the abyss with haunting ambient textures, eerie whispers, unsettling drips, distant screams, and the deep echoes of forgotten catacombs.

    Designed for horror and cinematic projects, these soundscapes will set the perfect tone for dark fantasy, gothic horror, or deep dungeon-crawling adventures. Whether you’re unveiling an ancient crypt, leading players into a cursed temple, or orchestrating a demonic ritual, these immersive sounds will pull your audience into the darkness.

    🔥 Features:

    Diverse environments, from eerie ruins to underground horrors

    Seamless looping for extended play sessions

     

  • Car Sound Effects Speed Engines Play Track 102 sounds included, 15 mins total $10

    Rev up your creativity with Speed Engines Sound Effects, a collection of roaring, revving, and accelerating engine sounds. Perfect for game developers, filmmakers, and content creators, this pack features a variety of engine types, from thunderous muscle cars to high-speed motorcycles.

    Each sound is recorded to deliver crisp, immersive audio that brings speed and power to life. Whether you’re working on a racing game, an action-packed movie, or a thrilling YouTube video, these sound effects will add adrenaline-pumping realism to your project.

    🔥 Features:
    ✅25 – Engine SFX / 77 – Pass By
    ✅ Variety of engine types and variations
    Royalty-free – use in commercial & personal projects with no extra fees
    ✅ Ready for use in games, films, and multimedia projects

  • Hum, Buzz & Glitch Sound Effects Raw Buffers Play Track 14 sounds included, 23 mins total $25

    RAW BUFFERS – a Discman glitch library.
    Abrasive glitch clicks, scrambles, tones and bursts.



    RAW BUFFERS – a Discman glitch library


    Harvesting the glitches from short-circuiting the “electronic skip protection” chip on a late 90’s Discman player.
    Connecting the legs of this chip mangles and scrambles the buffer data, resulting in abrasive digital clicks, stutters, tones and bursts.

    23 minutes (1.6GB) of 192kHz/24 bit recordings
    UCS compliant and with relevant metadata.

  • All files are recorded 32bit, 192 kHz, with RØDE NTG1, Line Audio Omni1 and FEL Clippy XLR EM272 microphones, Sound Devices MixPre-6 II recorder. Library contains wav files of driving, foley, mechanical and electrical sounds. It is also available in UCS.

  • Enhance your projects with our 196 Carefully Recorded and Designed Fabric Sound Effects. This diverse collection of high-quality fabric sounds is perfect for adding realism and dynamic movement to your characters and environments. From the rustling of clothing to the swishing of fabrics in motion, each sound has been meticulously recorded and designed to bring your scenes to life. Ideal for game developers, filmmakers, and sound designers, these fabric sound effects will add depth and authenticity to every wardrobe, interaction, and environmental detail. Whether you’re working on character animations, environmental design, or immersive storytelling, these sounds provide the perfect touch to elevate your work.

    Features:

    •  Body Armor Mesh – 70 SFX
    •  Clothing / Textile Drops – 61 SFX
    •  Fabrics – 57 SFX
    • Zips – 8 SFX

   

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