Sound Community Highlight: Meet Zdravko Djordjević From The Audio Spotlight

Posted March 4, 2017 by Asbjoern Andersen in Sound community highlights

Zdravko Djordjević and Pasi Pitkänen are the founders of The Audio Spotlight, a site that features a wealth of interesting stories on sound, composers, plugins and indie sound effects. In particular, I’ve been impressed with the The Audio Spotlight team’s effort to promote talents from the sound community, ever since I first came across the site – so without further ado, it’s a great pleasure to put the spotlight on The Audio Spotlight:

Hi Zdravko, please introduce yourself, The Audio Spotlight and the team behind it:

Hi Asbjoern, thank you for having me. The Audio Spotlight was founded by Pasi Pitkanen and me back in 2012 (gosh, time flies!), with the intention of promoting relatively unknown composers, sound designers and other professionals to the world.

The start was slow but we gradually grew over time. Soon developers started to approach us, asking if we would be interested in doing reviews. At first I was a bit skeptical because I hadn’t written a review before, but decided to do it anyway (here’s the very first review I ever did). It was a cool experience, and we have been writing reviews ever since.

After developers, bigger PR companies and agents approached us to hear if we’d want to do interviews with well-known composers – quite interesting. The news section also grew bigger over time, and we had to simplify posting news with our news submission form, where a developer can post news him/herself.

Overall it is a fantastic experience meeting new people and talking to them about the stuff we love.

How did you get the idea for the site?

The idea came when I started doing a sort of featured composer, sound designer thing in a Facebook group. At the same time Pasi started doing small interviews in a blog. We talked and I pitched the idea of us having a website. We then started a simple blog with interviews which became The Audio Spotlight.

What’s been one of the most exciting moments running The Audio Spotlight?

This is a tough one. I was great to see The Audio Spotlight featured in various articles, books and even reaching some of our favorite sound designers and composers. It’s the small personal satisfaction I guess.

The most satisfying moment would definitely be meeting new people and having a good and honest conversation

The most satisfying moment would definitely be meeting new people and having a good and honest conversation. Seeing other people’s perspective on how they hear the world is always intriguing and in many cases also elevating.

In particular, it was great to see TAS listed as a source in a book by a Winifred Phillips, a renowned composer for the titles such as God of War, Assassin`s Creed, the Little Big Planet franchise and other cool game titles. Here’s an interview I did with her back in 2014.

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

Trending right now:

Bird Sound Effects Seagulls Play Track 28+ sounds included $35

The Seagulls sfx library includes 28 tracks of both single, isolated seagull screams, and bigger flocks of nesting seagulls, calling out to each other and their chicks. There are plenty of classic call sounds, but also some weird throaty and raspy screaming, and what could sound like seagull laughing sounds.

All tracks are recorded with the very useful zoom function of the Telinga microphone and dish.
Library includes both untreated tracks, and noise reduction processed tracks in two separate folders. Noise reduction processed tracks have carefully been cleaned up with a CEDAR NR system.

Though these birds are in an abundance around most harbours and industry around here, they are not always easy to record. You mostly hear them from a distance, or from places not easy to access. When you try to get close to them, they will usually fly away.

Many hours have been spent on rooftops, gardens, backyards, a junkyard, and different harbours to get this material.

Add to cart
Cinematic & Trailer Sound Effects CIRCUS Horror Strings Play Track 180 sounds included $7.80

Strident and Demonic

Expand the timbre of your horror violins and cellos with CIRCUS, a sinister sample pack featuring 180 WAV sounds of screeching or high-pitched string noises, perfect for horror music and dark sound design.

Creative Tension

This collection offers a curated selection of screeches, high-tension tremolo, heavy jeté strokes, dark demonic textures, finger patterns, chaotic string elements, clock loops and bow accents.

Haunting and Experimental

Create haunting atmospheres, perfect for horror, thriller or experimental soundtracks. Every element has been designed to unsettle and disturb, blurring the line between music and noise.

80 %

OFF

Ends 1760911199

Add to cart
Animal Sound Effects Animal Footsteps Foley Play Track 111 sounds included From: $15

This foley collection features the unique sounds of “Animal Footsteps” across diverse terrains. From the soft padding of paws and the scuttling of insects to the rhythmic clop of hooves and the delicate patter of birds, you’ll find every sound you need to bring your wildlife scenes to life.

Each sound has been captured in studio and divided into specialised categories including Paws With Claws, Paws Without Claws, Reptiles, Rodents, Crustaceans, Arachnids, and more.

Select options
Materials & Texture Sound Effects Glacier Ice Play Track 300+ sounds included
Rated 5.00 out of 5
$40

Glacier Ice is a library containing over 300 high quality sounds of ice cracking, breaking, shattering in various sizes of blocks – recorded entirely in the Italian Alps over the course of two winters.

The library contains sounds of all dimensions, from ice cubes being dropped in a drink to a designed iceberg collapsing.

The majority of the material was recorded at 192 KHz with a Sanken CO100K and a stereo pair of Sennheiser MKH8040, making this library greatly flexible for pitch shifting and all sorts of heavy processing.

A small section recorded at 96KHz features sounds recorded exclusively with contact microphones placed directly on the surface of a frozen water stream.

Bonus: Two extra libraries included for free: This library also includes two additional releases from Mattia Cellotto - for free: Crunch Mode delivers 230 crunchy sounds made with a variety of vegetables, fresh bread, pizza crust and a selection of frozen goods. The Borax Experiment gets you 158 squishy, gory, slimy and gooey sounds.

Add to cart

Latest releases:

Destruction & Impact Sounds Woodpile Chaos Play Track 82 sounds included $10

Woodpile Chaos is a gritty collection of 82 wooden hits, creaks, and scrapes — a wild mix of organic textures born from raw timber and controlled destruction.

Add to cart
Animal Sound Effects Collections Dark Environment Sounds and Loops Play Track 120 sounds included, 63 mins total $29.99

This is big set of scary sound effects, that will make your game, or any other project performance much more impressive!

Dark, evil ambient loops, ambient noises, scary sounds, heavy rumbles, moans, metal squeaks, scratches, cracks, debris sounds, sub bass sound FX, background white noises, thunder strikes, electric sounds, engine loops, electric sparks and many, many more!…

40 %

OFF

Add to cart
Car Sound Effects Ford Puma 1997 sports car Play Track 206 sounds included, 48 mins total $65

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, interior and exterior foley, mechanical and electrical sounds. It is only available in UCS.

Add to cart
Ambisonic Sound Effects Red Deer Play Track 13+ sounds included $80

A small collection of High quality, close up red deer recordings.

Red Deer Roars and Moans and other vocalisations from different habitats. (mountainous areas and forest)

Recorded over the years during the rutting season, varying distances but mostly up close and face to face with this loud and scary mammal.

20 %

OFF

Add to cart
Game Audio Packs - Game Sound Effects Libraries Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle Play Track 1054 sounds included, 9 mins total $60
Take full control of your interface sound design with the Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle — a massive collection of 1,054 professional-grade UI sound effects across seven expertly crafted libraries by RawAmbience.

From crisp button clicks and smooth menu transitions to RPG-style selects, denies, and toggles, this all-in-one bundle gives you everything needed to design intuitive and immersive UI audio for games, apps, web, or interactive media.

Packs included:
Click and Select UI RPG SFX
Click And Select UI RPG SFX 2
Click Menu Sound Effects
Click Menu Sound Effects 2
Click Sound Effects
Essential Menu Click Sounds
Essential Menu Select Sounds

Your complete UI sound design toolkit.

The Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle delivers a polished collection of responsive interface sounds, including:
- Click & Select UI RPG SFX 1 & 2 – Over 456 sounds tailored for RPG and interactive UI: selects, hovers, alerts, cancels, access-denied, and more.
- Click Menu Sound Effects 1 & 2 – 281 high-quality menu interaction sounds for toggles, clicks, opens, closes, and confirmations.
- Click Sound Effects – 110 versatile UI clicks designed for modern app and game interfaces.
- Essential Menu Click Sounds – 107 precise and minimal click sounds, ideal for clean, modern UIs.
- Essential Menu Select Sounds – 100 select-focused sound effects, delivering clean, modern UI feedback for toggles, confirms, menu navigation, and precise user selections.
Perfect For:
- Game menus and HUDs (RPGs, mobile, indie, AAA)
- Web and app UI feedback
- Interactive experiences (VR, AR, touchscreen)
- UI prototyping and UX testing
- Accessibility-focused sound design
Add to cart

Need specific sound effects? Try a search below:

What’s really exciting to you within the area of sound at the moment?

Ah soo many things. Game Audio is still my favorite area and it is interesting to see how VR audio is developing, especially this past year. Another thing I cannot go without is field recording. Anywhere I go I always have at least one recorder with me and if I happen to forget the recorder at home I just use phone and record a memo on where I found a cool sound source.

Remember three or four years ago? Only a handful of recordists offered sound effects for sale but now it is booming

It is also interesting to see how the boutique sound effects market is growing. Remember three or four years ago? Only a handful of recordists offered sound effects for sale but now it is booming and we get to know many fantastic talents behind those libraries.

Zdravko Djordjević and Soundlister
I started speaking with Zdravko Djordjević back in 2012, and one of the ideas we had was to launch a place to find all the great audio pros in the community. We didn’t actually get it done until last year, when we launched Soundlister together. It’s since grown into a resource with many hundreds of audio pros from all over the world (hooray!).

– Asbjoern

Is there anything readers can do to support The Audio Spotlight?

The number one thing I value the most regarding The Audio Spotlight is that people like the content and it means a lot to me if they share an article they like.

What’s next for The Audio Spotlight?

At this time I don’t have many extra plans because I am tied to a few projects and have my duties there. But, I will work on getting more sound designer and field recordist interviews in the future.

A big thanks to Zdravko Djordjević for the story – be sure to check out The Audio Spotlight here.

Please share this:

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:

Cinematic & Trailer Sound Effects CIRCUS Horror Strings Play Track 180 sounds included $7.80

Strident and Demonic

Expand the timbre of your horror violins and cellos with CIRCUS, a sinister sample pack featuring 180 WAV sounds of screeching or high-pitched string noises, perfect for horror music and dark sound design.

Creative Tension

This collection offers a curated selection of screeches, high-tension tremolo, heavy jeté strokes, dark demonic textures, finger patterns, chaotic string elements, clock loops and bow accents.

Haunting and Experimental

Create haunting atmospheres, perfect for horror, thriller or experimental soundtracks. Every element has been designed to unsettle and disturb, blurring the line between music and noise.

80 %

OFF

Ends 1760911199

Add to cart
Firearms Sound Effects Handguns & Pistols Play Track 75 sounds included $34.99
Stockpile your arsenal of HANDGUNS with this mini pack of cutting edge sounds of modern warfare, designed by our team of AAA-industry veterans and huge fans of games like Gears of War, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, Killzone, Command & Conquer, Red Alert and many more.

From PISTOLS, HANDGUNS, and SILENCERS to GUNSHOTS, ZAPS, and BULLET RICOCHETS, quiet WEAPONS HANDLING, this mini pack of sounds will give you everything you need for any HANDGUN-wielding SOLDIERS or AGENTS!

KEY FEATURES:
- Huge variety of big and small weapons, mechanical industrial and modern clean sounds, different types and intensity variants
- Ready to use – requires no editing, labeling or splicing
- Categorized, organized and individually labeled files for maximum use efficiency
- All files are included in Hi-Rez WAV, SD WAV and HQ MP3 formats
GET THE MODERN WARFARE WEAPONS SOUND PACK NOW!
13 %

OFF

Add to cart
Creature Sound Effects STOMPS – Creature Footsteps Play Track 8500+ sounds included
Rated 5.00 out of 5
From: $299

We’re incredibly excited to introduce the ‘STOMPS – Creature Footsteps’ sound effects library – these are footsteps like you’ve never heard them before!

STOMPS is a massive collection of more than 8,500 files to boost your creativity and help you add special footstep sounds to your new project.

The library is organized into 3 categories –
Source, Textures, Design:

In the Source category you’ll find the “best of” several hours worth of our recordings sessions, with more than 7,500 files (with lots of variations) organized into 83 folders. Every single sound is the product of a new recording.

You’ll find the sequences that include: 2 Legs WALKING, 2 Legs RUNNING, 4 Legs GALLOPING, 4 Legs TROTTING, and 4 Legs WALKING.

We used all kinds of weird props to record original, versatile sounds with lot of character, different textures, and in very different frequency ranges.

These sounds form the DNA of your future footsteps. You’ll have lots of different sound colours to play with, ranging from very small and harsh sounds to very low and bold ones, and all the ranges in between.

In the Texture category, you’ll find more than 600 sounds with different textures to help you customize your footsteps. These textures are also a very valuable sonic material that will help you construct lots of varying sound design work.

Finally, we have the Design category. Here you’ll find more than 500 processed sounds created by veteran sound designer Michel Marchant, covering a wide range of characters like Robots, Snow Creatures, Distant Dinosaurs, Rock Golems, Armies, Colossus and many, many more!

Update: Glued version also included

STOMPS now also features a special GLUED version, with the exact same content but with variation files edited together to reduce the number of single files in the collection, and making search through all sounds easier.

With “STOMPS, Creature Footsteps,” you’ll have anything you’ll need to create everything from small creature footsteps to big, out-of-this-world ones.

Select options

Explore the full, unique collection here

Latest sound effects libraries:

Destruction & Impact Sounds Woodpile Chaos Play Track 82 sounds included $10

Woodpile Chaos is a gritty collection of 82 wooden hits, creaks, and scrapes — a wild mix of organic textures born from raw timber and controlled destruction.

Add to cart
Animal Sound Effects Collections Dark Environment Sounds and Loops Play Track 120 sounds included, 63 mins total $29.99

This is big set of scary sound effects, that will make your game, or any other project performance much more impressive!

Dark, evil ambient loops, ambient noises, scary sounds, heavy rumbles, moans, metal squeaks, scratches, cracks, debris sounds, sub bass sound FX, background white noises, thunder strikes, electric sounds, engine loops, electric sparks and many, many more!…

40 %

OFF

Add to cart
Car Sound Effects Ford Puma 1997 sports car Play Track 206 sounds included, 48 mins total $65

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, interior and exterior foley, mechanical and electrical sounds. It is only available in UCS.

Add to cart
Ambisonic Sound Effects Red Deer Play Track 13+ sounds included $80

A small collection of High quality, close up red deer recordings.

Red Deer Roars and Moans and other vocalisations from different habitats. (mountainous areas and forest)

Recorded over the years during the rutting season, varying distances but mostly up close and face to face with this loud and scary mammal.

20 %

OFF

Add to cart
Game Audio Packs - Game Sound Effects Libraries Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle Play Track 1054 sounds included, 9 mins total $60
Take full control of your interface sound design with the Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle — a massive collection of 1,054 professional-grade UI sound effects across seven expertly crafted libraries by RawAmbience.

From crisp button clicks and smooth menu transitions to RPG-style selects, denies, and toggles, this all-in-one bundle gives you everything needed to design intuitive and immersive UI audio for games, apps, web, or interactive media.

Packs included:
Click and Select UI RPG SFX
Click And Select UI RPG SFX 2
Click Menu Sound Effects
Click Menu Sound Effects 2
Click Sound Effects
Essential Menu Click Sounds
Essential Menu Select Sounds

Your complete UI sound design toolkit.

The Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle delivers a polished collection of responsive interface sounds, including:
- Click & Select UI RPG SFX 1 & 2 – Over 456 sounds tailored for RPG and interactive UI: selects, hovers, alerts, cancels, access-denied, and more.
- Click Menu Sound Effects 1 & 2 – 281 high-quality menu interaction sounds for toggles, clicks, opens, closes, and confirmations.
- Click Sound Effects – 110 versatile UI clicks designed for modern app and game interfaces.
- Essential Menu Click Sounds – 107 precise and minimal click sounds, ideal for clean, modern UIs.
- Essential Menu Select Sounds – 100 select-focused sound effects, delivering clean, modern UI feedback for toggles, confirms, menu navigation, and precise user selections.
Perfect For:
- Game menus and HUDs (RPGs, mobile, indie, AAA)
- Web and app UI feedback
- Interactive experiences (VR, AR, touchscreen)
- UI prototyping and UX testing
- Accessibility-focused sound design
Add to cart