Asbjoern Andersen


Welcome to an all-new series on cloud sound effects platform Soundly, written by field recordist & SFX guru Paul Virostek. In this 1st installment, Paul highlights what Soundly is all about, and presents some of its key features:
Written by Paul Virostek
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Are you a video editor that wants to quickly add sound clips to your trailer timeline? Perhaps you’re a music composer that needs to add tracks to an ad segment. Maybe you’re a sound editor who needs to sort through thousands of sound effects and add them to feature films daily. Ever wonder how to organize a growing sound library?

Soundly was created to solve these problems. It is a sound library manager for MacOS and Windows that helps sound pros add and organize sound effect collections, then find and send clips to editing apps or anywhere else in the OS. It does this – and many more tasks – completely free of charge (get Soundly – for free – for Windows here, and Mac here).

Let’s learn more about Soundly, and how it helps creators add sound to their projects.

The Soundly How-To Series:

This is the first part in the Soundly series by SFX guru Paul Virostek – here are the other ones:

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
5. 5 Killer Features in Soundly


If you want to take Soundly 2 for a spin, download it for free for Windows here, and Mac here.

An Overview of Soundly

Soundly was originally released to sound creators in autumn, 2015. It has since been used by countless sound pros worldwide. Recently, version 2.0 of the app was released with new features and a fresh, attractive design.

Soundly (Windows (XP+) and MacOS (10.6.8+), free) was designed to manage samples ranging from sound effects to music clips. It helps pros add sound collections to the app, browse them, find highly detailed search results, then transfer audio into other apps.

In addition to these core tasks, Soundly offers dozens of other valuable, specialized features:

  • Multichannel support.
  • Spot to Pro Tools timeline and bin.
  • Sound library flexibility: 400 free cloud-based effects, access to the Freesound.org library, optional “Soundly Pro” subscription library, an in-app sound library store, sound library cloud storage.
  • Metadata: read, batch edit, and write metadata.
  • Propellerhead ReWire support for auditioning audio through custom hardware set ups.

There are many other cool features, too.

Let’s learn more.

Soundly Highlights

This article will focus on highlights of the software. Later posts will explore each of these in more detail.

  • Sound library management.
  • Cloud sound library.
  • Using sound libraries.
  • Sound library metadata.

 

Soundly Sound Library Management

Use Soundly to add and manage sound clip collections. Simply drag and drop local folders of files onto the main Soundly window to add them to the app. Soundly Pro accommodates an unlimited amount of sound files, with the free Soundly version allowing adding up to 2,500 clips.

Clips can be organized in playlists which can be shared with others in the cloud. Individual favourite tracks can marked and saved in a special “Starred” playlist.

Sound libraries can be shared across local networks and can even be uploaded to your private space in the Soundly cloud.

That helps multi-user accounts share collections between editors in game studios or editing facilities.
 

Cloud Sound Library Access

In addition to adding your own sound library, Soundly allows access to online cloud-based sound libraries. Free users can access 400 clips from the Soundly Pro library. A subscription plan of $9.99 (24-hour access) or $14.99 (monthly) unlocks the entire Soundly Pro library of 10,000+ tracks. The library has a well-recorded blend of Foley, sound design, household, ambience, and many other tracks. There are also specialized selections such as military vehicles, cars, technology, and much more. In addition, every user has online access to the massive Freesound.org sound library.

The online libraries are auditioned smoothy directly from the cloud. Downloading tracks to local storage is swift and effortless.

Finally, Soundly has its own online store which offers instant downloads of a growing amount of sound fx collections from community field recordists and sound designers.


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:


Using Sound Libraries with Soundly

Soundly allows lightning-fast sound library searches. An auto-complete search field presents keywords to quickly find common sounds. Power users can use advanced search tools to locate precise clips. Results are displayed instantly with name and description as well as tech specs: duration, format and sound file resolution, and number of channels.

The sound waveform is displayed at the bottom of the app. The playback transport includes standard controls and duration stats, as well as bonus features: up to 8x faster or slower audition speed, reverse clip, invert stereo, normalize, and mono selection and conversion. Auditioning – even from the cloud – is silky smooth. Soundly also supports the ReWire audition standard to play audio through existing hardware set ups.

Portions of any clip can be chosen by dragging across the waveform. These selections can be transferred from Soundly to any other editing app, such as Reaper, Adobe Audition, Avid, and many more via simple drag-and-drop transfers. There’s a bonus for Pro Tools users, too: clips can be spotted to timeline directly to a cursor location or into the bin.
 

Sound Library Metadata

Soundly allows users to supercharge their existing collections with metadata. The app reads metadata in the ID3, BWAV, and iXML flavours of this bonus text. The extra fields of text accelerate searches with even more accurate results.

Want add metadata yourself? Soundly is designed to help sound librarians, too. It can edit BWAV metadata singly and in batches to enhance existing collections, then write metadata back to sound files to the common BWAV and iXML standards.
 

Sound Search Software for Pros

And there’s much more. Soundly packs dozens of other features into a tiny, easy-to-use app.

So, who can use Soundly?

Soundly’s free features allow new sound fx fans to start building, organizing, and using their collections in projects while avoiding the considerable investment paid apps demand. Its free cloud sound libraries give beginners a boost of popular clips to supplement their own collections.

The simplicity of Soundly’s interface helps professionals from related crafts find and use sound clips in multimedia projects with no learning curve. Video editors can use Soundly to sift through their sound libraries and drop clips into films, episodic television, ads, and trailers. Music supervisors and editors and musicians can use Soundly to organize songs, easily view track variations, and drop them swiftly into their projects.

Soundly allows career sound editors and sound designers to transfer sound fx into any professional editing software, including spot-to-bin and -timeline in Pro Tools. The 10,000+ clip Soundly Pro library will help fill the gaps in their existing sound collections. Even sound librarians will benefit from Soundly’s cataloging and metadata features.

Soundly offers unparalleled value and flexibility in managing and using sound collections. The cross-platform app works both as a powerful entry-level sound cataloging software and also advanced app of organizing sound libraries.

Try Soundly 2 for free:

If you want to take Soundly 2 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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