This week on A Sound Effect you’ll find lots of humming, growling, barking, and ticking in libraries that are not easy to capture. You can find recordings from the middle of LA traffic, intimidating seals of all sizes in Namibia and the UK, impulse responses from a secluded cabin, small motors from toys, gadgets and an Arduino UNO, and designed ticks from anything but clocks. You’ll also hear tons of office ambiences, humming HVAC and machinery, and a big, roaring Jeep Grand Cherokee with a boisterous custom exhaust. These sounds can certainly offer you something new for your libraries!
'Dark Seals' by Daan Hendriks features these pinnipeds who may seem cute and fluffy when they’re pups, but they can be quite intimidating once they gain a little weight. This library captures their growls, gargles, wails, snorts, slobbers and gargles that alone are a trove of interesting material, much less the crazy sounds you could create from them! Recorded in Namibia and the UK, you'll hear seals of all ages, individuals and large groups, and various recording lengths and proximities. For an endless collection of creatures, this is a library you should hear.
'The Arduino Collection' by Ronan Quigley gets you over 75 minutes of the custom circuitry and code of an Arduino UNO. Recorded at 192 kHz, this library features sounds of stepper, rotary, and haptic motors running at 5000, 7500 and 13000 RPM, plus servos, vibrators, fans, buttons and piezo alarms, theremins and transducers. These handcrafted sounds are recorded at various lengths, perfect for machinery like evil robots, mini engines, futuristic tools, sci-fi user interface sounds, and more. For a large collection of unique mechanical sounds, give this library a listen.
'Ambisonic City' by 2496 Sound Effects puts you right into the heart of the LA experience - the daily commute. These ambisonic ambiences (also available in 5.1 surround sound and stereo) take place on highway medians, bridges, walkways, and tunnels capturing the veins of Tinseltown with its traveling inhabitants - whether they be drivers, pedestrians, birds, or pilots. Plus, there’s even a B-Format surround demo for you to check out yourself! If you need an up-close and personal perspective of flowing traffic, this is a library to hear.
'Whirs, Buzzes, Hums & Hiss' by Sonic Worlds has sounds that will add thick, unaltered atmospheres to your insinuating environments. With over 113 sounds, this library has ambient effects like radio static, HVAC fans and vents, machinery, force fields, crackles and glitches, hums and buzzes, gas and air leaks, elevators and more to give your scenes a uneasy outer-space experience or a foggy, industrial atmosphere. It's amazing how connotative our world can be! If you have a film or game that needs tense background noises, this is one to listen to.
'Motors SFX' by SonicSalute has tons of small motors that surround you, but you may have never noticed. It features buzzing, whirring mechanisms from toys, gadgets, tools, calculators, fax machines, drones, nose trimmers, tripods - and even a vintage 1888 Hammel, a classy Danish car that can go 9 km/h with its 2.5 HP engine. Each motor is recorded starting up, idling, and shutting down, and some are even damaged for more varied sequences. If you need unique motor sounds and a vintage Old World vehicle, check this library out.
If you need sounds of a vehicle that always makes its presence known at the gas station, then the 'Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.7 V8 Magnaflow' by Soundholder is your library. This collection features this V8 powerhouse recorded with several mics around its engine, exhaust, and cabin for the beefy, tearing roar of its 4.7 liter engine. It also includes exterior passbys of various speeds: some at crawling speed, by while others show off the explosive Magnaflow exhaust. For a powerful car, look no further.
In storytelling, cabins can be a place of relaxation or horror, but if your characters don't sound like they're actually there, how are we supposed to feel one way or another? 'The Cabin' by UberDuo is the solution with 89 sound effects and 7 reverb Impulse Responses that are compatible with free and commercially available convolution reverb plugins. Representing different areas inside this getaway and two fleshed out audio propsets, these immersive tools will help you craft your environment - and at a price that's hard to beat.
'Office Space' by Pasi Pitkänen gives you over 6 hours of dependable office ambiences that will pad just about any future project. Each recording is designed to have low self noise for capturing the intricacies of quiet office rooms like lobbies, dining areas, kitchens, cleaning closets, elevators, printers, gaming areas, meeting rooms, showers, staircases and much more. The library also comes in a high-quality 96 kHz/24-bit or the convenient 44.1 kHz/16-bit format. Whether you need ambiences for a cop drama or a sci-fi game, you’ll find plenty of use in this library.
'Clocks' by Badlands Sound is a quick pack of designed clock sounds from various objects. You’ll hear that “tick tock” sound from tape measures, door locks, screwdrivers, power strips, car door, light switches, seatbelts, scissors, pistols, door handles, and more. Plus, each file is a minute long and loopable, making them easy to implement when you need an interesting expression of time that continues long into the background. For a unique collection of ticking clocks that don't actually come from timepieces, check out this library.
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