This week on A Sound Effect we have ambiences aplenty, as well as gunshots, footsteps, UI sounds, metal and wood impacts, and a monster vocalization processor you will fall in love with. You can go to South Africa and hear their immersive crickets and beautifully bewitching birds, or to Germany or rural Philippines to experience their domestic atmospheres. There are also collections of massive metal and wood impacts, futuristic UI sounds, enormous footsteps, and a vocal processing program that will inspire your monstrous performances. With so much exciting content available, the best thing to do is dive right in!
Great minds think alike, and this recap features two libraries from South Africa! 'Southern African Ambience' by George Vlad and Daan Hendriks is a beautiful, entrancing sound library of soundscapes near the Botswana border. These enchanting, impossibly pure ambiences feature 45 different species of birds with their entrancing incantations and almost human-like calls. Each ambience ranges from 4 to 10 minutes and also include cicadas, crickets, frogs, baboons and jackals. Plus, each recording is available in stereo and surround. For lush, beautiful, expertly recorded sounds of the savanna, give this one a listen.
'Machine Factory – Impact and Foley' by Depth of Sound has sounds of crashing metal and wood that will add thick flavors and moods to your ambiences. Featuring 265 sounds, you will hear recordings of beaten metal doors, footsteps on stairways, stones rolling on metal, and over 120 metal and wood impacts. These effects are also recorded at 96kHz, so there is almost no limit to the shear mass of your lignin and iron structures. If you are producing audiobooks and radio broadcasts that need distinct context in their sound design, check out this library.
If you didn't hear of 'Dehumaniser 2' at the past GDCs, then you are in for a treat. Krotos Audio's flagship program has been developed and improved and their newest installment will change how you think of beastly performances. This powerful vocal processing tool doesn't just transform your voice into chilling, professional-sounding monsters, animals and robots, it also manipulates on the fly in your DAW to inspire the demon within your voice actors! Whether you work in film, games or horror attractions, this program will make each performance wickedly fun.
'STOMPS – Creature Footsteps' by isn't an homage to the UK percussion sensation, it is a huge collection of over 8,500 massive footsteps. Created by Bonson, this library has footsteps inspired by androids, giant crabs, minotaurs, pirate zombies, vikings, cyclops, dinosaurs, and more! You'll hear various paces like walking, running, trotting and galloping with 2 or 4 legs. Plus, there are over 600 textures and 500 designed sounds to bring body to your clomps and plods. If your game has individual character footsteps to help your players detect their enemies by sound, this is the perfect library for you!
'South African Crickets' by Tonschliff GmbH is collection of lush cricket and cicada ambiences from the southern countries of Africa. Recorded in Swaziland and various areas in South Africa, this library has over three hours of these chirping, humming insects; each file ranges from 1.5 to 12 minutes. In their persistent and bewitching buzzes, you can hear mosquitoes, birds, baboons and even hippos, too! If you want your audience to be transported deep into the heart of the veld, give this library a listen.
Faunethic's Charlie Atanasyan is back with his newest library, 'Philippines'. This collection captures sounds of humankind and wildlife from the rural areas of the islands of Palawan and Luzon. You will hear sounds of farm life and Banaue's rice fields with roosters calls and snorting pigs, as well as children playing and vendors shouting in village markets. You will also hear various birds - and even a gecko - in the nearby forests and jungles. Whether you need close up sounds for that 'man on the street' feel or unique animal sounds and ambiences, this is one to hear.
'Guns, Bullets and Explosions' by Gamemaster Audio is a collection of 266 gun sound effects - but wait, there's more. Along with the firing of a pistol, revolver, shotgun, rifles, SMG, and machine gun, it has foley of their mechanics, as well as flybys and impacts on 16 different surfaces like flesh, dirt, grass, glass, metal and snow. On top of all that, you receive 27 high-quality explosions sounds! And with flexible purchasing options, you can buy the gun or explosions separately, or go all out and purchase their entire 'Pro Sound Collection'.
'Collected Ambiences' by SoundBits is a series that has been captured by Saro Sahihi over the last year. With nine collections, each ranging from 100 to 150 minutes long, this mass of material features domestic sounds that are so often needed in documentary film and television. With ambiences of crowds, residential areas, construction sites, shopping malls, markets, fairs, countrysides, supermarkets, and train stations, you will find plenty of variation for unique backgrounds in hours upon hours of clean, often loopable, recordings. Listen to the demos and hear for yourself!
When it comes to UI sound effects, it's hard to get enough bleeps and bloops to indicate all your system functions. But with over 570 sounds, 'Binary Code' by Sound Response should appease your artificial intelligent for the foreseeable future. This library has beeps, read-outs, calculations, and typing SFX, all with a consistent hi-tech aesthetic that won't break your audience's belief that they are hearing life as experienced by the generations ahead. For UI sounds you can quickly drop into your project, this library has the futuristic edge you've been looking for.
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