The end-result is an impressive collection of more than 8 (!) hours of music-free pub crowd and ambience recordings from around London – covering everything from near-empty to jam-packed pubs.
Get the full story behind their library, download free samples, and hear why you sometimes need to wear a hat for that perfect take:
Hi Rowan and Luke, please introduce yourselves and what got you into indie SFX:
Hi Asbjoern. Thanks for having us! Individually we are Luke and Rowan, two sound effects editors and recordists who work in film. Collectively we are C O L O S S A L. Colossal exists as a conduit for pursuing our passion of recording. We want to create and share great-sounding libraries that people find useful and interesting.
How did you come up with the idea for the ‘London Pubs’ library – and what are some of the highlights of the library?
London is blessed with many beautiful-sounding old public houses. Many of these offer up historic and unique acoustic environments and the folks that fill them make for killer recordings. We knew that editors in all walks of life would find crowds like these useful. Our aim was to create the ultimate pub crowd library and offer the rest of the world what we have on our doorstep.
How did you pick the places to record, and what was your recording setup?
Essentially our pub selection came down to three main factors: Music, Acoustics and People. We had to source locations that played no music for obvious reasons, so a lot of reckies were done before hand. Sourcing beautiful-sounding spaces was an absolute must. Some of our pubs were super old taverns panelled in wood and stained glass, so we wanted to capture that character in our recordings.
The people then in these spaces were hugely important. We didn’t just want gigabytes of busy pubs, we needed to get a full range from empty to heaving and everything in between. There are a lot of pubs in London, but using this strict criteria when selecting left us only with a few perfect venues – and we recorded every single one.
We didn’t just want gigabytes of busy pubs, we needed to get a full range from empty to heaving and everything in between
In terms of setup, we often we had DPA4060s hooked up on hats so the capsules sat right above our ears – about the most accurate Jecklin Disk you could put together, and it sounds that way. And we usually shot the same location from 2 discrete perspectives. We set up at different areas in a space, sunk up and rolled. The dual perspective gives you so much choice when it comes to using the material; you end up with a close and distant perspective of every event that happens in one recording. If you need an easy way to build a really immersive crowd bed, this stuff is great for it.
Want 26 minutes of pristine London pub recordings from the full London Pubs library? And yes, they can be used for commercial projects too. Just enter your name and valid email address below to get the download link + the much-loved A Sound Effect newsletter:
NB: If you don’t receive the email with the download link, please check your spam folder. Oh, and existing newsletter subscribers can of course get the sounds too.
What was the biggest challenge in recording the library? Any surprises along the way?
Unsurprisingly, music was our biggest challenge here. Some places we recorded
didn’t play music as a rule so they weren’t an issue, yet other places, often the best-sounding spaces played music constantly. So we had to talk it out with the place and find a time where they were happy to shut the music off while we recorded. Thankfully most publicans were happy to indulge us in exchange for a few pints!
London Pubs Vol 1: Primary interior perspectives
London Pubs Vol 2: Secondary perspectives for quad use, exterior pubs, football crowds, pub sound effects
London Pubs Complete: Features everything from vol 1 & vol 2
What are some of your favorite recordings in there?
I think a favourite is definitely the recording at the Blind Fool. Basically a bunch of loud out-of-towners were in town for a day and having a good time.
I was set up near them, with a satchel containing my 722 and a scarf around my neck, concealing the DPAs that were wired into my hat
I was set up near them, with a satchel containing my 722 and a scarf around my neck, concealing the DPAs that were wired into my hat. It wasn’t really a cold day, so I must have looked a bit odd with a scarf like that much to their amusement. They decided to take the piss out of me, my scarf, and my satchel, the very things that allowed me record them up close and personal, without them actually knowing… and the take is great.
And of course Luke caught a more diffuse version of all the mockery in all its distant glory, too.
What’s ahead for Colossal?
Without spoiling too much, we’ve got several new libraries underway. They’re a mixture of FX, Ambiences, and Sound Design that we think the editors out there are really going to love and find both useful and fun to cut with. Watch this space!!
A big thanks to Rowan and Luke from Colossal for speaking with us! You can check out their sound library ‘London Pubs’ right here on A Sound Effect.
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Discover the new and complementary opus of Magic Elements sound library!
‘Magic Elements’ is a detailed collection of designed & source sounds of organic elements, actions, characters, items, spells & atmospheres in the realm of Magic.
Volume 2 is complementary to Volume 1 and comes with almost twice the sounds!The library is meant to be modular: while being ready-to-use, it delivers useful materials and building blocks that will allow you to create your own sounds.
• DESIGNED: (772 SOUNDS)
Volume 2 of this magic saga is comprehensively focused on these 6 elements:
Energy, Liquid, Foliage, White, Cartoon/Anime, and Generic.
Each element comes with a variety of spells, actions/movements such as whoosh, impacts, atmospheres, projectiles, along with many variations in intensity and speed.
All these sounds are carefully designed, edited and meta-tagged.
The ‘generic’ category contains handy neutral go-to sounds that are useful for any project.The ‘cartoon’ will also work well with anime, & manga.
• SOURCE: (666 SOUNDS)
The source folder is packed with`many useful files that cover a large spectrum; thoroughly edited and meta-tagged. They will support your creativity with materials such as electricity, liquids, foliage, explosion, whoosh, drones, textures, impacts, chimes, … (file list here)Unique & Useful
This library is made to empower the sound designer’s sonic palette with high quality material but also with unique ‘never heard before’ sound effects.
A godsend for every sound artist, wether you are looking to start off with a magical toolkit, or you want to enrich your collection with new unique sounds!What’s inside:
Impacts, Whoosh, explosion, fireworks
Chemical Acid, Bubble, Splash
Aura, Glyph, Shimmer, Fairy Dust
Electric Spark, zap, Discharge
Foliage motion, hit, rustle
Growing vines, Ent Footstep
Choir, Harp, Chimes, Bells
Laboratory, Potion
Buff, Spell, Hypnotize, Projectile,
…Choose how you want your sounds!
2 DOWNLOAD OPTIONS PROVIDED:• GLUED (Multiple variations of the same sound glued in one file)
• SEPARATED (Each variations of sound are separated in different files)
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Lo-Fi Sci-Fi is a library packed full of characterful, authentic and gritty sounds. It was lovingly created by sound designers Barney Oram and Derek Brown, in homage to classic late 70’s and early 80’s sci-fi movies.
The collection is comprised of a wide range of sounds, including metal, organics, fire, mechanical, interfaces, creatures, foley and footsteps, abstract, ambience, and much more.Lo-Fi Sci-Fi features 620 24bit / 48kHz WAV files in total, including 45 designed sounds and 575 source sounds.
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Recorded at an old bunker constructed near the Chebucto Head lighthouse (Halifax, Nova Scotia) during WWII, now derelict and covered in rust.
These recordings were a happy accident, discovered on the way to record something else. This large, heavy steel door has been rusting since wartime, and when I noticed it I immediately knew it would have a unique sonic character. When moved, it produces interesting almost musical tones, rich with harmonics and ripe for processing.
This library includes a variety of sounds generated by interacting with the door in different ways (scraping, punching, and moving at various speeds), and was recorded in mid-side with a Schoeps Mini CMIT + CMC6 MK8 into a Sound Devices 633.
All sounds are decoded to LR stereo, normalized and processed minimally beyond noise reduction. Files are tagged with metadata in Basehead and stamped in iXML, bext and ID3 formats.
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WINDY HILL is a collection of high quality exterior wind ambiences.
The library consists of wind gusts through branches, shrub, dry grass, coniferous trees and more.
Recorded at superb 192 kHz/24 Bit2 Super wide AB recordings with a pair of spaced out DPA4060’s
3 M/S (decoded) with Sennheiser MKH8060 combo + Ambient ATE208
3 Sony PCM D100 recording
All SFX have baked-in Soundminer’s meta data.
RECORDED WITH:Â Sound Devices MixPre 6 + Sennheiser MKH 8060, ATE208, 2x DPA4060, SONY PCM D100
EDITED AND MASTERED WITH: RX, Pro Tools, Equality.27 %OFFEnds 1574549999 -
Transportation – Ambiance is a great collection of ambience recordings performed at various transportation scenarios.
You will find recordings such as a Train car interior, Jumbo jet interior, multiple cars interior under different driving conditions,
Bus interior, public transportation stations and much more.This package includes 68 Samples.
A total 2h 37m of content.
Stereo files sampled @ 96Khz / 24bit.21 %OFFEnds 1574549999 -
50 powerful industrial kicks tell a story about the role of a man among machines and unprecedented heavy mechanisms. The right kick is 50% success for a track in the true techno style and other experimental sounds. The pack includes oneshots of varying sizes and sonics, with booming subs, persistent tones and reflections. Inspired by illegal raves, parties at abandoned factories and dark basements.
This compilation is not designed for Deep House, Minimal and EDM regular artists.
This impacts library can be used as sfx’es for movie, trailers and commercial.
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Ambisonic – Transportation is a great collection of ambisonic ambiences recordings performed at various transportation scenarios.
It is aimed to provide you with great spherical content to wrap your dialogue or main focus content, allowing you to create a conniving and immersing soundtrack.
You will find recordings such as a Train car interior, Jumbo jet interior, multiple cars interior under different driving conditions,
Bus interior, public transportation stations and much more.This collection is great for post-production, VR/AR interactive sound-design, game developers and any real-time 3D audio engine.
All files are tagged and categorized for your convenience – supporting multiple tag filtering browsing applications.A Sennheiser Ambeo microphone paired with Zoom H8 was used to create this product.
This package includes 68 Samples – 136 Files.
A total 2h 37m of content.
First Order AmbiX B-Format and Stereo @ 96Khz / 24bit.Download a Demo here:
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Editing footsteps in audio post-production can be time-consuming. Footstep Loops II is a sound library that delivers a comprehensive kit of footstep sound effects made to ease your daily work.
The collection contains footstep sounds of various shoes and surfaces, recorded in different paces and edited to continuous but lively 30-second sound loops.
VARIETY
The Footstep Loops II Sound Library covers a wide range of different footsteps:
Barefoot, Socks, Slippers, Flip-Flops, Sneakers on Wood, Sneakers on Concrete, Boots on Wood, Boots on Concrete, Heels on Wood, Heels on Stone;
Grass, Gravel, Forest, Foliage, Dry Foliage, Stones, Puddle, Mud, Snow;
Stairs up + down: Wooden Stairs, Metal Stairs, Stone Stairs
PACEEach type of footsteps is available as a set of 13 sound files that represent a range from walking very slowly up to very speedy. Paces are sorted by Footsteps per Minute (FPM):
Ground Footsteps: from 40 FPM to 160 FPM
Stairs Footsteps: from 60 FPM to 180 FPM (up) / from 80 FPM to 200 FPM (down)
LAYERSSince all (ground) footstep loops have the same FPM paces, they can be layered easily. E.g. you can add a puddle sound element to sneakers walking on concrete etc.
CLOTHINGYou can add clothing as a layer to make the movements sound more natural. The sounds of jeans & jacket fit to all ground footsteps. Furthermore, versions with well-balanced clothing sounds of all main footstep loops are already included as ready-to-use files!
ADDITIONAL ELEMENTSSome experimental elements are also included in the library:
2 layers of floor creaks and one layer that adds the sound of keys in the pocket while walking.
TIME-COMPRESSPaces of the sound loops included in the Footstep Loops II sound library increase in steps of 10 FPM each. If you need a value in between, time-compress the file just a tiny bit – the quality loss is almost inaudible in modern digital audio workstations.
ONLINE FOOTSTEPS GENERATORTo get an impression of what you get with the Footstep Loops II sound library, go HERE and play around with footsteps online.
- 663 audio files
- 331 minutes total runtime
- all files contain meta-data / keywords for easy search
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All sounds from this library are included in:
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