City Life Sound Effects

City and urban sound effects & recordings – including crowds, walla, traffic and other city activity

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Ambisonic Sound Effects Offices and Workplaces Ambience Kit Play Track 181 sounds included, 141 mins total $20

A meticulously crafted sound library that offers a plethora of workplace ambiences and sounds, transporting your audience to bustling offices, serene lobbies, humming server rooms, and much more. Immerse your audience in the essence of bustling urban workspaces.

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Traffic Sound Effects Passing Traffic Play Track 65 sounds included $20

Sixty five tracks of passing traffic: cars, vans and trucks, slow and fast, single passes, groups, a few from a small racetrack, dry roads, damp roads, lonely roads and crowded roads and one manic traffic jam from Manhattan’s Chintatown that’s worth the price of admission on its own. Locations include London, Dublin, Arnhem and New York.

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City Life Sound Effects Sounds of Cairo Play Track 49 sounds included, 207 mins total $60

This sound effects archive contains sounds recorded in Cairo and Alexandria in September 2015. I spent a month in Cairo recording sounds. There are many crowds, traffic recordings and recordings of prayer calls. The city has 20 million people, 5 million cars and it never sleeps. It is truly a fantastic, noisy place, recorded in glorious 96 kHz/24 bit. I hope you enjoy the archive.

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City Life Sound Effects Spanish Primary School Play Track 72+ sounds included, 120 mins total $50
SPANISH PRIMARY SCHOOL brings you interior and exterior stereo recordings of a primary school located in Cordoba, Spain.

Key features:
- Kids age from 5 to 11 years old.
- Locations: interiors (main entrance, corridors, school cafeteria, classroom) and exteriors (schoolyard).
- Mainly focused on Castilian Spanish. In those cases, the Spanish keyword has been added, both in the filename and the description.
- Non-verbal communication is also included.
- General ambiences with more or less distant voices (teachers and students) and activities such as doors opening, dragging chairs, footsteps, school bags with wheels, etc. Any other undesirable noise (traffic, birds) is absent in these tracks.
- A few room tones of empty locations (classroom, corridor, kitchen, cafeteria) with noises coming from far away are also included.
- Classroom recordings include actions such as playing, chatting, packing up, laughing, whistling, clapping, cheering and screaming. From small to bigger groups. Most of them can be used for any school, but some others have a specific Spanish identity. All these files have been recorded with two different microphones.
- Most of the recordings have been stealth-recorded in order to preserve the nature of the action and not influence the performance. For this, Sony D100 and Zoom H2n were used.
- Whenever possible, another setup was used (Zoom F8 + Sennheiser 8040/30 in MS).
- School objects (pencils, chairs, wrapping paper) recorded in mono from a near perspective.
- All files come with Soundminer embedded metadata, in 96 kHz and 24 bit.
- Descriptive markers have been included to highlight interesting events in an otherwise featureless waveform. These markers can be read in programs such as Izotope RX, Reaper, and Soundminer.
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Weather Sound Effects Urban Rain Play Track 50 sounds included, 200 mins total $35

Urban Rain is a sound library that delivers 50 city rain sounds recorded in 96 kHz/24 bit, with Soundminer and BWAV embedded metadata. The library contains various types of rain at different intensities, from very light to downpour. Several thunder claps and rumbles are present as well. Locations are as follows: a terrace, a balcony, a backyard, several streets, a rooftop, a garage, inside a car, a loft (from inside), Chelsea FC Stadium and two patios (interior). All files have been recorded at night so human activity is minimum, although you will hear a tiny bit of traffic rumble in the background.

The library also includes 8 Ambisonics files (B-Format, both in FuMa and ambiX, along with a downmix in stereo) and other sounds related to water in the citylife, such as pipes, a drain and a gutter, which are loopable. By using the free SoundField SurroundZone 2 plugin you can convert the B-format files into your preferred format (stereo, 5.0, 5.1, 7.1).

Descriptive markers have been added to several files to highlight interesting events in an otherwise featureless waveform. These markers can be read in programs such as Izotope RX, Reaper, and Soundminer. The markers are also included as .txt files in separate folder.

The total length of the library is 200 minutes.

Gear used: Zoom F8, Sennheiser Ambeo, Sony D100.

UCS compliant metadata. Fields included CatID, Category, Subcategory, FX Name, Filename, Description, BWDescription, Library, RecType, RecMedium, Microphone, Designer, Manufacturer, Keywords.

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Travel & Transportation Sounds of the London Underground Play Track 189+ sounds included $40

Anybody familiar with travelling on the London Underground will be aware of the distinct soundscapes beneath the streets of London; from the clatter of the ticket hall barriers to the eerie rumbles from the tunnels, waiting in anticipation for the next train to come rushing past before stopping with the squeal of the brakes.

Each type of train on the network has its own distinct characteristics such as the moaning of the electric traction motors or the peculiar sound of the 1996 Stock used on the Jubilee Line.

All of these sounds have been beautifully captured in 24-bit 48KHz quality- recorded both with XY stereo microphones and binaurally- creating a highly realistic experience for headphone users.

Note to users:
As many of you will know, like many urban transit systems, the London Underground is littered with pre-recorded public announcements.
These recordings have been extensively edited to the highest quality to ensure that these pre-recorded announcements have been removed where possible.

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City Life Sound Effects Pedestrian Streets of Moscow Play Track 27 sounds included, 124 mins total From: $44

This sound library was recorded in Moscow’s downtown on 13 locations at different times of the year. 27 samples include the sounds of passers-by, steps and random conversations against the background of distant traffic, singing birds and other casual sounds.

It can be useful for audio post-production when working with movies, trailers or commercials in which it is necessary to convey the routine life atmosphere of Russian cities. All files are carefully selected and prepared. Metadata included in the archive – and the library is available in both a stereo and a surround version.

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City Life Sound Effects Tokyo Tourist Play Track 34 sounds included, 79 mins total $42

Tokyo Tourist is more than 2.5 GBof sound from different locations in Tokyo and beyond.
34 recordings/79 minutes of stereo recordings featuring temples, trains, religious processions and much more – this library takes you to some of the locations a tourist might visit, all in 24bit/96kHz quality. All files are UCS-compliant.

Recording with the same setup as Tokyo – Outdoor Ambiances, I went to Shinjuku station and Gyoen Park. I recorded the Kanda festival procession in the streets of Akihabara, captured the infernal sound in a video game arcade – just to name a few of the sounds in this library.

Tokoy Tourist delivers:

• Clean, realistic ambient recordings of interesting locations
• Traffic, temples, parks, trains, people, people, people…
• All sounds recorded with the same microphones – in the same setup (spaced-omni)
• BWAV metadata embedded with even more included in CSV and ODS (OpenOffice) formats

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Environments & Ambiences Quad City Berlin Play Track 34+ sounds included, 108 mins total
Rated 5.00 out of 5
From: $99

Quad City Berlin is a comprehensive collection of quadrophonic recordings from the busy and multifaceted german capital, the second largest city in the European Union.
It was created to work as an internationally usable library of urban ambiences while still capturing the unique sounds of Berlin. It’s a set of extensive and versatile recordings focused on large open spaces and the nice fat low-end hum of major city traffic.

Quad City Berlin comes in two flavors:
– Quad + MS: four channels with omni-directional mics + two channels mid-side (6 channels total, please check out diagram below. 102 files)
– Stereo only: the two front channels of the quad setup only (A-B stereo, 34 files)

The locations covered in Quad City Berlin include: rooftops, main roads & squares, residential areas, parks, freeways, room ambiences

The recording session took place in the fall of 2015 where birdsong is usually very sparse and the weather can still be sunny and dry. Thanks to these conditions, most of the recordings contain no bird chirping at all. All recordings where made using the same microphone setup: four omni-directional mics with equal distances to each other and one MS rig at the front side.

Depending on the location, the omnis where placed up to 3 meters apart to deliver a truly wide sound that works well on a cinema mixing stage. The MS signal serves as both a center signal (if needed) and a stereo option that is also mono compatible.
The four omnis where the high-end DPA 4006 (Bruel&Kjaer) microphones with a remarkable quality in the low frequencies. They work exceptionally well for city background hum and low engine sounds producing a very full and warm, yet precise sound.

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Ambisonic Sound Effects Fireworks 1 Play Track 27 sounds included, 27 mins total $75

A collection of fireworks sound effects, mostly recorded from the launching area, close to the mortars for some big booms and fuse sounds. Of course you will find classical fireworks atmosphere here too. And if you are looking for rocket sounds or loud blasts, you should try slowing them down.

About Ambisonics:
This is an Ambisonics sound effects library - and by using the free SoundField SurroundZone 2 plugin you can convert the B-format files into your preferred format (stereo, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0 or 7.1 surround). Note: The library also contains ready-made stereo mixdowns for your convenience.

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Car Sound Effects Sirens Volume 2 Play Track 100 sounds included $25

Sirens Volume 2 delivers a wealth of siren sounds, from police cars, ambulances, fire trucks and many emergency alarms. Features a range of US siren wails and yelps, arrivals, constant wailing and pass-bys, from internal and external perspectives + siren recordings from European countries. These sounds are all hand-picked from Sound Ideas General HD and General HD 2 libraries.

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World Sounds Greece Ambience Play Track 63 sounds included, 157 mins total $40

Over 2.5 hours of varied ambience from Greece – from the bustling Athens rush hour to peaceful olive groves and the gentle lapping waves of the Ionian Sea. This collection captures daily life and quintessentially Greek ambience from various locations on the islands and mainland, including Athens, Delphi, Ithaca and the Peloponnese. Expect lots of city life, rural villages, church bells, countryside, harbour and seaside ambience.

All files are UCS compliant, 24 bit/ 96k and metadata is included (via soundminer), with keywords and detailed markers embedded to quickly locate specific sounds/ regions. Recorded with Usi Pro, Sony PCM-D100 and Wildtronics Stereo microphones.

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Nature & Countryside Ambiences Small German City And Suburban Play Track 36 sounds included, 571 mins total From: $15

36 high-quality recorded ambiences in a south-German city with 100.000 inhabitants. Recorded on different spots in different seasons and weather situations. Day and night, with or without people, downtown or suburban, next to busy streets, in a forest and much more.

Available in 7.0 and 5.0 surround, so it‘s perfect for sounddesign for motion pictures. Most of the files have a duration of five minutes and more, so you don‘t need to loop them.

If you only need the stereo-versions of the recordings you can get them here for half the price.

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City Life Sound Effects Ambisonics – Zoo Play Track 61 sounds included, 164 mins total From: $35

Immerse yourself with this collection of ambisonic zoo atmospheres, comprised of animal soundscapes ranging from grumpy flamingos, screaming gibbons, loud lories, curious geese, vocal chimpanzees, amongst other residents of Lisbon’s Zoo. You’ll also find plenty of crowd recordings, ranging from very quiet and distant conversations, to people passing-by from multiple directions and chair-lift discussions, all in different languages.

The zoo’s staff graciously allowed me to record before opening hours, resulting in neutral soundscapes alongside the regular crowded ambiences. This gives you flexibility in how you can use these sounds for your projects.

This sound library is available in both Ambisonics FuMa (B Format) and Stereo (Binaural) formats.

If you wish to support the animal conservation efforts of Lisbon’s Zoo, you can do so either as a company or as an individual. Given the ever-growing labors of zoos and shelters worldwide to protect and breed endangered species, every bit of support or exposure helps. Know how you can do your part through the hyperlinks above or contact your local sanctuaries for more information.

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City Life Sound Effects Armenia Play Track 37+ sounds included, 118 mins total $35

Armenia Faunethic sound library is a unique collection of 37 sounds recorded in this small country landlocked in the Caucasus mountain range, right in the middle of Orient, Middle-east and Asia.

All these sounds has been recorded and produced with high quality equipment at 24 Bit / 96 kHz.

This collection offers a wide diversity of soundscapes such as:
• Villages and countryside
• Church and catholic ceremony
• City of Yerevan
• Markets and many other public places

This library provides authentic and interesting sounds, recorded with DPA, MBHO and Neumann mics powered by an Aeta 4minX.

All Faunethic tracks include metadata carefully edited, compatible with Soundminer, Soundly and Basehead.

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Environments & Ambiences New Zealand Ambiences Play Track 27 sounds included $30

New Zealand Ambiences is a beautifully crafted ambience library exploring the incredible country and sounds of New Zealand (mainly focusing on the South Island). This library will take you on a sonic adventure exploring the many unique birds and creatures ranging from locations such as: Haast, Queenstown, Lake Paringa, Lake Wakatipu, Te Anau, the Clay Cliffs and Pukaki!

Recorded at 24 bit/192 kHz you’ll have the flexibility to pitch these ambiences and bird songs to create some truly amazing other worldly atmospheres!

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City Life Sound Effects Shenzhen Play Track 53 sounds included, 266 mins total $38.99

Shenzhen is the first ever sound library of the Silicon Valley of China. This library invites you on the first ever audiological journey to the unique locations in Shenzhen that only locals know.

This is a unique collection of sounds captured of various atmospheres at different times of the day. From energetic local farmer’s market, to howling subway tubes, to local middle school performance day, to old alleyways of a forgotten part of town.

The library also contains many rhythmic elements, such as meat chopping, construction hammering, and ominous beeps. Not to mention the echoing Chinese announcements between two schools, and the cacophony of crying and construction in a forgotten alley. I hope this library will even meet your sound design needs, and ultimately show you a local and unique side of China.

All recorded in 24 bit/96 kHz. Some recordings contain detail information above 20khz. The library is passionately described emotive words, and all the recordings are fully tagged with metadatas compatible with Soundminer, Basehead and Soundly.

Gear Used: Roland R26, four channel built-in microphones (OMNI and XY), four channels merged down to a stereo file.

Any questions? Shoot me an email here

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City Life Sound Effects The Elevator Speaks Play Track 342 sounds included, 10 mins total $30

THE ELEVATOR SPEAKS is a sound pack that has a neutral male English voice reading floors and levels up to 100. Beyond the 100th floor you can use the One Hundred And, Two Hundred And etc up to floor One Thousand, to concatenate the speech files. I.e 'level two hundred and ten' or 'three hundred and fiftieth floor.'

The voice files are bespoke, recorded for this sound pack and ok to use in any project or indeed, elevator. PLEASE NOTE I have duplicated the VO files, one set is processed to sound as though they are coming through a small speaker, one set are as recorded, unprocessed for you to use as is or process as desired.

There are also a few sound effects. An elevator travelling, doors and a button press.

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City Life Sound Effects Kolkata City Surround Ambiences Play Track 152 sounds included, 847 mins total $164

The city of Kolkata, India, is one of the sonically richest locations in the world. This library features over 25 locations and 276 files of both day and night time recordings in 5.1 and stereo formats. Feel the relentless energy of Bagbazar Street, the traffic rumble over Howrah Bridge, walk through the flower market along the Ganges river, and much more…

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City Life Sound Effects Coastal Spain Play Track 21 sounds included, 74 mins total $24.99

Coastal Spain is a collection of 21 ambiances recorded in a Spanish costal city.

From empty, quiet places to loud, bustling streets. City parks, distant churches, close and distant traffic, restaurants, pedestrians, walla, city hall bells, floating creaky marina docks, doves, sparrows, birds, old Vespas, city presence heard from hills, railway terminal, tiny restaurants, playgrounds and more.

All audio clips loop seamlessly.

All SFX have baked-in Soundminer’s meta data

Download includes additional 44.1kHz 16Bit version for Unreal Engine.
LOCATION: Spain, Costa Blanca
RECORDED WITH: Sound Devices MixPre-6 + 2x DPA4060
EDITED WITH: iZotope RX, Pro Tools.

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Environments & Ambiences South African Ambiences – Interiors 1 Play Track 36 sounds included, 160 mins total $45

Dive into the vibrant heart of South Africa with our “South African Interiors” ambiences sound effects library. Experience the authentic pulse of South African life through a rich tapestry of soundscapes, expertly captured in iconic locations in and around Cape Town.

From the bustling chatter of a local restaurant to the serene whispers of residential interiors, this collection offers a treasure trove of ambiences that evoke the spirit and diversity of South African culture. Feel the energy of a boxing gym, the hustle of an airport, or the tranquility of a hotel lobby, all expertly recorded to bring your projects to life.

Also available as part of the “South African Bundle” collection.

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City Life Sound Effects Car Parks Play Track 24 sounds included, 120 mins total $25

This library is filled with recordings of parking garages; underground, interior and exterior.

You’ll hear exterior parking lots next to shopping malls, echoey interior lots, and underground lots with their creepy ventilation and plumbing. In total, you’ll receive 24 recordings that are five minutes each, so there’s plenty to work with. Whether you have a horror game with an unknown creature behind that next car or an action film with a shootout in a parking garage, this library will have you covered. All sounds were recorded using the Sound Devices Mix Pre 6 and a stereo pair of Sennheiser MKH 8020s.

Visit edible-audio.com for behind the scenes photos, contact information, sound library updates and exclusive deals.

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Weather Sound Effects Surround In The Rain 5.1 + Stereo Play Track 30 sounds included, 100 mins total $69

Want the sounds of urban rain storms, gutters, drains and wet traffic? Surround In the Rain features 30 HD 24bit/48khz 5.1 Surround Sound Effects with exactly that. Recorded with discrete Quad microphones, and mastered in 5.1 surround (L-C-R-Ls-Rr-Lf Embeded .WAV format). Recording locations are all from center perspective to create the widest possible sound, and a stereo version of each cue is included, as well as embedded metadata. Want a taste of what's included? Download the 5.1 Surround Demo file here and try it out on your own system! From veteran Hollywood Sound Designer Lenny Jones.

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City Life Sound Effects UK Ambiences Pack 1 Play Track 100+ sounds included, 370+ mins total $85

Over 100 stereo ambiences from across the UK, including city, countryside, beaches, interior and exterior – available for instant download. View the full list of sounds below.

Comes with comprehensive metadata – and in total, this library gives you more than 6 hours of pristine, authentic recordings from the UK!

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With A Sound Effect, Asbjoern has created a web site where our international community can browse, learn, and share the vast fruits of our labors. Together we are accelerating the very real potential power of sound design as a recognized art form.

Wylie Stateman

Supervising sound editor,
The Hateful Eight, Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill: Vol. 1

A Sound Effect is an excellent resource for us to keep our animated films sounding unique and exciting.

Gabriel Guy

Re-recording Mixer, Walt Disney Animation Studios:
Frozen, Big Hero 6

A Sound Effect is a great asset to have discovered.

We found the site very easy to navigate, purchasing and downloads were effortless and the effects themselves are awesome! Asbjoern has done us all a great service.

We’ll definitely be back!

Wayne Pashley

Supervising Sound Editor/Re-recording Mixer, The Lego Movie & Mad Max: Fury Road

There are many great independent sound effect libraries available these days. The main problem with having so many, is keeping track of them!

A Sound Effect is a great hub, and is one of the first places I visit to look for sounds by category or genre. I started coming here to see if I could find libraries that I knew I had heard, but forgot WHERE I had heard them.

And in the process discovered libraries I never would have found otherwise. Great work! Keep it up!

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Sound designer:
Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit trilogies

We're always looking for new sounds to mangle, so when A Sound Effect had a holiday sale, I tried them out.

The purchase experience is really smooth and quick, and delivery is almost instant.

I'll definitely come back to them again in the future!

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Director, Digital - Source Sound Inc.

A Sound Effect is a wonderful resource for indie sound effects libraries. On top of that, it has some of the finest sound design, film and game audio interviews!

Zdravko Djordjevic

founder of The Audio Spotlight

I often need very specific types of sounds so I've become a big supporter of independent recorders.

Until now I've always had to go to their individual websites. Now I can find them all in one place.

And, Asbjoern is great to work with!

Bob Bronow, CAS, MPSE

Re-recording Mixer, Sound Designer: Deadliest Catch, Ax Men, The Wrecking Crew

A Sound Effect is a well curated boutique sound effects shop and a great place to find industry interviews and learning resources.

George Vlad

video game sound designer

Note to users:
As many of you will know, like many urban transit systems, the London Underground is littered with pre-recorded public announcements.
These recordings have been extensively edited to the highest quality to ensure that these pre-recorded announcements have been removed where possible.

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Note to users: As many of you will know, like many urban transit systems, the London Underground is littered with pre-recorded public announcements. These recordings have been extensively edited to the highest quality to ensure that these pre-recorded announcements have been removed where possible.