With this guide, you can easily create your own Christmas sound effects, using just what you already have in your house. It’s quick, free, and a lot of fun.
To make this hands-on guide, I asked my sound-designing friends for ideas, consulted the excellent Guide To Sound Effects and did some of my own experimenting in the studio.
Thanks to everyone who’s helped out – and without further ado, I give you:
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MAKING YOUR OWN CHRISTMAS SOUND EFFECTS
1: A cozy fireplace
Let’s start out with the warming, cozy Christmas fireplace: To create the sound effect of a crackling fire, there are several ways to do it: Slowly squeeze a bag of potato chips, or crumple a piece of cellophane. For the larger cracks and pops, slowly twist some bubble wrap, or break some matches.
2: Icy Sounds
Here’s how you create some great ice-cracking sounds: First off, freeze some water in an ice cube tray. Once it’s frozen, twisting and bending the frozen tray will give you some brilliant cracking and creaking sounds.
3: Magic
To sprinkle your projects with a bit of Christmas magic, there’s one particularly effective tool for that: Wind chimes. They give out a great, recognizable sound to use when something magical happens and you want to take the Christmas spirit to 11. It’s also a great sound for wintry ambiences. If you don’t have any wind chimes handy, here are several clever ways you can easily create your own.
4: Mistletoe kissing
For kissing under the mistletoe, here’s a recipe for creating a kissing sound from Mary Schoals: You’ll need a glass of water, your lips, and your forearm. Take a sip of water and wet your lips. Then, make out with the underside of your forearm, the part with very little hair–letting your mouth make sloppy kissing sounds.
If you’ve got an “assistant” at hand, you may be able to think of other ways of achieving a kissing sound.
Here's the Christmas Sound Effects Bundle:
With over 170 Christmas sounds and one-shots as well as other ringing, twinkling bells, this collection will help you complete your yuletide soundscape, conjuring up images of falling snow and hot cocoa, or a day on the beach with a fruity cocktail if you're in balmy Queensland.
For a little Christmas cheer, have a listen to the aptly-named 'Christmas Sound Effects Bundle'.
5: Ornaments
Dangle and shake metallic jewlery like earrings or similar for a ringing sound. Do you have a chandelier or similarly glass-equipped lamps or decorations in your house? They’ll make a great source for some glittery sounds too.
6: Presents
For the sound of presents being handled, sound designer Stuart Ankers suggests that you use a shoe box and fill it with various objects such as plastic toys, DVD cases, coins etc. Then shake the box with various degrees of excitement! For the sound of gift wrapping: Tear, glide, rub together and crumple old newspapers – or preferably magazines that have a slightly thicker paper quality – for some really useful sounds.
7: Santa in the chimney
For the sound of Santa squeezing himself through the chimney, try rubbing a balloon in sync with any visuals showing Santa’s wiggling efforts. Experiment with the various squeaks and creaks you get out of it. If Santa becomes stuck and manages to get free, add the almost-mandatory sound of a cork popping for a cartoony effect.
8: Skiing
A simple way to make a skiing sound is simply to rub a sheet of paper across a table or desk. For a harsher, icier sound, you can rub polystyrene against a concrete surface.
9: Sleigh Bells
You’ll of course get the best sound with the real deal – but if you’re low on bells, try this: Dangle a bunch of keys for the basic sound. For added effect, try dangling some metallic jewlerly (note: it might get slightly scratched, so beware) in sync with the key dangling for some more ringing. If you’ve got a sturdy metal chain with lots of links, you can also try beating/stroking/stepping on this while it’s laying tangled in a pile on the ground for some more ringing.
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Car Foley 2 sound effects library features foley recordings of different actions performed inside 10 different cars. It’s 130 files with a total length of 30 minutes covering actions like closing and opening regular doors, slide doors, hoods, trunks, interior buttons and switches, windows, seatbelts, brakes, gear levers, handbrakes and more.
Inside you’ll find foley recorded in cars like:
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These loops make it easy to drop the files into any game development software or to easily support props in a film/tv project.
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This library is a fast, easy, effective and extremely affordable way to complete your production tasks.
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Medieval Battle contains a wide variety of sounds taken straight from the battlefield. Unleash the full force of your army with effects from a diverse range of medieval weaponry, crowds, horses and battle charges. There are also battle cries, screams and shouts to make the audience feel like they are right there on the frontlines. To bring you the most organic and natural battle sounds, we recorded actors performing in a quiet exterior location. All sounds were recorded in 24Bit 96kHz, allowing for further sonic manipulation.
If you think your sound collection is in need of some reinforcements then this is the library for you! Medieval Battle is ideal for use in Film, TV and Game projects, and will make a perfect addition to your sound design arsenal.
Here are the included folders:
Crowds: Crowd rushes and static battle cries in a natural exterior location make these effects perfect for building the bed of a huge Medieval warzone.
Female Voices: 4 individual female actors perform multiple vocalisations including screams, grunts and efforts.
Sword & Shield Hits: A variety of sword and shield hits performed by weapons and combat experts.
Male Voices: 4 individual male actors perform multiple vocalisations including screams, grunts and efforts.
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These group of sounds will help you colour your footage with sounds from the city and the countryside. Packed with 40 sounds to enhance your design
Recorded with:
- Sound Devices 633
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- Rode NT4
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10: Sleigh Ride
For the sound of the sleigh moving through the snow, sound designer Kini Kay suggests you use a combination of flour and corn starch and take a block of wood and rub it around according to picture. For the sound of reindeer hooves, try beating two potatoes in a 3-beat rhythm in a pan filled with the flour and corn starch mixture above. You can experiment with adding sand, rice, and crushed crackers to alter the effect. Sprinkle with sleighbell sounds and make some huffs and puffs with your mouth to simulate those hardworking reindeer’s breathing.
11: Snowman-making
When you’re making a snowman, you’ll be rolling some big snow rolls to make up the body. To recreate the sound of this, fill a leather pouch or a balloon with corn starch, flour or salt. Then roll it between your hands as if you were rolling a sausage. For the squeaky sound of smaller patches of snow being added to a snowman, give the bag a few squeezes.
12: Snowball fighting
For a snowball being compacted-sound, squeeze a bag of salt / flour as with the snowman sound effects. For the inevitable snowball impact sound, punch the bag or a duvet. To sweeten the impact effect, also add the sound of you giving your chest a thump.
13: Tree felling
For the chopping sounds, chop on a wooden cutting board with a knife. Watch your fingers, and consider adding some vegetables to add texture to the chopping (great for soup later on, too!). To make a a tree falling-sound, sound designer Stuart Ankers suggests using the sound of cellotape being stretched out and then slowing it right down. Experiment with different speeds and pitches, and eventually it should sound like a thick tree cracking and falling.
14: Walking in the snow
When you need to create that sound of Santa walking through the snow, here’s how: Use flour or corn starch in a pouch (or a balloon), or rock salt in an open/wide container such as a bowl, then “walk” around with your hands in it – or actually walk in it with your feet.
15: Winter wind
Sound designer Sam Watson suggests that you try turning a touring bicycle upside down. Spin the tire and press a piece of stretched silk/parachute-pants/winter-parka against it – and out comes wind. For some extra howling, let the air out of a large ziploc bag (experiment with varying the degree of opening).
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Bob Skeleton library delivers exciting action sounds of Two Men Bob and Skeleton heroes that go down the track with more than 100 kilometers/hour.
The sounds of this library were taken from 9 spots along a track in Altenberg in the south of Germany. Each take is sorted and meta-tagged by recording spot and with this content you are able to assemble a complete run from start to finish or even to extend it by easily combining start sceneries, energetic passes in different speeds and noisy brakings down in the valley.
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Christmas time. The time of the year everybody calms down and settles. The period is also dominated by a lot of festivities, shopping and winter actions.
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The elves have been busy in the Epic Stock Media sound effects workshop this holiday season. And just in time for Christmas, they’ve outdone themselves by crafting the shiny all new Christmas & Holiday Sound Effects Library. It’s a complete collection of Christmas and winter holiday sound effects that’s perfect for YouTube videos, games, home videos, films, app games, podcasts, theatrical performances, explainer videos or any multi-media production.
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Icey cold fast swishing skiis, stomping through deep snow or leisurely gliding through a beautiful winter landscape.
Also includes some unique listening angles, single stomps & slides, and a couple of track preparation machines.
Techniques: Stereo ORTF – Equipment used: Sennheiser MKH8040ST, RME UC(preamp) and Sony PCM D50(recorder).
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Designed Ice features 47 creative ice sound effects, designed field recordings and evolving textures, that combine the natural sounds of ice with otherworldly and experimental digital post-processing. The sounds range from heavily designed to basic elements.
Designed Ice highlights:47 24bit / 96kHz WAV files / Meta-tagged (Soundminer)
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Get ready to hit the slopes with this wintery gem of a sound library!
Taken from many trips up and down the slopes in Upstate New York, this library gives you in your face gliding swishes, crunching carves, turns, stops, passbys from the left and right, falls, jumps, landings, poles poking and scraping the snow, chairlift machine sounds, bindings, and more!
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Elements: Ice is a collection of ice sounds recorded and edited over the 2015/2016 winter by George Vlad. The library is made up of more than 1500 individual ice sounds including cracks, creaks, hits, impacts, smashes, drags, stomps, splashes and water under ice ambience. The sounds have been recorded over more than 4 months in Romania and Scotland at temperatures ranging between -25C/-13F and 5C/41F.
The library’s most obvious use is as Foley elements since it covers a wide variety of ice thicknesses and performances. As is the case with other libraries in the Elements series, these sounds can also be used for other purposes such as gore sweeteners, glass or wood cracks, bone breaks etc. Additionally, all files are recorded and mastered at 24/96 quality which makes them excellent sound design elements ripe for serious processing.
Elements: Ice at a glance:• 89 .wav files ranging from 3 seconds to 8 minutes long; more than 1500 sounds in total
• recorded and presented as 24 bit/96 kHz mono files
• 1 hour and 26 minutes total length
• 1.59 GB uncompressed size – 1.09 GB zip archive
• recorded on Sound Devices 633 with Sennheiser MKH-8040 microphones and Sony PCM D100 with on-board mics and JrF hydrophones
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If you're after high quality footsteps sounds on unique surfaces, this library is for you: ‘Footsteps One’ is the first library of the series aimed at providing exciting and unique footstep sounds for your next project. All the sounds were recorded in quiet remote locations in Northern Finland.
Surfaces included:
Forest Plain • Frozen Stairs • Grass • Gravel • Pine Needle Ground • Snow Deep • Snow Packed • Snow Scrapes • Wood Scrap
Each surface comes with walk, scuff and stomp sounds with a lot of variations. Also included is bonus material like frozen stairs walk and snowscrapes recorded at various lengths.
You get the sounds in two formats: 96 KHz 24 bit and in 44.1 KHz 16 bit, for more convenient ways of utilizing the sounds in games and other media.
Don’t forget to check out the ‘Footsteps Bundle’ which gives you both of the libraries with a special bundle discount price!
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A footstep library built from long walks in cold and snowy conditions. Recorded in a remote, deserted Swedish forest, miles away from the nearest road.
Different types of snow and boots were recorded as well as different paces:
• Crusty
• Thin/hard packed
• Deep
• Frozen stairs and porches
• Stomps/scuffs
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• KamiksEach track is easy to edit into multiple single footsteps for sweetening your tracks with real snow.
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In the winter of 2013-2014, both the Northeast and the Northwest were slammed with snow, ice, wind, and blizzards. The SkewSound team braved the frigid cold and recorded what we could: footsteps, compression, breaking ice, body falls, and much more.
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Prepare for shivers! Frozen Footsteps is a huge library of winter footstep & foley sounds recorded on 8 expressive and cold surfaces in real -20 °C (and below) temperatures.
Containing over 2400 sounds in 81 files, Frozen Footsteps foley sfx library is created for game and film sound design. If your game needs winter footstep sounds, or you are missing some authentic source material to take your studio foley tracks to the next level, this is the library for you.
All surfaces were recorded in real movement with multiple walking and running velocities. Frozen Footsteps library includes also real jumping and landings sounds. Jumping sounds are often missing from other foley libraries, but are extremely useful for creating character movement sounds for games. This package gets you covered.
7 surfaces were recorded during two freezing winter nights in a quiet rural area in Finland. Everything from ground to trees was totally frozen and covered in frost. However, snow hadn’t fallen yet. This special moment allowed recording footsteps on unique surfaces that are usually under snowpack. To make the package complete, the frozen snow sounds were recorded later, with real crusty snow. In freezing temperatures, as well.
All sounds were carefully edited in iZotope RX and Pro Tools 12 removing the background and clothing noise. This was quite a task, but it was worth it. This makes the sounds extremely clear, versatile, and easy to use.
Library highlights:- 8 frozen surfaces
– 2400+ sounds in 81 sound clips
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– 96 kHz, 24-bit stereo WAV files
– 1.20 GB
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– Soundminer & BWAV metadata
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Need crunchy, creaking, crackling sounds of ice cubes? This library delivers 98 sounds of ice creaking, ice cubes clinking and squeaking, ice moving, melting ice, and many other really cold sound effects in 24bit / 96 kHz quality.
from a myriad of independent sound creators, all covered by one license agreement
- a few highlights:
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The EFX BLACK POWDER Weapons pack is a collection of 19th Century pistol, revolver and rifle weapon sounds.
The collection includes recordings of 1777 AN IX & Lepage pistols, REMINGTON 1858 & RUGER OLD ARMY revolver, 1777 AN IX, 1822 TBIS, GIBBS, LEE ENFELD, PARKER HALE rifles – as well as a number of salvos from black powder rifles.
Travel back in time and recreate classic gunfights and shootouts with this collection of vintage weapon sounds.
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Frozen is a collection of ice impacts, scrapes, debris, slides and more taken during a miserably cold winter in the arctic tundra of Massachusetts. These recordings were meticulously recorded, edited, named, renamed, edited again, re recorded, then re-renamed (you get the point) to give you the best quality ice library you can get.
The library roughly is broken into two sections, raw and processed. Raw is designed for sound designers to go wild with: stretch, distort, compress, and more to your hearts content. The processed section is for designers and content creators on the go. If you’re on a tight deadline, pulling some sounds that are already going to get you close to where you need to be is imperative. These processed versions play very nicely even when not designing ice.
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Gun Sound Pack contains 266 gun sound effects. Guns included: Pistol, Revolver Pistol, Shotgun, Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Semi-Auto Rifle, Sub-Machine gun, Machine gun.
A perfect collection of gun sounds suitable for all types of sound designers, video editors, game developers or anyone who needs a large range of high quality gun sound effects ready to use out-of-the-box. Designed specifically for games, video and other media by award winning sound designers.
This pack also includes a variety of 150 bonus sounds effects from our full library Pro Sound Collection. ALL sounds from Gun Sound Pack are included Pro Sound Collection, so if you need more sounds including bullets, silenced guns, explosions, footsteps, death screams plus MANY more be sure to check it out before purchase.
BRAVO!! =)
Glad you found it useful! :)
Great article, time to try these out!
This is so very inventive stuff! Great article! Thanks a bunch for sharing :)
Thanks, happy to do so! Fun list to put together :)