Free Sound Effects and where to find them
Who doesn’t like free sound effects? Whether you’re just getting started and don’t want to invest a lot of money in libraries yet, if you’re a student and need to start building your library, if you’re a sound designer and want to check out what other companies are doing for reference purposes, or simply want to expand your arsenal, these resources might interest you.
As a sound designer, I am always looking for new sound effects to check and I personally like to compare my work to other, see how many sounds library have, how they organize sounds, how they design or record their stuff, and I think this can be a great way to improve. But if you’re not
Most of the times, sample companies offer free sounds as pack samplers when you subscribe the mailing list. Yes, you might hate subscribing mailing lists and receiving tons of promotional emails, but hey, free sounds await you.
Below you can find a list with the links to my favourite ones, if you know more or want to contribute, please let me know so we can build a more complete list together.
A sound effect
Probably one of the most important resources and for multiple reasons. First, they have a wonderful blog where you can find video tutorials on sound design and interviews with pros and they are also a huge marketplace where a lot of companies sell their libraries, so might be worth checking out just for this. In addition, with their newsletter you have access to a lot of free sound effects provided by the various companies that sell on ASF platform.
Soundly is a great platform with a free app that I warmly recommend. They have a great cloud library you can access with a cheap monthly subscription, but they also have a free collection of sounds. You can also use the app (with some limitations if you don’t subscribe) to organize your files locally and add metadata.
Huge free starter pack with 3.7 GB of material.
A huge name in this field, they offer a few free sounds taken from a pack each month. They are absolutely well-crafted and worth checking out.
Krotos is well known for their plug-ins, but they offer monthly free sounds when subscribing to the list.
Sonniss is a great platform where you can find a lot of sound libraries, but the GDC collection is stunning pack of 50GB of sounds. They include a few sounds taken from packs made by companies that sell on Sonniss.
Just create an account and browse thousands of free sound effects! Everyone can contribute uploading sounds so do it if you can. The downside is that you can encounter sounds that are not top notch, or creators that want to be credited for their work.
PSE offers incredible collections and sound packs that are curated by legends, such as Mark Mangini. Their collections are huge and strongly recommended if you’re starting out. Check their Micro free pack to listen.
Here you can find a nice marketplace with a lot of companies, Epic Stock Media included, which offers great sounding sound effects for videogames and movies.
I discovered this thanks to a suggestion of Vanny Audio (she posts great content and tips about sound design, sound editing and audio post production). They offer agenerous collection of free sound effects.
Let me know if you find these useful and drop a message if you know any other free sources of SFX.