Best Free Sound Libraries
Libby Cowen
Sound libraries can be enormous timesavers for audio professionals and amateur sound designers alike. While it can be fun to create your own sounds, creating hundreds if not thousands of individual sounds for a single project is simply not realistic in most cases.
99Sounds does the most when it comes to providing a high-quality, royalty-free sound library that covers everything from handclaps to electromagnetic hums and whines. Best of all, every sound is 100% free.
SoundBible is another free sound effect library that includes an impressive amount of royalty-free sounds available to download for free. Sound recordings are available in wav files or mp3 format.
The description is in the name: Freesound provides a vast library of free royalty-free sound samples that can be used for nearly limitless applications. The catch is that the site can be a bit tricky to navigate, and not all sounds are cinema-quality, but for novice designers or designers on a budget, this is a fantastic resource.
Ready to dip your toes into immersive 360 degree sound? RDE has made its entire royalty-free ambisonic sound library available for free. Ambisonic recordings are designed to perfectly replicate the location of a sound in relation to the listener, which makes them great for VR experience design.
Epidemic is most well-known for its royalty-free music library specifically designed to cater to YouTubers and other new media content creation, however, they have also developed a sizeable sound effect library that spans over 90,000 high-quality sound effects.
This is one of the priciest investments on our list, but for a good reason. SoundStorm is an Academy Award-winning sound design studio whose credits include Tomb Raider, The Fast and the Furious, Elf, and many more. They have compiled more than 50,000 royalty-free, cinema-quality sound effects into this library
A long time ago someone asked me to listen to two recordings of the same piece, made more than 50 years apart, and I realized that on balance phrasing is more important to me than the modern recording quality. I feel the same way comparing older Boston Symphony recordings of Shostakovich to recent hyper-detailed HD productions, which to my ears sound like exquisitely recorded soulless meanderings.
Well, some libraries like Hollywood Orchestra Opus (which is way out of balance in this regard) provide gain controls independently for each articulation, so you can customize things that way without having to move away from a keyswitched patch.
The A Sound Effect website makes for a nice royalty-free audio internet hub, as a lot of sound designers have their creations featured here through affiliation. As an example, remember Mattias Cellotto from earlier in the list? Well, all of his sound packs are also featured here.
Boom have a number of free packs available if you want to extend a tentative toe into the sonic waters. For example, their Processed Impacts pack is ready to be added to your collection now, containing 348 high-grade impact samples.
The SoundBits catalogue includes a plentiful supply of sample libraries that reach far and wide across the web. Some of their samples are listed individually on third-party associate sites, such as Pro Sound Effects, Pond5, AudioJungle, and DepositPhotos and they also have releases distributed exclusively across their partnered stores, including on our very own Krotos webpage.
Another collaborative collection of sounds from across the globe, Freesound also functions as a hub where sound designers can share their work. A neat, unique feature on the Freesound website is their random sound of the day, whereby they post a random sound from their pool of 625,000+ samples.
One of the limitations of Freesound as an SFX depot is that just about anyone and everyone can upload their audio files on the site, resulting in some samples being low resolution and sub-optimal for high-grade design. Such is life when you commit to being a community-minded outlet though, and the collective spirit on the site is encouraging. They have a dedicated forum page with conversations occurring all day, every day, which makes for a useful information archive.
And of course the real issue is fitting them all inside of 1GB - has anyone had any luck picking and choosing, using the John Melas tool? I've yet to figure that part out (sounds like a bit of a ballache, really)
I bought a Novation Summit in a totally indulgent don't-need-it-for-gigs move, but I'll still look at that prophet/moog one. I think the analog sounds are the weakest in the MODX along with the organs.
Personally I really like the acoustic and electric pianos in the Modx, the acoustic ones seem to work better live than my Electro's did. Do you feel the electric pianos in that first library are much better than the MODX's?
Certainly I'll take a look at the OB6 one, Summit or not. Occasionally on short gigs I'll bring only one keyboard and it would be nice to have some cutting poly sounds for songs like Don't You Forget about me that sound good (though one of the factory patches in the MODX works very well for the softer verse analog synth.)
Beware of some of the libraries from Synth Cloud. I bought one of the Pink Floyd libraries and the Super JX. They must have some corrupt code or something...they both made my whole synth slowly slip out of tune. It is so slow and and unperceived until it"s too late....in the middle of a gig. Boy, that SUCKED!
I thought my MODX7 had malfunctioned and was going to have to be returned, but after a factory reset and reloading libraries, one by one, only those two caused the tuning go all wonky. It"s a shame as the JX library in particular has some great emulations.
Organimation is pretty good, but it was released before the firmware update so only uses the first rotary sim in the MODX"s effects. The second one implemented with the firmware update is much better for my tastes...dirtier and more pronounced. But with typical Yamaha fashion, editing navigation is quite a challenge.
I have some Purgatory Creek samples and think they are great. But I have owned and loved three Nord keyboards (Electro 3, Staget 2, Stage 3) and IMO, the Nord electric pianos are pretty long in the tooth at this point and nothing to write home about. I have always preferred the Yamaha epianos on the Motif/MOX/Montage/MODX family and the modeled Kronos epiano. So I guess I'm saying that the Purgatory creek epianos are probably way above the Nord. YMMV.
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I wonder if we're talking about the same Nords here. Nord overhauled all of their EPs a couple of years ago, but it's not immediately apparent if you're using the older or the newer samples. The new ones are vastly better, with Purgatory Creek being nearly as good - the Wurly being the only letdown. Whether they are better than the new Yamaha CP88, I can't say. Are they the same sounds as the Montage/MODX? The only factory piano sounds I use from the MODX are the CP80, and the CFX Piano only because 'Epic Grand' won't fit
There are at least a few Rhodes patches/libraries on the CP88 that one would have a tough time distinguishing in A/B comparison from the Crumar Seven (if that"s a measure at all) especially dry. Samples vs. Modeling. With FX? Ok, if one is particularly familiar with the sound of Yamaha VCM vs others, phaser, tremolo, etc. then maybe more evident. There are a LOT of very similar sounding Rhodes patches on lots of various brand keyboards and VSTs. Much has to do with the condition and setup of the source instrument and typically they opt for ones in good condition. I like the Purgatory Creek libraries a lot because the source instruments really sound cared for and the samples are direct line out captures. Sometimes developers/sound designers pick a model that has quirks - which I sort of like as well because the imperfections give it some character. Of course attention to detail in the programming to get the instrument to respond well with the included action or a controller - they can all spend countless hours creating something that feels like an instrument you enjoy to play. Hence, why so many KCers own too many keyboards and VSTs that all make Rhodes sounds.
Could not agree more - I thought the default EP sounds were ok until I got this set. Then with the OS update I forgot to back them up and lost them but didn't realise it: until I dialed up the patches I use and right away realised the sound quality had plummeted. I then reinstalled and all was good
I still had to tweak the Purgatory 'Mark I' a fair bit to get it where I like it (my go-to Rhodes on the Nord is the 'Nefertiti XL'). I also found the Wurly and CP70 not quite there no matter how much I tweaked it - I ended up using the factory MODX 'CP80 Bright' on gigs. The Purgatory Clav, however, is killer.
It should be noted that the Purgatory Creek and K-Sounds libraries are also available for Kronos (in a larger versions sometimes), but then that's also one of the most expensive, heavy, and user-unfriendly boards on the market.
Totally agree. Actually, the Nefertiti is a great sample, but the upper octaves have too loud attack and too short decay. I have made a split now with the EP5 (Bright Tines) from C5 up. That does it for me at the moment.
They are both slightly below 500MB each and so can be installed together. BTW, the Chick"s one is only Rhodes samples, whereas Purgatory Creek contains Wurlitzer, Clavinet and Pianet samples. If they offered only the Rhodes samples (two types AFAIK) it would have been 200MB and cheaper. I personally don"t care about the other samples, I"m interested only in Rhodes sound, so it"s a bit of waste for me which is another reason to be hesitant. They both sound very pleasant to my ears. But I still have a slight preference towards Chick. Also because I loved the guy and have grown up listening to many of his records and his Rhodes piano.
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