Sound Effects

Free sound effects for you to download and use in your projects.

Here are some sound effects I recorded recently which I’m making available as free downloads. They were recorded to a Panasonic SJ-MR220 MiniDisk recorder using a Sony ECM-MS907 stereo microphone and are free for you to use in almost any way you want, including commercial uses.

I recorded these effects because one night I was looking for high quality background sound effects and the only legal ones I could find on the internet were either poor quality or expensive.

There are almost no conditions on how you use these. You don’t even have to give me a credit in your production if you don’t wish to. I’m even happy for you to link to the files directly from your own site (but be aware that I may be moving and/or renaming the files over time, so linking to this page is probably safest). All I ask is that you not redistribute them as sound effects and please don’t claim to have recorded them yourself.

They are available as compressed audio files in 160kbps Ogg Vorbis format. I chose to use compression to save server space and download time, and I chose Ogg Vorbis because it’s a new(ish) compressed audio file format that is a great alternative to mp3. Ogg Vorbis is slightly higher quality than mp3 and is not encumbered with any tricky copyright/trademark issues. You can find out more about Ogg Vorbis at its website.

Chances are that if you have a recent piece of audio software then it supports Ogg. If not then you’ll want some software to convert from Ogg to whatever format you need. The good news is that free Ogg conversion software is available for almost every computer system on the planet. So go download some.

Lastly, to download the files you might have to right-click them (or command-click for those with a one-button mouse) and select the download option from the popup menu. All feedback on these files is greatfully received and there are more files to come.

Street Sound Effects

These clips are meant for background use, and are designed to loop seamlessly.

2:38, 3.10MB, stereo, 16bit, 48kHz, loopable

The sound of an inner city intersection in the early evening.

1:29, 1.69MB, stereo, 16bit, 48kHz, loopable

A trip in a taxi at night, complete with taxi computer beeps.

1:58, 2.26MB, stereo, 16bit, 48kHz, loopable

The sound of a suburb at night. Cars arriving home, car doors closing, a dog barking.

4 thoughts on “Sound Effects”

  1. Thanks ! I would one day like to make Films On a more Professional level I may probably never achieve this. But with your Help Advice ect. RE; How to behave on a Film Set and other things I feel I am a little better Prepared at Least

    Thanks Skevos 🙂

  2. mark2929 said:

    * Thanks ! I would one day like to make Films On a
    * more Professional level I may probably never
    * achieve this. But with your Help Advice ect. RE;
    * How to behave on a Film Set and other things I feel
    * I am a little better Prepared at Least

    * Thanks Skevos 🙂

    Thank you very much for visiting and leaving such a kind comment. I’m glad you found some of the articles useful. Let me know how your film career goes (either here or on the Vegas forums!).

    All the best,

    Skevos Mavros
    http://www.mavart.com

  3. Skevos, this series of articles you have produced for movie-maing are truly remarkable in their clarity and coverage of what movie-makers need to know.

    You have done a fantastic job! More people need to know of this site and absorb your knowledge.

    By the way, my wife enjoyed a fantastic trip to Australia in March 2003. What a fantastic country! What wonderful people! Unfortunately we didn’t get up to Brisbane…we’ll leave that for next time.

    Best wishes,
    Don (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

  4. Hi there Don,

    You said:

    * Skevos, this series of articles you have produced
    * for movie-maing are truly remarkable in their
    * clarity and coverage of what movie-makers need to
    * know.

    * You have done a fantastic job! More people need
    * to know of this site and absorb your knowledge.

    Thank you very much for the kind words. I wrote the articles quite a while ago, so the only ones I’ve left up are the ones that haven’t aged too much. I’m glad they were of some use to you.

    One of these days I might even write some newer articles. 🙂

    * By the way, my wife enjoyed a fantastic trip to
    * Australia in March 2003. What a fantastic
    * country! What wonderful people! Unfortunately we
    * didn’t get up to Brisbane…we’ll leave that for
    * next time.

    Look me up if you do. I’ve never met a Canadian I didn’t like!

    All the best,

    Skevos Mavros
    http://www.mavart.com

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