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.
Amazing Sound Effects of Cartoons WAV
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
Well, all you need is the appropriate sound effect! There are many websites offering royalty-free sound effects which can be easily downloaded. At the same time, you must be careful as there are numerous sites having pirated content. Not to mention all the malwares and viruses that come with it!
Initiated by Alan McKinney, Free SFX is a massive library of sound effects offering something for everyone. It has around 25 categories and numerous subcategories coming with HD quality sound effects, HD drives and downloadable packs. The website has collaborated with both freelance composers & sound designers and big professional companies.
Started in 2005, Freesound is licensed under Creative Commons and has one of the largest archives of sound effects including recordings, samples, snippets, bleeps, etc. This website allows you to quickly find the sounds which can be utilised for personal use and which are restricted for commercial use. Moreover, you can browse for the required sounds via packs, geotags or keywords. Even better, try previewing the sounds before downloading for a better experience.
Sounds Crate is an excellent source of sound effects for creative and independent filmmakers. Starting from ambient sounds to weapons to animals and more, one can select from a range of sound effects. The website also offers the preview option. Besides sound effects, Sounds Crate offers various graphics and textures to use in video contents.
The collection of sound effects in 99sounds is selected from many sound designers. Starting from cinematic to outer space and even the latest drone sound effects, new-edge musicians and other professionals can find high quality sounds to suffice their needs precisely. All the products available on this site are 100% royalty free.
Zapsplat is one of the fastest growing online libraries having more than 29,000 music and sound effects for free. The directory is updated with more 100 sounds per week, and all of these can be downloaded in original WAV or MP3 file format instantly. Zapsplat records every sound effect using professional microphones and recorders. So, these can be utilised for personal, commercial as well as broadcasting purposes.
Last but not the least, Orange Free Sounds comes with an array of categories from water sounds and scary to street sounds and miscellaneous. Not only sound effects, this website also offers background music and loops to be used for videos, apps, etc.
Blue Box - State-of-the-Art sound effects SFX Set mixed mode WAV/Audio. With an incredible variety of sounds, Blue Box represents one of the world's most impressive sound libraries. Diversity with authentic Sound FX distinguishes this Box from all others. Made for film and multimedia production this library is a treasure trove for Ambient Music and Commercials.
This spooky and creepy royalty free sfx pack, filled with deep and whooshy ghost related sounds, is here to make your nightmares even more frightening! Filled with 4 different ghost passing, rumbling and howling paranormal sounds, it will take your horror stories, movies, intros, video games, cartoons, animations, youtube contents, Halloween projects, cool promos and commercials to a whole another level! Grab this amazing sfx pack right now and there will be nothing you can't achieve! Enjoy it!
Sound effects have been a part of cartoon-making since the early days of cinema. Even before filmmakers could record sound to be played during a film, sound effects enhanced the images on the screen.
Walt Disney released Steamboat Willie in 1928. It was the first time that recorded audio played simultaneously with the cartoon. The music and the sound effects were all there and gave the orchestra a break.
The most effective sound effects are the ones that are out of context. A character comes to a complete stop while running. Their feet sound like tires skidding to a halt. They get hit on the head and a cuckoo clock sound plays while birds fly around them. These sounds make otherwise mundane actions more comical.
Some of the most popular sound effects in cartoons are the oldest. They are timeless and they can invoke particular moods just by hearing them. Others were created for specific shows and cannot bring certain characters to mind.
The slide whistle was mentioned above. But many wind instruments are used to create sound effects for cartoons. If a character needs to exit the screen quickly, a high-pitched blow into a kazoo can give the right sound.
This sound is hardly ever used to indicate that an actual car is coming to a stop. It conveys that a character has stopped in their tracks. Whether they be running and get stopped by something or their attention is halted. This kind of use of out-of-context sounds was quite popular in older cartoons.
Almost more than any other musical instrument, organs have been used in films and cartoons forever. They can make so many different sounds with different pitches. And they can convey so many emotions. Whether you want to show a day at the ballpark or a dark and stormy night, an organ will do the trick.
While the original version of a sound effect was made by whatever the orchestra could put together, there is real science behind it now. Animation is a viable form of movie-making. Sound engineers, musicians, and voice actors are a huge part of the team who makes cartoon SFX. They are the ones to thank when you get a chuckle watching cartoons, or you feel deep emotions watching an animated epic.
Mark: My first job in sound was at Hanna-Barbera studios in their sound department. I started as a track reader, which is a subset of sound editing where you're charged with transcribing the recordings of the voices, so that the animators know when to open and close the mouths of the characters [SFX: cartoon dialogue]. That led to subsequent promotions to becoming a sound effects editor in that department at Hanna-Barbera, and an apprenticeship with a number of really amazingly gifted sound editors. Back then, this was 1976. I didn't know anyone who was called a sound designer, but I would argue that everything that we were doing at Hanna-Barbera was every bit as designed as maybe something more profound that was being heard in a motion picture.
In the early days before there was multi-track recording or mixing, you had to perform the sound effects live with the orchestra in one straight pass. So, these sound effects guys had to assemble props, put them in front of microphones and perform anything that they could acoustically, live and in sync with the orchestra.
Mark: He learned to be a genius at taking sounds out of one context and placing them in another context. That's what made him so amazing, and when you listen to those Looney Tunes shorts, there isn't a lot of cartoon sound in those. There isn't a lot of comedic sound. It was in his ability to take a sound from somewhere else and put it where it didn't belong, creating this bizarre juxtaposition that made it funny. I don't think there was anybody better than he was at that.
Mark: I think they're unique, at least because of their own merit they're just silly. So many of them even out of the context of the cartoon just sound like that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. But then, within the context of the cartoons and the way that they were used and the life that they brought to those cartoons, they just get better basking in the limelight of the animation.
In the 1960s, Hanna-Barbera started selling their sound library. Other production companies, like Warner Brothers, use these sounds to this day. The popularity of the Hanna-Barbera sound library has given cartoons an almost universal sound-language. But, Mark feels some sounds are overused.
Heather: Cartoon sound effects are different from live action sound effects because with live action you start with production sound. You're recording a picture and they're recording the audio at the same time wherever the actors are. So if they're on a street you have cars going by. Whereas in a cartoon if you're doing a street scene, all I get is dialogue. It's just the actors who are recorded, and I get to start with a blank slate. I don't have to try to hide production backgrounds. I get to get the dialogue, and I get to create a world around it.
Heather: A lot of times people will come in with their show and say, "I don't want to use those old Hanna Barbera sounds, I want to do something completely different." But they've kind of animated it the traditional way. So when you put new sounds to that, it feels wrong, and a lot of times they eventually go back to using the older sound effects.
Heather: I really like working for animation because I like to build a world with sound from the ground up, because in animation the best part is you're designing a world from nothing, a world that no one's ever heard before. And sound design I think is a huge part of the process for animation because there's no sound except the talking, so you get to do that backgrounds and the sound effects, and the foley, and I think it all combines to really bring the animation to life. 2ff7e9595c
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