Sound Effects Libraries

Sometimes, the pro's can do it better. Actually, most of the time pro's can do it better. Not always can an amateur filmmaker or audio producer create a sound that is both of high enough quality and of enough believability to be used in a production.  This is where sound effects libraries come in. Sound effects libraries are used to quickly add high quality audio to your project without needing to create the sounds yourself. They are very useful for complex sounds (like explosions), and are also useful to add ambience to a scene quickly. But with half a million different libries available, it can be hard to know which ones to choose. Today, I want to quickly outline some of the most popular and easy to find.

Digital Juice

Digital Juice, technically speaking, is a power house. It contains over 11,500 sounds that come on 10 DVDs. This comes out to a whopping 55GB of content. More importantly each sound file is 24-bit 96 kHz WAV files. This means you get lossless files that are greater than industry standard. Digital Juice also comes with Juicer 3 which is a software program that will search the Digital Juice library to find the sounds you want, and also convert those sounds into any file format you wish.

Digital Juice doesn't come cheap. This library will cost you $499. However, aware shoppers can find huge discounts on the product, and at the time of writing this post there is a sale on their website to grab the library for a far more affordable $99.95.

Arrowhead Audio 

Maybe the above was a little out of your price range, or maybe you aren't looking to own over 11,000 sounds right now. If either are the case,Arrowhead Audio  may be the choice for you. Arrowhead offers a range of effects libraries (currently 7 to be exact) with far fewer sounds in each, but also at a far cheaper price. The interesting thing about Arrowhead is they will allow you to choose the quality of the sound you want, and they scale their price to fit (this feature isn't available on all packs, and it also appears that if you purchase a cheaper pack, you will receive less content).

Arrowheads pricing strategy is $4 for 16-bit samples at 44.1 kHz, up to $10 for 24-bit samples at 96 kHz. The samples sound great, and this modular system is a great, inexpensive way to augment your personal library.

The Library by Empty Sea: Robobiotics

Of all of the libraries reviewed today, this has to be my favorite.  This library offers sounds at 24-bit at both 48 kHz and 96 kHz.  The reason I like this pack so much, is that its robot sounds. Plain and simple, I'm just a sucker for sci-fi. If you are looking for sci-fi sounds, then this is the pack for you. It is a huge library (over 4 GB), and has a massive amount of variations of sounds to keep them unique and unidentifiable in your mix.

Robobiotics does come in at a steep $300, however. If you do a lot of sci-fi work, it could be worth it to you. If not, then you may want to check out some of their other packs. They come in as low as $100, and sound fantastic. I would highly recommend Empty Sea.