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Pro Sound Effects' Hybrid Library 2018 offers an extensive 65,000+ sound collection, providing high-quality, versatile effects for sound designers and post-production studios at an unbeatable value.
November 23, 2021
Company: Pro Sound Effects Product: Hybrid Library 2018
Price: $995 for Freelancers - Ends Dec 17th
(usually $1,995).
$3,995 for Companies.Our Rating: 4.9/5
The seminal general sound effects library for a new wave of Sound Designers and Audio Post Production Studios. The Hybrid Library is the best way to get a head start building your sound library now to compete with larger studios. We listened through over 65,000 effects to bring you our most comprehensive review ever.
The Hybrid Library by Pro Sound Effects (PSE) is an extensive general sound effects library aimed at freelancers and post sound studios. The package is mailed out to you, and you are provided with an online account to take an advantage of the included extras.
When our review copy arrived at 344 HQ from New York, it was quite an exciting moment. Knowing the quality of some of the other products, it was a nice feeling to load the drive in and start browsing the wide range of effects.
The library contains 65,000+ sounds totalling 400GB provided on a 1TB hard drive formatted for Windows and Mac, which is included in the price (covered by a 3 year failure warranty). Files are provided in a variety of formats ranging from 16Bit 44.1kHz to 24Bit 96kHz Broadcast WAV. There are mono, stereo and 5.1 effects included in many categories. The library includes extensive metadata and is organised into folders for your convenience.
Other benefits include access to a web based version of the Hybrid Library, which contains most of the sound effects, so that if you are working from another studio, you can open it up and get started downloading right away. This web store search allows an easy to use, 'download all selected' feature for grabbing effects in bulk and at speed. This leaves much to be desired from competitors.
There is an included $100 voucher, which can be spent as part of a purchase, it can be spread across multiple purchases, or it can be used to add to your library over time through their online web store which contains over 250,000 sound effects. We recommend investing this into their The Odyssey Collection: Vehicles Basic to help bolster the vehicle workups available to you.
You also have access to a 90 day trial of Basehead, a useful sound effects search software which allows you to organise and navigate your offline libraries, with metadata search functions. It’s likely you’ll already own a search software if you are making this purchase, but our go-to option is Soundly.
Freelancers are offered special pricing for the library (usually $1,995) with studios paying ($3995). The most exciting thing to discuss in this review is that you can currently purchase PSE Hybrid Library for $995 as a Freelancer (ends Dec 16th) - the lowest price EVER, which is frankly a no brainer. The best value for money ever in a general library of this size, and a great tool for increasing productivity.
Purchase Hybrid Library with 10% Off! USE CODE: 344HYBRID
We promised an extensive review, and we delivered. We listened through every category of sounds in this library and almost covered the entire file selection over a number of days. The result of this can be found in our Categories of Irresistible Effects section at the bottom of the page, where we logged our initial thoughts (unedited) so that you can get a genuine feel for what is included and it’s quality from a professional user.As a general note, this library surprised us in some ways. It has a lot of content and the quality of each sound effect is great. Even though sounds are pulled from a variety of sources and recordists, there is a good cross section of perspectives and frequency responses in the effects, to make them as usable as possible in multiple scenarios. For example, the Guns section includes realistic, transient like effects, as well as covering larger than life distorted sounds for that Hollywood vibe.The coverage is more than enough to get you started, and if you had to, this library could be the last thing you ever purchased, which could be accented with personal recordings and design. All general libraries have their weaknesses, But thankfully PSE update the library from time to time to help alleviate any of these.
The inclusion of 5.1 effects is really a winner too, with mature choices made instead of recording in 5.1 to tick boxes. PSE recorded 5.1 effects that will really benefit your tracklay, demonstrating their knowledge and experience in sound effects editing.Something which is also important to mention, is the overall look and feel of this product strikes us as the start of a new age of general effects libraries, which help the independent sound designers and studios by offering affordable ways to compete with industry giants.There is a quality to a lot of the effects here (particularly those recorded by Blastwave) that inspire further design, and ignite those audio brainwaves that inspire us day by day in our pursuits of flawless sound. Furthermore, there is an attention to detail, things like aircraft turbulence add that professional edge to otherwise empty scenes. There are included sounds that are hard to find even in independent boutique libraries.
PSE Hybrid Library just screams 'hollywood' as you listen through, and it sounds so good that each effect feels designed and destined for it's intended use. Using this library stills make a film sound unique, unlike general libraries of the past, which are recognisable even to the general public. It will ignite the inner sound designer within you, and give you creative starting points for custom design. Quality AND quantity.
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Some nice inclusions for the future would be to have a complete offline search software included. With PSE's development of so many new libraries and a huge online database, perhaps they could create an offline version of their website's search engine for all purchasers.
There were also a couple of categories that needed more variety in the library. No doubt with upcoming additions that PSE provide these will be fleshed out. Make sure you read below to get our first impression of every section.
The ultimate sound effects library for the 21st century sound designer/sound effects editor. It will get you out of a lot of tight spots, and cover you when those unrealistic deadlines hit on the most demanding of projects.
Purchase Hybrid Library with 10% Off! USE CODE: 344HYBRID
Check out our verdict of each category in the library, so that you know what to expect:
Acid - Burning melting acid.
Air - Those tasty, cinematic air bursts.
Aircraft -
Helicopters - A very good variety of movements and vehicles.
Jets - Very good for distant airplane pass by effects.
Misc - The turbulence in this section screams 'Snakes on a Plane'.
Prop Planes - A little less of an extreme speed than the jets.
Alarms - All of the common alarms you would expect/need for a film.
Ambience -
Battle - These really put you into the space, including a 5.1 effect.
Exotic - Needs more content, but this is fleshed out in the 'birds’ section.
Industrial - Think Star Wars Episode II Geonosis factory in 5.1!
Jungle - Some useful effects, more would be nice.
Misc - Mostly designed/abstract effects.
Nautical - Quite useful.
Public Places - Good filler for many scenes.
Roomtone - A nice selection, with some in 5.1, very good.
Rural - Some very unique moments have been captured here.
Suburban - Lacking some general residential FX like those from BBC library.
Technical - Useful sounds of auto repair shops, factories and computer rooms.
Urban - Great city backdrops.
Walla - Lacks a little substance, although the included sound very natural.
Animals - Has some very well isolated sounds of frogs, the bullfrogs sound very interesting and exotic - definitely some of the best frog sounds we've heard. But why are these the only animals? Perhaps this section should be Amphibians, as there is also a Birds and Mammals section.
Arrows - Has some excellent pass bys that could be use for magic or sci fi design elements.
Beeps - Excellent UI sounds, pretty much everything beep related you'll need.
Bells - Same note as previous, very extensive.
Birds -
Exotic - Has a nice variety or creepy/abstract bird sounds perfect for alien planets or unknown island jungles.
Land - Whip bird, excellent moments captured.
Misc - Excellent bird squawks and UK bird sounds.
Water - Sound design elements galore with geese and gulls.
Wingflaps - More natural wing flaps needed - we use these sounds all the time for off screen cues in scary scenes.
Boats - This section is excellent, a variety of boat sounds, and very nice touches with stepping onto boat effects.
Breathing - Gas masks great, as well as general effects, also zombie effects and drawn out breaths great for horror.
Buzzers - More than extensive enough for this subject.
Camera - Surprisingly extensive - the servo sounds are great for robotic movements - missing classic camera noises.
Cartoon - Full of little gems, and very fulfilling to listen through. More than enough content for an entire cartoon.
Chains - Good section with variations.
Chairs - Metal section is the best with some interesting creaks.
Clicks - Some nice elements, more ratchet movements would have been nice.
Clocks - Small selection, quality over quantity, it's nice to see that both close and distant clocks were recorded, as worldising these with reverb and eq can prove difficult in many mixes.
Cloth - Some useful cloth sounds for those fast turnaround short form projects that cannot justify foley.
Computer - A good perspective to the sounds, not too close, not too far.
Cooking - A nice section of cutting, slicing sounds and water sizzles, perfect for the next series of Hell's Kitchen. Perhaps more sounds of cookware being handled could be useful.
Crashes -
Debris - F*** these are larger than life.
Glass - A variety of weights, sizes and speed of shattering on different surfaces.
Metal - Some beautiful car crashes (more would be nice - but cars are expensive!), as well as a variety of objects.
Misc - Building collapses provide simply excellent layers for those huge explosions that can start to build up into a wall of incoherent noise in your tracklay. There are also some great 'aftermath' sounds here too.
Pottery - great layers for those interior shootouts, where youve already used metal, dirt and glass ricochets!
Rock - Often, rock debris and landslide effects are too short, this section fills those gaps.
Wood - Similar notes to previous section, you have a variety of extended debris crashes here.
Creaks - This category really evokes some mental pictures of scenes. The creaky ambiences are perfect for a haunted house or any location within a horror. The specific creaks are nice also, and often in other libraries the tone of these isn't quite right - well done PSE!
Crowds -
Applause - Kick those cheesy 90's crowd effects from your library, these are much more natural.
Misc - 5.1 Audience murmurs are a much needed tool, nice inclusion. This section is very useful as a lot of the sounds are not coherently American, so could be used in other countries such as the UK.
Movement - This section is useful for adding that extra little layer to a scene, especially if you don't have background foley tracks recorded.
Walla - Some nice inclusions here for a variety of spaces, including cafes/bars. Use of french, british and american crowds.
Crunches - Useful in some scenarios where a single crunch may be needed, most likely in ice/snow design.
Debris -
Dirt - Excellent filler for short foley cues if you don't want to cause a huge mess in a grave digging scene!
Misc - This section will defeinitely get some use, smaller or more abstract items being dropped is something missing from other libraries.
Rocks - Great for subtle landslide/earthquake moments when you need the movement and texture.
Distortion - Some of these sounds may not be that useful to a seasoned Designer/Synth Nut. But the 'PEDesign Elements' sound huge and are perfect for those complex CGI scenes, where you need to flick through a variety of noises to find your voice. Perhaps some shorter and harsher glitch effects would have been nice.
Creaks -
Door - A variety of door creaks from different recordists, very useful in basically every film.
Exotic - Two effects only (air pressure releases), maybe should be left in the Misc section?
Glass - It's nice to have the detail of glass doors as an option.
Hardware - Very useful for those door layers - handles, knockers, latches, locks etc.
Metal - Not only doors to rooms, but also objects such as filing cabinets, some effects have excellent natural verb.
Misc - Fridge, microwave, servo doors and more.
Sliding - Does what it says on the tin, slides with style.
Stone - Evokes a huge Egyptian pyramid stone door. It would have been nice to have a few more variations.
Wood - This section is so simple but so effective. Don't you just hate when you have to scroll through hundreds of door effects to find the right one? A lot of these sound like they'll do the trick.
Drawers -
Metal - These recordings retain their natural metallic resonance, which will help them fit into scenes amongst foley and effects.
Misc - Some more low frequency content in the cash drawers would be nice, but a useful inclusion.
Wood - Natural sounds that will fit into the mix well.
Drone - Dark and mysterious alien planets. A brief section that is complimented by various designed sounds in other sections.
Earthquake - Very brief section, mostly focusing on low frequency sounds that will layer with rock movements. It would be nice to hear some sounds of plates falling and other items during the quakes.
Eating - Very useful section, not those overly close and processed chewing sounds usually found. They feel natural, and will blend will location dialogue well. Also there are cats eating!
Electric -
Arcs and Zaps - this section is a little weak, it doesn't have that hollywood zap/weight that you would expect, such as that found in Polarity by Mattia Cellotto.
Hum - This section also needs some padding out, with lighting hums, and more natural electronic hums.
Misc - This section could have more variety - strong areas are the Guitar Plug in / feedback noises.
Relays - Some useful power up sounds.
Sparks - Quite useful for diegetic, real electricity, not so much for heavy design work.
Tonalities - Some very nice design work here, the 5.1 force fields are excellent!
Elevators - Very nice section, softer more natural sounds all the way up to Jigsaw's Lair-esque creepiness.
Energy - Brilliant. The explosions here are very well worldised and will blend with more ambitious design. The pixie movements are cool and will definitely be getting some use in a fantasy/sci-fi environment.
Explosions - Same notes as previous section, except some of these are more heavily designed so that you have options.
Fans & Air Conditioning - Very nice section, that contains more than enough variation, very useful effects for hiding low frequency noise within interior dialogue.
Farts - What can you say - did someone step on a whoopie cushion?
Feedback - Perfect section for Sci-Fi, musical design, or to place over idents.
Fight -
We're very picky with our fight sounds, so it will be nice to hear these.
Bodyfalls Good balance between low and mid frequency content.
Punches - Very nice. Every range from Hollywood to Fight Club. Sub / dramatic reverb layers also supplied, excellent attention to detail.
Misc - Decent category. Fallen characters movement effects, as well as zombies tapping on walls - very useful.
Swishes - There is a focus on subtle, more natural whooshes here. Although these are great, sometimes you need that dramatic kung fu swoosh too.
Fire -
Another category that is crucial and can waste a lot of time when searching through inferior effects in other libraries.
Burning - A good mixture for different scenarios.
Ignite - This section is our new go to, very well considered.
Misc - Some softer flames here, will be useful somewhere.
Whooshes - A must have. When you have that classic scene with the fire torch in a cave or tomb.
Fireworks - Very, very good close fireworks, and fireworks with crowds. It would be nice to hear some more characterful recordings of distant fireworks too.
Foley -
Footsteps - Useful if you don't have time to jump into the foley pits for a small cue. The apartment footsteps are perfect for BG foley to give some life to a scene.
Misc - VERY USEFUL. When you are missing a particular foley prop, these can be a life saver. Especially the cigarette smoking effects.
Props - Same note as previous.
Foliage - Great for branch and bush movements.
Games - Excellent sounds for Casinos / Gambling / Arcade scenes.
Ghosts - Not cheesy at all. Beautiful design that hearkens back to the Dementors from Harry Potter.
Glass -
Breaking - Nice section, goes well with the glass crashes from earlier.
Glassware - Place your orders, and grab your glass.
Hits - Pings and dings of glass.
Misc - Lightbulb screwing and ornament handling.
Scrapes & Squeaks - Tonal elements of glass interaction.
Gore -
Blood - Good sounds here, the blood vomiting is very useful.
Misc - Quite an extensive selection of bends, squeezes and head rolling.
Rips and Tears - If you didn't know this was a SFX library, the neighbours would be worried.
Guns -
Artillery - Canon sounds are nice, the cannon blasts ship is very convincing and sounds great.
Bullet Hits - Useful.
Bullet Whiz - More sounds are needed here, but this is a good start.
Bullets - Dropping on multiple surfaces.
Handling - A much needed category in a library like this.
Machine - Very nice balance between a natural and designed sound on each gun. Wide variety of weapons.
Misc - Some non-lethal and Sci-Fi guns, nice inclusion.
Pistols - Excellent range, between distant transient shots, to close up distorted hollywood bangs.
Ricochets - This section needs more, the current sounds feel synthesised and are not what you may be looking for.
Rifles - Excellent section, even muskets are featured.
Shotgun - Needs more 'larger than life' sounds, but these could be layered with other sections.
Heartbeat - Exactly as described.
Horns - Quite a useful section for boat horns and air horns.
Insects -
Flying - 5.1 Bee Hive and Insect Colony - whats not to like? More typical flies needed.
Land - All the cool land insects that we don't have in the UK to record, nice! Also meal worms in 5.1!!!
Misc - So many usable sound sin this section, strange cicadas and bug infestations.
Lasers -
Guns - Pretty useful for basic work, but enough room to layer further design elements.
Impacts - Very analogue synthesis driven.
Misc - Scanners etc.
Sword - Lightsabers, pretty useful for a fan film.
Liquid FX - Useful for a variety of elemetns such as mud suction and spitting.
Machines -
Electric - Useful effects for everyday electronics - toothbrushes, razors. The Steampunk effects in 5.1 are VERY nice.
Heavy - Beautiful sounding industrial machines etc, some in 5.1!
Light - Great, everyday sounds that could also be used to accent more experimental design.
Misc - Printers, projectors, sewing machines and more.
Mammals -
Cats - A very nice variety of vocalisations - close, reverberant, aggressive, soft, sad.
Dogs - A good mixture of common dogs, and most importantly, a selection of distant dogs for BG tracks. Zombie dogs are a nice extra.
Farm - A nice selection of pigs, goats and cows.
Horses - Very usable section, pass bys, vocals, wagons.
Marine - One of our favourite sections, a treasure trove for creature design - manatees, seals and dolphins.
Misc - Alpacas, squirrels and rats - useful.
Rodents - Another treasure trove of animal sounds, a variety of rodents.
Wild - Big cats, elephants etc - varying quality and recording distance as to be expected.
Mechanical -
Gears - Lots of useful steampunk sounds, these will get used a lot.
Misc - Windmills, toasters, cash counters and more.
Ratchets - These help fill gaps from previous sections.
Rollers - A very useful section for when metal is bending or warping within a scene!
Metal -
Hits - Useful sounds for metal ricochets, as well as designed metal hits to enhance punctual moments.
Misc - Mostly sounds of metal items/tools being handled.
Scrapes & Squeaks - Very nice sword drawing, the sounds of pipe drops and more.
Warps - Not quite as specific as the other sections, contains a random assortment of metal movements/tension.
Microphone -
Feedback - Needs more variety for this common effect.
Handling - Pretty useful.
Motors -
Combustion - Ship engines in 5.1, generators - nice category.
Electric - Some great servo noises in here.
Hydraulic - The medical facility door effect is perfect for Sci-Fi.
Misc - Generators.
Steam - There are sounds that help complement this weaker section in the earlier machines category.
Musical -
Chimes - Great little melodic effects for fairy magic.
Instruments - everything from bagpipes to didgeridoos performed like lightsabers.
Misc - Very useful busker sounds in here to liven up a city scene.
Tonalities - Now we're talking. A very extensive list of drone/tonal elements (many in 5.1) to fill in your scenes.
Misc - This section is so small, it should be part of tonalities.
Paper - Needed in any general effects library, a great time saver.
Phonographs - Let the needle drop.
Plastic - Plastic bags, legos, wobbling plastic.
Pops - Cork pops, speaker pop.
Pumps - Great section.
Radio FX - Useful for layering with those FUTZ dialogues in your session.
Rain - A good variety of textures for different rain types.
Rattles - Boings and vibrations. The carousel metal resonances sound like a gigantic metal spaceship passing over!
Reptiles - Snakes, alligators, crocodiles and even dinosaurs!
Rips - Some very nice textile tears here, as well as paper ripping - very usable.
Robots -
Misc - A variety of metallic/designed robot effects, possibly useful when combined with other sounds.
Motors - A variety of servos and machine sounds that are useful for tracklaying robot movement.
Voice - This section could really use some additional recordings/designed sounds.
Rockets - Nice sounds for rocket take offs/jet packs - useful for layering to design more complex scenes.
Rocks -
Grits - Nice elements of smaller rocks being dropped and handled.
Hits - A very usable section, bread and butter sounds with a lot of character.
Misc - Some very good sounds here that can pad out an earlier section that included stone doors opening.
Rolling - Any scene by a cliff side edge needs this - don't look down!
Scrapes - Another VERY useful section, rocks and different types of stones being dragged.
Rodents - Mouse and rat squeaks, quite a small section.
Rope - Perfect section, covering everything you would expect - tension, handling, whooshing, picking up.
Rubber - Very nice organic sounds, very well covered category that sounds amazing.
Rumbles - More drones and useful LFE elements.
Sand - A good section for the movements of sand.
Sirens - Some very good dry sirens that will need to be worldised. It would have been nice to see some more real world sirens that were captured from different distances in pass bys.
Snow - Some excellent snowy recordings from snowball making to snow dust.
Spaceship - One of the best 'designed' section of sounds, again by Blastwave. It would be amazing to see PSE release a general effects library with only pre-designed sounds like these.
Sports - One of the most useful sections in here. Any football themed or sports themed commercial will benefit from these.
Squeak - Stoves and noise makers.
Static - A nice section for design elements.
Stings - Outstanding work here. Stings are often to specific to a genre, or too old fashioned. These will stand the test of time and there are so many.
Subwoofer - Some very, very good LFE sounds.
Swish - Can be used to accent the fight sounds from an earlier section.
Switches - A hell of a lot of options here, you will surely find what you need.
Telephone -
Handling - Everything from old phones to new.
Misc - Vibrates and phone error signals.
Rings - You can never have enough of these, great for giving a little bit away about a characters personality.
Tones - Dial tones, button presses and more.
Television FX - This ones a real time saver, a mixture of 'faked' TV shows to FUTZ within a scene, as well as TV noises.
Test Tones - Turn down your monitors!
Thunder - Mostly more natural and distant recordings, some designed heavy cracks would work here too.
Tools -
Hand - Does what it says on the tin, very well.
Misc - A variety of useful additions to other tool noises.
Power - An extensive and well recorded section of effects. The chainsaw sounds are spot on.
Traffic - Typical sounds, as well as some very tasty 5.1 recordings!
Trains -
Diesel - Very nice recordings of new and old trains/horns.
Electric - Modern trains, a lot of these elements are useful for Sci Fi vehicle design.
Horns - Not enough to please a trainspotter, but more than enough to get by.
Misc - Very useful sounds of interior train movement, instantly adds production value to a scene.
Steam - Some beautiful locomotive recordings!
Subway - Nice sounds, quite reverberant.
Whistles - Very nice section.
Typewriters - This could get you out of a pinch if you don't own a typewriter for foley.
User Interface - Not the best UI sounds, but with the other categories you could piece together a convincing scene.
Vacuum - Does exactly what it needs to.
Vehicles -
Antique Cars - Just one car, but some good recordings.
Bicycles - Useful, but could be more extensive.
Brakes - Very good section for handbrakes.
Buses - Good section.
Carts - Makes you think of food shopping for Christmas!
Classic Cars - Damn, there are some nice chevy revs here.
Construction - Everything you would expect, recorded well.
Doors - These are always quite a personal preference, but there are lots of options, especially those with enough weight.
Horns - Some close, some distant, a couple of doppler horns would have been a nice inclusion.
Mechanical - Turn signals, wipers and door signals - very useful.
Military - Some tanks and armoured cars, a must in a general effects library.
Misc - Snowmobiles and other accent sounds.
Modern Cars - A very good cross section of useful vehicle pass bys and accelerations.
Motorcycles - Wow, these are very well recorded.
Race Cars - Epic dragster and formula one sounds.
Suspension - Useful sounds for a rocky road.
Tires - Great screeches and gravel sounds.
Trucks - Amazing truck sounds for those horror movies with the beaten down vehicles.
Wagons - This section included more SUVs than wooden wagons which was a surprise.
Voices -
Alien - Useful vocalisations, especially those clicky effects that are reminiscent of District 9.
Babies - Great vocalisations for those scenes with a silent young child.
Beasts - A very well thought out and complete section of monsters, zombies and creatures.
Blow - Snoring, blowing out torches etc.
Burp - Some disgustingly useful burps.
Children - Some useful voice effects.
Computer - GPS, Sci Fi computer and more.
Coughs - Great for building a sens of size within a crowd.
Efforts - Fight scene eqsue effort sounds.
English - Great variety of vooices in English saying different common phrases.
Foreign - Useful sounds of foreign walla.
Laughter - Another very usable category, includes some 5.1 crowds elements.
P.A. - Very american, but very usable.
Radio - Same note as previous.
Screams - You can't beat these.
Sneezes - Sounds like winter in the UK.
Telephone - Very american, good variety.
Whispers - Only one sound effect.
Water -
Bubbles - Excellent sound effects for water design.
Drain - Medium sized selection of usable sounds.
Drips - Excellent drips and drops, the 5.1 cave effects are great.
Flowing - Waterfalls and rivers and more.
Misc - Sloshing, moving and shaking.
Plumbing - Most of the sounds you would expect are in here, another bread and butter category.
Pouring - A good staple section.
Splashes - A variety of sizes and intensities of items splashing into water.
Spray - Windex bottle sprays, hairsprays, cologne and more.
Surf - Great sounds of the water from the ocean, including pirate ships, ocean waves and wind.
Turbulent - This section isn't quite as dynamic as you would expect, most sounds are very constant in level.
Underwater - This section has a nice tonality, with enough high frequencies to let you experiment in the mix.
Weapons -
Knives & Swords - Some very nice sounds for sword combat, the knife schwings are excellent and have that hollywood sound.
Misc - Maces, tasers and axes.
Whips - Lots of pass by sounds, whooshes and whips.
Whistles -
Human - A variety of common whistling articulations.
Mechanical - Sports and celebration whistles.
Misc - Teapot whistling, but the other effects should have been placed in the previous section.
Bys - The movement of lots of designed effects, many in 5.1.
Impact - Lots of whoosh impacts, a variety of genres and tonalities.
Misc - Magical and musical effects, great for designing fast moving complex footage.
Reverse - Some great buildups here.
Winds - There really are some gems in here. The sounds are dynamic and interesting, characterful.
Wood -
Chops - The sound of a tree being chopped down.
Cracks - Wood slowly breaking, these sounds can be used in a number of scenarios.
Hits - Some very well recorded impacts with good frequency content.
Misc - Wood movements and handling.
Scrapes & Squeaks - The wood slides here sound a rock monster!
Zippers - Very nice selection of zippers if you want to be specific to an object or feel.
Purchase Hybrid Library with 10% Off! USE CODE: 344HYBRID
Klevgrand's Brusfri is a powerful, affordable noise reduction plugin that delivers high-quality results without introducing phase issues, making it an excellent alternative to pricier options.
November 23, 2021
Company: Klevgrand
Product: Brusfri
Price: $29.99 (50% Off)
Our Rating: 4.8/5
Swedish media innovators Klevgrand, have launched their latest plugin Brusfri, which aims to 'floor the noise' in your audio recordings.
Installing Brusfri is straight forward, an installer package works rather quickly to generate the relevant AAX Native and VST versions. The product is activated via a serial number, from within your DAW, and the process is instant. A far cry from the monotonous experience offered by many other developers. We performed our tests and review within Pro Tools 12 running at 24Bit 48kHz on a Windows system, the plugin worked rather well in Audiosuite, without crashes or hogging CPU.
The interface is stunning, very engaging to watch and use, especially where other audio repair plugins feel rather clinical. The controls here offer an attack and release parameter, for adjusting the envelope of the noise reducer. There is also a threshold, which controls the amount of reduction taking place and a learn button, which must be held during playback of the noise only part of the signal, in order for the plugin to analyse its frequency content. Finally, we have an 'edge' control, which controls the intensity of the reduction, providing a smoother sound at low values, along with a high pass filter and high frequency boost, to enhance the resulting noise reduced signal.
It is worth noting, that when the user hovers over a parameter, a brief description is given, which is useful for beginners.
Brusfri, meaning 'Noise Free' in Swedish, sounds more like an IKEA shelf set than a noise reduction plugin! The Swedish minimalism in both the design and operation works rather well and is certainly a breath of fresh air.
The plugin uses finely tuned gates as a means of reducing noise, rather than the usual phase reversal found in other software. This was implemented to retain the quality of the original signal. A great concept, as some people are growing tired of Izotope RX6 Voice Denoiser's phase artefacts on challenging recordings.
The high pass filter and high frequency boost within Brusfri, are quite useful parameters for shaping the output signal and retaining the high frequency content present in the input signal.
Due to the exceptionally low price, we know that many Dialogue Editors will want to hear how Brusfri stacks up against industry leader RX6. So without further ado, let us hear some comparisons. We took both a classic recording, and a more modern location sound recording, both with extraneous noise to reduce. We matched both plugins reduction level as closely as possible when making comparisons, but left all other parameters at their default value. We also used the learn function on both plugins to capture the noise signal before processing with AudioSuite.
The type of processing you prefer depends on your subjective taste. We have to say that the results from Brusfri surprised us. For the low price they are offering, this plugin has an amazing sound, and is worth having as an alternative processing option to RX6.
If you listen closely to the comparison, you will notice that RX introduces phasing, even at the medium reduction level, which is not as present on the Brusfri samples. It is also apparent that RX6 works better when pushed to extreme levels of reduction, as it retains more intelligibility in the dialogue. The great news is, that you now have a new processing option (Brusfri) to include before or after your RX6 processing chain, for a slightly smoother noise solution.
There are still a couple of ways Klevgrand can make this plugin work even smarter...
RX has a level of gain compensation built in to the plugin, which saves dialogue editors critical time when applying noise reduction. Klevgrand need to implement this with Brusfri.
The empty space on the interface is wasted on smaller screens - if someone is editing on a laptop, with both the video window and Brusfri open, there won't be much room left for the Pro Tools edit window. This can also be said about RX6, but the fact that there is 'dead space' in the top right leaves us wondering why the interface is not much smaller.
A really great addition, in either an update or 'Pro' version of the plugin would be to include 'RX style' phase processing as an extra module in the empty interface space. If the plugin has both processing methods, there is no reason to buy RX6 for voice denoising.
Noise reduction that is almost invisible at medium levels, and doesn't introduce phase issues. RX6 level quality at some settings. $30 introductory price tag. Go buy it, and join the revolution.
Boom Library’s Enforcer is a powerful bass plugin that enhances low-end impact with precision, perfect for music production, sound design, and cinematic effects.
November 23, 2021
Company: Boom Library
Product: Enforcer
Price: $119
Our Rating: 4.8/5
Enforcer is a bass plugin from industry leading sound effects company Boom Library. Enforcer lets you sculpt your low-end with frightening precision, and is the Swiss Army Knife for punch, low-end, sub power etc. Enforcer also functions as a kick-drum synth, allowing you to exchange kick drum tails and tune them easily. Enforcer can be triggered by your midi keyboard, making it playable like any other virtual instrument. This plugin works wonders on kicks, sub hits and impacts, but it also fantastic for beefing up sfx, and will help your sounds punch through on mobile devices.
Whether in music production or film/game audio, having a focused and punchy low end is crucial to achieving a great sounding mix. Enforcer allows you to quickly beef up your bottom end, adding power and intensity without compromising on detail. It comes with range of tools to shape the dynamics, tone and colour of your sounds. There are also built in pitch and oscillator functions that can be played around with to enhance your sounds even further. All of this functionality is packed into a user friendly GUI that makes the process tactile and fun.
Enforcer is a very versatile tool, and would be beneficial to music and audio professionals across the board. After putting it through its paces with a range of sound sources, we found Enforcer to be especially brilliant for adding punch to sfx hits such as gunshots or punches. With a few clicks, Enforcer takes your sfx to a new level, giving them that modern cinematic quality to make your audience feel every hit. Enforcer is also a great tool for composers, spicing up the low-mid range that can often be lacking in energy in some virtual instrument libraries.
The preset banks are broken down into music and SFX. On the whole, the presets provide a great starting point, and will instantly add punch to your sounds. We found the SFX presets to be loads of fun, and it was really cool cycling through them and seeing how our sounds were transformed. What was also interesting is the subtlty of a lot of the presets, as for a plugin focused on making things bigger, it is surprisingly subtle. It never feels like too much even when taken to its most bombastic and extreme.
Overall there are very few downsides to this product. Everything works well and is extremely responsive.
We would use this plugin in a variety of circumstances, but mainly for sound design purposes like processing SFX hits, and for mixing low-end when creating electronic music.
Enforcer will also be extremely handy for enhancing percussing and bass elements when composing music.
The preset banks are broken down into music and SFX. On the whole, the presets provide a great starting point, and will instantly add punch to your sounds. We found the SFX presets to be loads of fun, and it was really cool cycling through them and seeing how our sounds were transformed. What was also interesting is the subtlety of a lot of the presets, as for a plugin focused on making things bigger, it is surprisingly subtle. It never feels like too much even when taken to its most bombastic and extreme.
A comprehensive review of The Odyssey Collection: Essentials 2019 by Pro Sound Effects, a meticulously curated sound library featuring over 16,000 recordings from Hollywood sound designers Mark Mangini & Richard L. Anderson, offering high-quality, diverse effects across multiple categories for film, TV, and game audio professionals.
November 23, 2021
Company: Pro Sound Effects
Product: The Odyssey Collection: Essentials.
Price: $1,195 for Freelancers.
$1,495 for Companies.
Our Rating: 4.8/5
Pro Sound Effects bring us a slimmed down version of the renowned Odyssey Collection, gathered from the personal library's of some of our industry's greatest Sound Designers.
Essentials is a selection of the best of the Odyssey Collection by Pro Sound Effects; it provides over 16.000 sounds divided into 285 categories. These sounds were recorded for specific high profile projects by renowned Hollywood Sound Designers Mark Mangini & Richard L. Anderson over the last 3 decades. As it's name claims, this library offers you a very good quality foundation of sounds to accent or use as your main general effects library. We have listened to every single sound to provide you the most comprehensive, impartial and detailed review. Odyssey includes 16,532 Sounds (156GB), a 1TB Hard Drive, Search Software and Online Access with a Royalty-Free Commercial License to use the effects.
It took 10,000 hours to edit the library and compile all of the required metadata to make the it accessible in a fast post production workflow, and the search terms are fairly logical. The included high quality 1TB Hard Drive is covered by guarantee for 3 years, and you can access the library online at anytime, which is perfect when freelancing at other facilities. The 16.532 royalty free WAV files include a combination of stereo, LCR, Quad and 5.1 recordings in a variety of formats: 24/96, 24/48, 16/48, 16/44. This variety is likely due to changes in technology over the years of recording, as well as the very specific needs of projects that these sounds were recorded for.
At 344, we are a big fan of libraries that have some dirt and character, and this library contains genuine field recordings that were captured with love. Many of the sounds on offer here will slot into a scene without too much processing. There is a fairly large tonal variety, some sounds being more reverberant with a thinner frequency response, and others sounding close and fuller. The overall quality is high however and these varieties can definitely work to your advantage in a lot of tracklay scenarios. Be prepared for certain effects to have some noise floor inherent within them.
One of this product's stronger points is that it contains sounds that Mangini and Anderson obviously felt were lacking in many other libraries, and therefore it can be a great secret weapon for finding more abstract and rarely captured effects. Some big standouts for us were the car movements on different surfaces, rocket bursts and the metal scrapes/squeaks. Just a couple of examples of sounds that were meticulously selected, recorded and designed in a unique way.
Make sure you read our 'Categories of Irresistible Effects' section below for our detailed analysis of each sound category.
Some areas for improvement in this library would be the large variety of channel formats included. For example, the mixture between Quad, LCR and 5.1 ambiences can limit your ability to tracklay quickly, as you will be duplicating channels or removing channels to keep consistency in your BG tracks. It would have been better to upmix some of these to 5.1, or just keep them as stereo files.
Some users with smaller overall libraries may find gaps within Essentials if they attempt to use it as their main general effects library, however it a great addition to other PSE products like Hybrid Library, which offer more generic effects, but with a larger cross section than Odyssey: Essentials offers.
Think of this library as the ultimate Sound Designer's personal library. Natural character and imperfections give this library the edge over general effects libraries. Perfect for those looking to augment their libraries with some unique and well crafted effects that cover a variety of categories.
Get The Odyssey Collection: Essentials Now!
Check out our verdict of each category in the library, so that you know what to expect:
Acid: A small selection of bubble and sizzle sounds.
Air: Useful airy sound effects from elements such as Sprays or Fire Extinguisher as well as pure air sounds, not including standard wind sounds that you can find in any library
Aircraft -
Gliders: A single sound effect that contains a lot of airy moaning and whistling sound.
Helicopters: Very good variety of helicopter sounds recorded from different perspectives.
Jets: A huge selection of jet related sounds.
Prop Planes: Good quantity of sounds from propeller planes.
Alarms: A basic selection of alarms that you might need for your projects.
Ambience -
Battle: If you are in need of military style ambiences, you will be happy with this selection.
Exotic: A good selection of exotic elements from different countries such as Mexico or Malaysia, the only downside of this selection is the length of most of the recordings, it would be ideal to have longer ambiences as most of them are shorter than 3 minutes.
Industrial: A fantastic number of industrial sounds.
Jungle: This selection will bring your jungles scenes to life! Most of the sounds have a great content of wild species. A few 5.1 effects are included in this section!
Misc: All the miscellaneous ambience that you will need will be probably found in this section.
Nautical: A fantastic selection.
Public Places: A huge variety of locations were used to capture these background sounds. People talking in different language would be a real bonus for this section.
Room Tones: Just a variety of tones!
Rural: Good for scenes that need simplicity.
Suburban: A nice selection of stereo and 5.1 ambience sound from relatively quiet environments. Other than that, there are a few other ambiences such as roller coaster or bank ambiences.
Technical: if you are working in a casino style movie, you will find a great selection of casino background sound.
Urban: The sound of big cities to bring your scenes to life!
Walla: A very natural selection of different types of environments such as Prisons or Nightclubs, useful for layering your atmospheres.
Amphibians: Has some very nice frogs and insects background sounds, however; some of them sound very similar.
Arrows: a nice and realistic sounding of arrows passing by, hitting the target and taking off from the crossbow.
Beeps: Just a great number of beep sounds!
Bells: Great variety of bells.
Birds -
Exotic: An extensive selection of birds sounds that you might not have heard before.
Land: This is the selection of birds that you find close to you if you are in an urban environment.
Misc: A few background sounds from a Barnyard and a very minimal selection of birds and winds.
Water: A good number of penguin, geese and seagulls captured from different perspectives.
Wing Flaps: Not the most realistic wing flaps in this selection.
Boats -
Bow Wash: Be careful with the water, these sounds are very close to you!
Misc: All the detailed sounds that you might need for your scene such as jet skis and boat creaks.
Motor Boat: Great selection of moving boats at different speeds.
Rowboats: Very nice and realistic sound different elements of rowboats and its impact with the water. Very realistic squeaking sound of the wood, useful to add the realistic textures.
Ships: This selection would be used if Titanic was being remade!
Submarines: A short selection of submarine/industrial sounds, nothing very special in here.
Breathing: Useful breathing content for projects that requires a very realistic touch. It also includes a couple of processed, washy breathing effects for horror movies.
Buzzers: An average selection of buzzer sounds, some of them are already designed for an specific location such as a prison yard or for an stadium, there are some limitations as these sound are already processed.
Camera: Very detailed capture of different sounds that a camera can make. This large selection will probably contain all the sounds that it needed from a different types of cameras, as well as other elements such as projectors.
Cartoon: This section has an extensive number of very useful cartoon style sound effects, it reminds me of my childhood!
Chains: A very extensive number of chain with variations, being rattled and hit on different types of surfaces.
Chairs -
Leather: No budget for foley? You can achieve a good sense of realism and texture by using this section if you come across any leather on your project.
Metal: A great selection of chair squeaks, chairs sliding and wheelchair sounds.
Misc: A selection of chairs sound not very commonly found, especially the theatre seat sounds, these stand out massively on this section as they give you all the quirks that you hear in a theatre.
Plastic: A selection of “plasticy” sounds that you hear from a plastic chair.
Wood: A realistic selection of wooden chair sounds such as chair squeaks, chairs moving and chair impacts.
Clicks: Sounds coming from different sources that click, such as metal tongs, remote control buttons or a spray can. It would be great to have more type of clicks included on this list such a finger sounds on mobile phones/tablets.
Clock: This section offers a great range of different clock types such as pocket watch or a chime clock. Most of them are recorded out of context; therefore, it gives you a great chance to manipulate the sound as desired.
Cloth: Very good selection of cloth movements, useful for when you can't do Foley.
Computers: This selection mostly has keyboard sounds.
Cooking: Useful kitchen elements such as boiling water and sizzling sounds. Most of them are captured from a close perspective.
Crashes -
Debris: It is not a big selection but has a very nice 5.1 impact. There are also a few stereo vehicle drops with variations.
Glass: Very good quality glass crashes such as light bulbs and wood glass crashes, however, it feels that this section is lacking in larger weight glass impacts.
Metal: A variety of crashes made from vehicles, fences, shields, etc. This section contains a great number of useful impacts, perfect to be layered with other effects in order to enhance your sound design process. A few of these sounds are made in 5.1.
Misc: This selection of crash sounds offers mostly shorter and drier versions of impacts.
Pottery: This section offers a very short selection of pottery crashes and impact sounds that lack in high frequency content.
Wood: Great selection of wood debris sounds, including a piano lid crash.
Creaks: A fabulous selection of creak sounds from different surfaces to add realism to your project.
Crowds -
Applause: This large selection of applause is great! The great number of different types of crowds, clapping speeds, screaming and cheering make this selection very unique.
Misc: This is just a great addition for the applause selection.
Movement: These sounds are basically a variety of skate rolling and jumping, they are recorded on location so they are great for background sounds rather than spot effect sounds.
Walla: A great source of sound to add realism to your backgrounds and atmospheres.
Crunches: Well detailed and clean individual crunches sounds, useful to add extra detail.
Debris -
Dirt: A decent number of sounds that can be used to add realism on your projects such as the sound of the gravel wheel or metallic sprinkling sound.
Misc: This selection will add movement to those small details that you might need for your debris, such as metal movements or wood cracks.
Rock: Very nice variations of short, medium and large impacts, crashes and avalanche sounds, from different perspectives.
Distortion: A short selection of overly processed sounds that might be useful for sci-fi projects.
Doors -
Creaks: Just a great variety of doors and creaking sounds. It would be ideal if all of these sounds were recorded from a closer perspective in order to have the opportunity to process them according to the project and it’s perspectives.
Exotic: A few weird sounds such as bamboo doors and sliding doors.
Glass: This selection offers you a great variety of glass doors from close or distant perspectives. A few of these include variations such as different opening and closing speed.
Hardware: This section has a great number of detailed sounds that are needed for creating a realistic sound effect on your project. It includes door knocking on different types of doors, key movement in locks, door handle sounds, etc.
Metal: This section contains a great number of metallic doors, captured from different distances and perspectives.
Misc: This is a huge selection of in detail sounds that will complement any door of this collection. Metal doors impact and knocking on doors are the type of sounds found in this section.
Sliding: Again, well detailed sounds of different types of sliding doors such as Ice cream freezer doors, Metal and Wood doors.
Stones: This selection only contents 2 sounds of rocky type of doors.
Wood: Numerous wood doors and its variations in this section.
Drawer -
Metal: Good number of metal drawers, movements and prop sounds.
Misc: Very nice variations of prop sounds such as movements of items inside different type of drawers.
Wood: If you are a looking for a natural type of wood drawer, you will be able to find it here.
Earthquakes: A decent amount of quakes for different needs. This section includes general rumble, rock movements, explosions and debris.
Eating: I am hungry! This selection has all the taste that you need for eating scenes, such as biting crisps as well as extremely detailed sipping coffee sounds.
Electric -
Arc & Zaps: Good selection of metallic buzzes with different frequency ranges and variations.
Hum: Useful hum sounds in the section. A few of them are in 5.1.
Misc: Some random electric sounds such as cosmic impacts and a diesel generator machine. This selection misses speakers ground hum noises.
Sparks: Very nice selection of spark and crackle sounds.
Tonalities: Very good addition of tonalities for the electric section.
Elevators: This section seems to be more focused on the old type of elevators. Very useful for mechanical noises.
Energy: Amazing selection of designed sounds, very useful for cinematic trailer effects.
Explosions: These explosions have been captured fantastically, the transients are clear and the textures adds a great level of authenticity and uniqueness to these effects. These explosions will allow the sound to break through easily in your mix.
Fans and Air Conditioning: Good selection of different size of fans. More air conditioning units would be ideal, however, it has gone cold in here!
Farts: We don’t want you to imagine this section, you already know what to expect.
Feedback: This selection is a bit short, it could have a greater number of microphone feedback styles; however what it offers, could provide some elements for designing sci - fi projects.
Fight -
Bodyfalls: This selection offers you sounds to add to your design, such as body impacts or the sound of the body rustling in different surfaces. This selection has a great frequency content and they all sound very realistic.
Hits: More pure and real sounds were expected in this selection. Most of the sound are designed and processed in a way that they doesn't sound realistic or big enough for a film mix.
Misc: These are the “add-on” of your fight scene.
Fire -
Burning: Great number of different sizes of fire.
Igniting: Useful sounds that determine the origin of the fire such as lighter spark or gas ignition fire.
Misc: The fire burst is the winner in the section!
Whooshes: This section has a great number of fire movements.
Fireworks: You would probably expect to find only a selection of big fireworks shows, but that is not the case in this library; you will also find a great number of fireworks elements captured from an isolated perspective such as fireworks hisses or crackles.
Foley -
Footsteps: Great stuff for a quick solution. Great selection of floor surfaces, speed, dynamics and type of shoes.
Misc: This section is huge!
Props: Again! Huge selection of prop sound, useful!
Foliage: This is a nice complement for the foley selection.
Games: From Casino sounds to toys sounds.
Ghosts: It is a short selection but it has a great number of beautifully designed sounds.
Glass -
Breaking: A huge amount of glasses breaking, such as bottles and safety glasses.
Glassware: Detail sounds that are needed for dinner scenes such as the spoon stirring in the cup or plate movements, are found in this section.
Hits: Glass down on the table and tap on a window, are the type of sounds found in this section.
Misc: Random sounds coming from glasses such as walk on glass or bottle rolling.
Scrapes and Squeaks: A great addition of details.
Gore -
Blood: There is a lot of texture in this section, a good addition for your design.
Misc: This is an organic selection. You will find a great number of useful sounds, most of them obtained from vegetables such as tomato impacts.
Rips and Tears: Some great bone stretching and cracks in this selection. This selection would be a great starting point for designing weird creatures sounds.
Guns -
Artillery: A few of these shot sounds don’t feel fully realistic, however, this section has other elements such as tank hydraulic movements and its engine.
Bullet Hits: A good number of bullet impact sounds and variations. Useful to have for any action or battle scene.
Bullet Whiz: It offers more unrealistic sounds for a type of a laser gun in a Sci- Fi movie.
Bullets: All bullet related sounds. You will find a great selection of different shell dropping sounds as well as impacts.
Handling: Well thought out sounds for adding realism to your scene.
Machine: Very good number of different weapons, captured from different perspectives. A few 5.1 options in this section, useful!
Misc: Useful sounds for adding an extra detail.
Pistols: Great range of sounds from perspectives and distances.
Ricochets: Disappointing section. Most of the sounds feel very 'Cowboy Western'.
Rifles: The silenced sniper rifle is the winner on this section! There are a great variety of rifle elements but not all of them sound good.
Shotguns: This is a great selection of well balanced type of guns. With this selection you won't need to layer any more sounds on top of it. A few 5.1 options in this section too!
Heartbeat: A great range of speeds.
Horns: Very good number of horns included in this section. The New York auto horn is the winner as it has great number of horns beeping from different perspectives and distances without the city and car sounds, a great element to layer in your city environmental sounds.
Insects -
Flying: Great number of flying insects from different perspectives.
Land: Very large range of insects in this section.
Misc: Close perspective sounds from insects.
Laser -
Guns: Good variety, great to use as a starting point for your design.
Impacts: A very processed explosion style.
Misc: There is a great number of synthy sounds in this section, mostly useful for Sci-Fi Weapons.
Sword: This section has a short number of grinded style synth sounds to represent the movement of the laser sword.
Liquid FX: Useful sounds to add “wet” textures!
Machine -
Electric: Useful sounds, such as printer and dentist drill.
Heavy: Heavy machinery sound such as tunnel drill or conveyor belt.
Light: A great selection of everyday sounds, such as washing machines or a cash register.
Misc: This selection contains those machines that are not very commonly found on a daily basis, such as a leaf blower or a tape recorder.
Mammals -
Cats: Not too much of variety in this section, no more than only cat growls, meows and purring.
Dogs: Great selection of common dogs and all the typical sounds that they make.
Farm: All the sounds that you would expect to hear in a farm are in here.
Horses: Great number of horse walks, prop sounds and noises.
Marine: A very short selection, mostly made out of water spout sounds from whales. It would be great to have dolphin sounds and other species.
Misc: Useful sounds such as creature's wings or a stadium of rats.
Rodents: Great selection of mice vocals.
Wild: A great number of different type of animals such as hyenas and elephants, all captured by different perspectives.
Mechanical -
Gears: Great addition for your machinery design.
Misc: Mechanical sounds from machines that are not commonly found such as ferris wheel or DVD tray motor.
Ratchets: Great addition to the misc.
Rollers: If it rolls, the sound is probably here! This selection includes items such as shopping cart or a gurney rolling.
Metal -
Hits: In need of any metallic hits? This selection will sort you out. Good selection of metal bangs, clangs and drops.
Misc: As this section claims, a great number of metallic miscellaneous sounds, including desk bangs, metal clicking or a metal drum drag.
Scrapes and Squeaks: Realism and textures! This selection will add all of those details that you will need to create an unique piece.
Warps: A short selection of random noises coming from metallic elements, useful for design. The metal groans are the winner!
Microphone -
Feedback: A short selection of feedback. It would be ideal to have clean feedback sounds.
Handling: This section could be added to the Foley props.
Motor -
Combustion: A very short selection of engines sounds.
Electric: A great selection of sizes and type of motors.
Hydraulic: A short selection of movements.
Misc: More motors!
Steams: A short selection that complement nicely with the rest of the motors category.
Turbines: Mostly jet sounds.
Musical -
Chimes: A small but sweet and magical selection of chimes.
Instruments: A mixture of sounds coming out from instruments such as piano key impacts or cymbal effects. Useful elements for sound design.
Misc: This selection contains random sounds such as kazoo fanfare or a saxophone player performing on the street.
Tonalities: Great elements to determinate the mood of your project.
Paper: Great selection of paper movements.
Phonographs: Variety of sounds coming from a phonographs such as a needle drop and record scratch.
Plastic: A great range of plastic objects and movements, such as plastic fan or lid drop.
Pops: Short selection of pops!
Pumps: Brilliant range of pumps, useful for machinery design.
Radio FX: All sorts of radio sounds such as statics and walkie talkie effects.
Rain: Beautiful selection of rain, captured from indoors and outdoors perspectives and over different type of surfaces.
Rattles: Most of these sounds are a great complement for the metal and earthquake category.
Reptiles: Not too much variety in this section, a few snakes hisses and very processed sounds.
Rips: A selection of paper and textiles ripping sound, useful to add texture and realism to your project.
Robots -
Misc: Useful range of designed a processed sounds. Great to add elements to your robot or machinery designs.
Motors: A great addition to the motor category mentioned earlier.
Voice: This selection contains mainly low frequency sounds.
Rockets: A short but useful selection of sounds such as rocket burst or rocket rumble.
Rocks -
Hits: Useful for adding character to debris sound or impacts.
Misc: Minimal detail sounds from rocks, such as rock drops or pebble movements.
Rolling: Again, great selection of detail sounds.
Scrapes: A useful selection that complements the rest of the rock category.
Rope: Very nice detailed sound of the rope, such a rope stretching or creaks. It lacks rope handling sounds.
Rubber: A full texture range of rubber sounds such as tire creaks or rubber balls.
Rumbles: A useful selection of drone elements to create tension on your projects.
Sand: This is a short selection of sand sounds, such as raining sand or sand impacts.
Sea Animals: A short range of a few sea animals and its movements. This is a good addition for the mammals marine range.
Sirens: Very nice selection of sirens sounds with different perspectives.
Snow: Mainly snow hits and footsteps.
Spaceships: Brilliant! Good selection of designed spaceship elements. Time saver!
Sports: This section is WOW! Great range of sports types and sound elements.
Including racquetball footsteps!
Squeaks: Just squeaking noises from different materials and items.
Static: As the name claims, static sounds!
Stings: Brilliant range of cinematic effects sounds, well designed, very useful!
Subwoofer: A short selection of sounds, useful for adding LFE on your projects!
Swishes: Great to make your any movement stand out! Large selection of sounds with different tonalities and speeds.
Switches: A larger range would be great, however, you might get away with this short selection as they are reasonably good.
Telephone -
Answering Machine: A short selection of answering machines sounds such as beeps and tape sounds.
Handling: Good selection of phones and sounds in here.
Misc: A short random sound for phone purposes. The rotary phone sound is the winner here!
Rings: Mostly traditional and old fashioned rings in this selection.
Tones: Dial sounds and beeps.
Television FX: Mostly remote buttons effects, as well as a few old fashioned monitors and buzzing sounds.
Test Tone: A single emergency broadcast tone.
Thunder: Great selection and variety of thunder strikes and explosive blasts.
Tools -
Hand: Brilliant! Great range of sounds and tools!
Misc: Random sounds that will complement the rest of the tools sounds.
Power: Any powered tool is on this selection!
Traffic: Just traffic! From different perspectives.
Trains -
Diesel: Large selection of diesel train types and its different sound and variations.
Electric: Great selection of modern and fast trains.
Horns: All the horns that you need.
Steam: Great selection of locomotives, from different perspectives.
Subway: Nice variety of subways sounds from different cities such as New York and Chicago.
Whistles: A great way to travel to the past!
Typewriters: A life saver if you don’t have a typewriter.
User interface: Nothing extremely special here, mostly beeps.
Vacuum: This selection will clean up your session!
Vehicles -
Antiques Cars: A selection of a few car sounds from 1934 to 1942. This section includes props and engine sounds.
Bicycles: An extensive selection of bicycles sounds.
Brakes: Short selection of brake squeals.
Buses: An extensive selection of buses and their sounds. Useful.
Carts: Fantastic selection of go karts sounds, very rare to find.
Classic Cars: Beautiful recording of classic cars passing by.
Construction: Powerful engines in here! Extensive selection.
Doors: More door were expected in this section.
Horns: Great selection of horns but lacking of horns moving.
Mechanical: Wipers, handbrake, lights switch on.
Military: The basic army vehicles selection that you will need to have in your library. Useful!
Misc: All those random noises that cars make are probably in this selection.
Modern Cars: A selection of cars from 1988 until 2009, this section includes doors, engine and car moving sounds.
Motorcycles: An extensive selection, beautifully captured. A very impressive range of motorbikes in here!
Race Cars: All the sounds that you need to create a scene in the Formula One track!
Suspension: These need some lubrication!
Tires: Great to add textures to your moving and breaking sounds, fantastic selection.
Trucks: Again! Great number of vehicles and recordings in here!
Wagons: Good selection of creaking and squeaking moving sounds.
Voices -
Alien: Well designed voices that will speed up your workflow.
Babies: Different type of crying and baby sounds. Useful!
Beasts: Nothing really new in this selection. It seems that most of this sounds are over used this days.
Blow: A great element, well thought out!
Burps: I don't want to listen to this again! This selection is not very extensive, I guess there are not too many burping varieties.
Children: School background, screams and laughter are included in this section.
Coughs: Not very extensive selection, it lacks a variety of coughing sounds, distances and repetition.
Efforts: Useful sounds for a battle or fight scene.
English: Random phrases said in this short selection.
Foreign: More languages would be ideal.
Laughter: This will make you laugh!
Misc: Reactions, mouth noises and moans are the type of sounds found in this selection.
Musical: A very short selection of singing.
P.A: A short selection of P.A announcements. Nothing really special in here.
Radio: Mostly emergency related american radio messages.
Screams: Surprisingly short and processed sounds in this selection. More variety and clean sounds would benefit this section.
Sneeze: Only three sounds in here and not very useful.
Whispers: Stop gossiping there!
Water -
Bubbles: Great element for designing.
Drain: Useful selection of draining sounds, great number of bathtubs styles and scenarios.
Drips: Useful sounds to add drama on your rainy scenes.
Flowing: Amazing selection of different types of water flowing such as a fire hose, river or waterfall. Nice!
Misc: Water balloons, ice cube movements and rowboat are the type of sounds found in this selection.
Plumbing: Great number of useful sounds in here.
Pouring: More liquid moving!
Splashes: This section is very extensive. It has a great selection of splashes from different perspectives.
Spray: This selection includes water hose, water spray and plant mister.
Surf: Hopefully there is a lifeguard around. This selection contains a great number of sounds of waves, wind and big splashes!
Turbulent: A great addition to the previous selections.
Underwater: Great details in this selection! Perfect for adding elements in your design.
Weapons -
Knives and Swords: Big and useful selection for combat.
Misc: No too much going in here.
Whips: That hurts! Very nice movements and whooshes in this section.
Whistles -
Human: The most common whistling phrases made by humans.
Mechanical: Police whistles, steam whistles, Factory whistles. Sounds that you might need at some point.
Misc: Other type of whistles like a teapot and designed whistle whooshes.
Bys: Great number of designed elements to add to your tracklay.
Impact: Well designed whooshes with a lot of texture in this section.
Misc: A decent size selection of elements that will be useful for enhancing movements and creating magical moments.
Reverse: Movements going backwards! Great elements for a trailer.
Winds: This is an extensive selection of different type of winds sounds, with great dynamics and from different perspectives.
Wood -
Chops: A single sound of a tree being chopped from the distance.
Cracks: Great selection of wood breaking. A great addition for the wood debris range.
Hits: Wood being dropped and hit.
Misc: Any wood-like sound that you might need such as dragging wood or stretching wood.
Scrapes and Squeaks: A great addition of wood props for your library.
Zipper: Medium size selection of zips with different speeds and length.
A review of Soundly, an intuitive and lightning-fast sound effects search and management software that streamlines workflow for sound designers with cloud integration, seamless DAW compatibility, and an extensive free library.
November 23, 2021
Company: Soundly
Product: Soundly
Price: $14.99 per month
Our Rating: 4.7/5
Cutting edge sound effects search software Soundly, combines Scandinavian minimalism with lightning fast editing workflows.
Soundly comes as a compact software package, which installed quickly on our Windows 7 system. Once launched, and a subscription is purchased, users can scan their entire hard drive for audio files (there is a free version with limitations too). This will take some time, but once scanned, Soundly can automatically update new audio files within folders when relaunching the software.
The interface is very slick, and is comfortable to look at for long periods with it’s dark colour scheme. It offers a stripped back set of preferences, and has a very useful ‘dock-mode’, which adjusts the window to a laptop friendly size automatically. Screen real estate is massively important when sound editing, and Soundly can function very well on laptops.
There is support for a variety of audio formats, including WAV, MP3, OGG, AIFF and FLAC up to 192 kHz 32 Bit. Soundly also includes these features:
The 'Sounds' tab has various controls for searching, editing and spotting audio files. At the left side of the interface is the Libraries section, where users can toggle the cloud/local libraries on and off, as well as create custom playlists - very useful for building those project specific folders!
In the lower area of the UI, users can reverse, adjust pitch, speed and the level of chosen sound effects before dragging them into a DAW or NLE. The majority of the screen is filled with search results, displaying file names, lengths, formats, channel configurations, libraries and descriptions.
The 'Store' tab allows users to search for sound effects to purchase from boutique libraries. The 'News' tab allows customers to comment on update releases directly, which shows that Soundly value the opinions of working professionals.
Soundly is a dramatic workflow enhancement for Pro Tools Sound Editors. Not only can you drag files straight into the timeline, but you can adjust in/out points and spot to Pro Tools all without exporting additional files.
One of Soundly’s major advantages is the online library that comes with subscriptions, it includes over 10,000 audio files, which sound great and are a useful addition as a general library.
On top of that, Freesound integration makes trawling through the website a thing of the past! You can even search for CC0 only effects, which helps avoid those ‘doh!’ moments when you can’t use a sound effect due to attribution licensing.
The ability to drag audio straight from the cloud is painless with today’s fibre optic broadband connections, and Soundly makes it feel like an offline library, amazing.
Users also have the option to purchase boutique libraries from multiple vendors within the software. Sound effects creator’s will also be happy to hear that extensive Metadata authoring is also on the feature list, and it couldn’t be simpler for beginners, simply right click a file and hit 'edit metadata'.
The best way to describe the current release of Soundly is that it feels complete as an offline sound effects search software. It is fast, adaptable and painless to use.
However, now that 2.0 has added many practical features, Soundly need to focus on partnerships to really help their Store section shine. More free libraries need to be available in the app, such as the Sonniss GDC bundles, Zapsplat and more.
Soundsnap integration would also be a huge addition, as well as a partnership with ASoundEffect and Pro Sound Effects. The difficulty in obtaining this is evident, but the app specialises in sound effects from the cloud, and the $15 per month subscription feels harder to spend with these omissions - as the cloud library won't cover every specific scenario.
That brings us to the next point, subscription models. Hate them or love them, they are here to stay, and can be worthwhile if constant value is added month by month - Soundly provides this by updating their cloud library.
The inclusion of a pricing option for users who want the full offline search options, without the cloud library, would position Soundly as a knockout competitor for Soundminer and Basehead, which it definitely can be.
If you prefer to pay monthly for software, Soundly promises immense value straight out of the box. It would take over 2 years of subscription to spend as much as the cost of Soundminer HD PLUS; and you get 10,000+ audio files included.
If you hate subscription models, it is still worth a look, especially as there is a free version available for download with limited features.
