Sound Libraries for Actual Play
- nathankuykendall
- Sep 19
- 5 min read
Opinions on Recording, Editing & producing an Actual Play Podcast | Software | Hardware Techniques
I want to start out by saying that if you are looking at opinions on Tabletop Audio, Monument Studios, Syrinscape or any of the other wonderful services that will prechew your food for you and spit out the same sounds that the other 50,000 D&D Podcasts are using,
STOP READING HERE and go about your business.
However, if you currently get all of your sound fx & ambience from freesound.org and are...
Bored of the sounds available
Disappointed with the quality
Unable to find what you are looking for
Looking for more inspiration
Just looking for more variety
...Read on!!
There are a wealth of Professional Sound Libraries out there that are used for Television, Film, Video Games and other mediums made my independents and teams of Sound Designers.
Most of the time, these libraries go for hundreds of dollars, just for one category of sound, whether it is whooshes, braams, impacts or themed sounds like horror or cinematic.
And maybe you have deep pockets and you don't mind spending $100 on a library of 500 Mouse Farts. That person may be me, if I'm feeling flush.
But when making Actual Plays, most of us are on a tight budget and we just want to make the sound of our project match as close to the sound we hear in our heads.
As a way to attract customers, many of these companies and independents will publish free sample packs, in exchange for the privilege of signing up for their email lists.
This is a win-win for us and for the Sound Designers for these Libraries.
I've downloaded and will continue to download free assets from the providers I'll list below, and occasionally, when I really need something specific, I will spend my money with them.
I'm going to link resources below, and they will each require you to give them an email address that they will send the download link to. None of these are Affiliate links, Except for this one
The List
This site features a podcast for sound professionals and also acts as a storefront for independent sound designers, as well as some of the larger libraries. It's a very good place to support independents for very little cost.
What's free?
They have a monthly Newsletter with links to free samples from independent designers at the very bottom of the email.
This is one of those major library sites. Every time they launch a new library, they will put it on sale for a few weeks.
They also offer a Subscription Service to access a large number of sounds.
In addition to that they make apps and plugins for audio post production
What's free?
They have a monthly Newsletter that includes a small number of sounds from one collection. I've been subscribed for a long time and have gotten some really useful sounds and sounds I've never touched.
Also if you go to their product page, they have a bunch of free libraries listend when you sort from Low to High. I use the heck out of the Death Whistle Library and the Nordic Horns.
Another Major Library that you've definitely heard sounds from. They feature libraries created by Hollywood Sound Designers like Richard King and Mark Mangini.
Occasionally they have sales where you can get smaller libraries for cheap, but a lot of their large multi-purpose libraries are thousands of dollars.
What's free?
They have a Core Sampler Library that you can sign up for if you tell them a little about yourself and sign up for their newsletter. It's a good sampling to have that even includes some pre-recorded Foly-type fx.
They also have a FREE Sound Database tool that I've been using for 4 years called SoundQ.
SoundQ has it's own search engine and you can build your own directories to help organize your sounds. It will even let you listen to the sounds, select portions of them, reverse them and change the speed of them before sending them to your DAW or Video Editor. It will even search & download CC0 content from Freesound.org for you.
Big Time Saver!!
I am a Krotos Affiliate. I use a lot of their software like Weaponiser, Dehumaniser & Studio in my Sound Design. They also have quite a few libraries. Many of them have additional metadata included to help them work with their software.
I use Krotos Studio quite a bit to create new sound fx. It has their sounds built in and the software interface lets you perform the sound to what's going on in your show. It's pretty cool. if you want a free month or it, let me know.
What's free?
They have some free sample packs available in the link above. There is some useful stuff in there.
This is an independent shop that has a bunch of interesting libraries as well as some plugins.
They have been running some free promos lately.
What's free?
Right now, not a lot, but they do have a free plugin called "Droid" for making R2-D2 type sounds.
grab it and sign up for their newsletter. They have been doing a lotta giveaways.
Soundly is a Swedish company that has their own stable of Sound Designers. They also have a partnership with Epidemic Sound whereas Epidemic Sound Subscribers have access to at least some of Soundly's work. It's mostly built around a subscription service, but they do give you access to a bunch of sounds.
What's free?
They have a Sound Database application like SoundQ. It limits the number of sounds from your personal library that it can manage unless you pay for the subscription.
From within Soundly you can audition their free and paid libraries, EQ them and add reverb before sending them to your DAW or Video Editor. It's a big time saver if you like the way their reverb and EQ sounds.
They also make their Reverb & EQ as a free VST plugins that you can download and use in your DAW. The reverb is very handy for quick and dirty ways to simulate rooms and stairwells as well as filter things so they sound like the sound is coming through the wall. Not perfect, but more than enough for AP sound design I think.
*One Caveat: It does include a feature called Voice Designer. I don't think it's technically AI. i think it's old fashioned Voice Synthesis and the newer style like what's used for voice mail systems, Siri & Alexa where they are sampling the phonemes from paid Voice Actors. But that may be splitting hairs and may be too close for comfort for some folks.
I may add to this list, feel free to comment on this, make corrections and suggestions!
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