Everyday sounds for everyday projects
The camera zooms in on a flickering neon lamp, casting an eerie glow over a dark alley. An exhausted woman edges into the circle of light. She’s clutching a showbox tightly to her chest, her clothes are dirty and ragged and she’s breathing heavily. She casts a quick glance behind her before resuming her run. The camera moves past her into the dark alley to reveal a shadowy figure with a gun in pursuit.
The woman rounds a corner and comes across the back entrance of a laundromat. She runs in, passing a row of washing machines on high spin and comes out the front. Then she crosses the street and hides in another alley. She peeks out, making sure that the man wasn’t able to follow her. After she sees him looking up and down the street and choosing the opposite direction, she sighs in relief. She opens the box, and pulls out the necklace her mother had given her as a child. It had made it back to its rightful owner.
Objects from everyday life are in every kind of scene, from thrillers like the above to the serials and staples of nightly television. Every sound needs authenticity to add to the realism of the scene, so that the audience is fully immersed and captured by the events of the story.
Smartsound Cloud’s latest upload provides some of the finest sounds from objects around the house. Perfect for game designers, podcasters, cartoonists, and people working on serials and movies that just need some good household sounds. We continue to expand our inventory of high-quality, recorded, royalty-free sound effects every two weeks – our subscription service just keeps getting better and better.
About the sounds
Our previous upload involved laser blasts and explosions, klaxons and smart devices. Most of these were creatively inspired, sounds taken from around the city but then modified and mangled to make them more “science-fiction” oriented. Or they were taken from synthesizers and worked on to give them appropriate sound-effects-grade qualities. This time around though, our sound designers stepped back outside their studios and went home, looking for what they could find useful around the house.
Naturally, “around the house” means some items that might often be overlooked. Here, that was our goal. To get all those things that are often otherwise ignored in sound libraries. Then at the last minute, the sound designer realizes they need that item, and can’t find it. Well, we have it now. In this session we recorded things from washing machines and shoeboxes, to chair and bed movements, smart phone vibrations, neon lamp sounds, light switches, shower curtains, clothing hangers and more.
What can you use these sounds for?
Of course, this is a treasure trove for sound designers of both video games and serials. For serials, you need a constant source of common object noises. And for video games, especially first-person games that involve exploring houses, apartments, or offices, an upload like this is really needed. These sounds can also be used for item pickups, equips, and so on. Any film or TV project that requires someone to design an immersive, realistic sonic environment.
The layering potential here is great as well, as for movements and actions we often need two or three different sound types to put together something coherent.
Stay tuned for the next upload when we’ll be bringing you stone and wood sounds!
