Free Sound Effects for All Occasions: 40+ Download Sites
Imagine a movie or video without sound effects. Even a magnificent film like Titanic would look nothing more than a joke if there are no ‘Wham’, ‘Bam’ and ‘Smash’ sounds in it. Background music and sound effects are important for making a video (or even an audio production) engaging and in its full essence.
There are thousands of online resources to download sound effects. However, not all of them can offer you high-quality material that’s also free. So, in this post, I am listing 40+ cool websites to download just about any type of sound effect for free.
Read also:
- Websites to download Creative Common Music
- Best free audio editors to download
- Websites to listen and share music online
Free-Loops.com
This platform offers more than seven thousand CC-licensed sounds and loops, which are divided into categories like drum loops, synth loops, midi files, etc.
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Varies
No
SoundBible
A superb site for downloading sounds, SoundBible, offers royalty-free sound effects that you can use commercially in movies, games, and other projects. The page provides thousands of sound clips like sound loops, game sounds, etc.
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Varies
Yes
Fugue
Fuge has a huge library of royalty-free, high-quality music in dozens of categories. Your search for music is based on themes, genres, or musical instruments. All the music on Fuge is free. However, it comes with a watermark, and users are required to credit Icons8 and the song’s author. You can also share the link to any music file on social media or via email.
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Varies
Yes
ZapSplat
At ZapSplat, you can access thousands of professional sound effects in various categories like nature, cartoons, horror, etc. Also, its library is updated on a weekly basis so that you get new and fresh sounds every week here.
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Varies
Yes
Freesound
Freesound offers a collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, and bleeps. You can search for any sound or effect using keywords and look for its ratings to determine its quality before downloading it. You have to however, login to the site (sign up is free), before you can download any audio clips.
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Creative Commons
Yes
Partners In Rhyme
Partners In Rhyme includes a wide range of sound effects from many genres like rock, pop, romance, etc. The site also offers free music resources.
Not Required
Free for personal use
Yes
SampleSwap
SampleSwap offers professional quality loops and audio samples – a total of 7.7 GB of free sounds in techno, hip-hop, and a lot more categories. This site requires you to login (sign up is also free) to your account before you can download any sample clips.
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Creative Commons
Yes
GameSounds
GameSounds offers a collection of royalty-free music and sounds, which are suitable for games and can be used commercially for free.
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Varies
Yes
freeSFX
At freeSFX, you will get free soundtracks and sound effects made for audio enthusiasts and production companies. The sounds are contributed by its large community of proficient and versatile music artists. Login is required.
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Free for commercial / non-commercial use
Yes
PacDV
PacDV produces royalty-free soundtracks for music producers, filmmakers, etc., which are ideal for use in documentaries, games, and commercials.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
No
SoundJay.com
If you are looking for some royalty-free soundtracks with 16-bit stereo and 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz quality, then SoundJay.com hosts just the sound effects you need. Moreover, all the sounds are arranged in categories for traversing quickly.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
No
SoundGator
SoundGator allows you to browse sound effects through their list of categories, which includes unique sounds like that of a typewriter, smoke alarm, etc. Login is required.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
Yes
99Sounds
At 99Sounds, artistic musicians upload their creative sound effects for its audio community, which you can download without any usage limits. Sound clips are available for download in packs, searching for specific sound effect is not available on the site.
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Varies
No
PlayOnLoop
PlayOnLoop offers premium quality sound effects, which are ideal for any creative media work and suit professional artists and creators.
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Creative Commons
No
TalkingWav
Talkingwav.com offers thousands of free .wav sound files to download, including answering machine messages, cartoon, comedy, music, movie and tv .wav sounds, all fully categorized with descriptions. Plus loads of free mobile cell phone ringtones and videos.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
Yes
FindSounds
FindSounds lets you search the Internet for sounds and avails options to search only for stereo and high-fidelity sounds. You can also browse the sounds here.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
Yes
FXhome
FXhome lists all its soundtracks under CC-license so that you can use them in commercial projects without any second thought. Here, you can navigate and download various types of sound effects like bullet/gun sounds, saber sounds, etc.
Not Required
Creative Commons
No
Looperman
Another important site for royalty-free sounds, Looperman offers loops, samples and other sounds for free. Here, the soundtracks are uploaded by its community, and it avails more than 83 thousand loops and sound effects in total. Login is required.
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Varies
Yes
Ambient-mixer.com
This site offers the most relaxing and soothing sound effects to chill your mind. Moreover, it avails large selections of audio templates and a mixer as well.
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Varies
Yes
JL Recording Studios
JL Recording Studios lets you use the sound effects for your own production house. It includes a broad category of music like bird sounds, environmental sounds, etc.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
No
Free Sound Effects
Like the other sites, this site offers royalty-free sound effects in numerous categories. The audio tracks can be played online or downloaded in MP3 and WAV formats.
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Free for non-commercial use
Yes
SoundEffects+
SoundEffects+ provides more than five thousand sound effects, which are recorded and produced by its team of professionals. It avails them under a free license.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
Yes
get-sounds.com
get-sounds.com offers hundreds of sound effects in categories like animals, cartoons, military, nature, sports, transportation, and some more.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
Yes
MediaCollege.com
Similar to the above sites, MediaCollege.com offers sound effects for your commercial or personal projects. They are free and arranged in categories.
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Varies
No
Community Audio
Community Audio offers thousands of sound recordings compiled by contributors and community members. You can preview before downloading them.
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Varies
Yes
Orange Free Sounds
This platform provides a wide range of free sound effects, music loops, and background music that are usable for personal as well as commercial purposes.
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Varies
Yes
Free Sound Effects Collections
Music for video provides different categories of sound effects and music clips. You can download and use these sounds for free on your video/multimedia productions. The sounds in this part of the website are for people working on video production, video montage, and multimedia projects and etc.
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Free commercial/ non-commercial use
No
SoundsCrate
SoundsCrate offers various sounds for your creative and visual experiments. It also avails an option to search for all types of audio using keywords.
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Varies
Yes
PremiumBeat
PremiumBeat has more than 120 sound effects arranged in many categories. These effects are useful in any commercial or personal project.
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Varies, check with each clip
Yes
Videomaker.com
Videomaker.com offers you a free package of 101 sound effects, which include airborne sound, booing crowd, doorbell, and a lot more sounds.
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Varies
Yes
Adobe Audition Sound Effects
Adobe Audition offers thousands of uncompressed, royalty-free audio effects, which can be downloaded as compressed archives of categorized effects.
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Free for commercial / non-commercial use
No
Free Music Archive
Free Music Archive is a complete database of royalty-free sound effects, which can be played online or downloaded to use in your creative projects.
Not Required
Creative Commons
Yes
Facebook Sound Collection
An initiative by Facebook to help creative artists, it offers an exclusive collection of 1500+ original sound effects that can be used for any purpose.
Not Required
Free for commercial / non-commercial use
Yes
Big Fish Audio
This site comprises of loop collections, sounds, and construction kits for your projects. You can discover tracks on this site and download them in WAV format.
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Varies
Yes
Memozee
Over 280 animal sounds available for free download. You can even read the provided description to know better about the particular animal sound.
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Free for commercial / non-commercial use
Yes
Pachd
Over 80 free sound effects are available for download at Pachd.
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Free for commercial / non-commercial use
No
Boogie Jack
Funny, weird, annoying… you’ll find all kinds of sound effects at Boogie Jack.
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Free for commercial / non-commercial use
No
Pro Sound Effects
Pro Sound Effects includes a library of 290 sound effects from its world-class network of recordists that can be used for personal and commercial projects.
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Free for commercial / non-commercial use
No
eSoundz
eSoundz has an updated library of free sound effects that come in packages. These are produced by professional artists like guitarists and keyboardists.
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Free for commercial / non-commercial use
Yes
soundsnap
Search for, preview and download royalty free sound effects for immediate use in your multimedia project. These high quality royalty free sound effects are hand-picked from only the best sound designers.
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Varies
Yes