Sound effects are used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. These trick of sound are mostly achieved by combining technology, ingenuity and creativity. Sound effects are important for digital media because an appropriate sound effect can easily resemble a real occurrence for a situation.

We understand it’s kind of fussy to record and process sound effects on one’s own. Thus, we’ve crawled into Internet and search for free sound effects which are available for download. Here’s 55 websites for free sound effects download. Full list after jump!

Note: Some of these sound effects have limited rights. That means they are not allowed for commercial usage. We urge that you check the rights before using them for business purposes.

More: You might also be interested in 25 Free Digital Audio Editors You Should Know

1. Flash Kit

   Flash Kit has an ever growing list of shareware and freeware SoundFX for download. It provides a powerful searching, excellent organisation and easy real time previews make this the most advanced Sound FX download site on the net! mp3 and flashtrak versions of all effects as well!

   

2. Audio Micro

   AudioMicro is a revolutionary collection of user-generated micro stock music, sound effects, production music, production elements and music cues. Finally, high quality audio content is available at unbelievable prices with no hidden costs or fees.

   

3. Sound-Effect

   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.

   

4. SoundSnap

   Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD’s.
   

   

5. FindSounds

   FindSounds.com is a free site for finding sound effects and musical instrument samples on the Web. It is a Web search engine, like Google and AltaVista, but with a focus on sounds. It provides powerful features, yet is simple and easy to use, and suitable for all ages.

   

6. Soungle

   Soungle is a free site, developed by Southern Codes, for finding all kind of sound FX and musical instruments samples on our mega online library. As different from most of similar sites, Soungle is NOT a Web search engine. It only searches in our growing monster database. Our goals are to keep it simple to use (search, preview and download) and to keep it free.

   

7. SFX Source

   In SFX Source you’ll find cutting-edge and imaginative sound samples crafted with passionate expertise for use in all levels of production, from professional to amateur, for use in Film, TV, Games, and New Media.

   

8. A1 Free Sound Effects

   A1 Free Sound Effects wants to provide the internet with our Free Sound Effects that you can download to your computer and use for church, school, home or for any non-profit project. Commercial Sounds Available.

   

9. Soundrangers

   Soundrangers specializes in generating state-of-the-art royalty free sound effects and music for interactive media, such as virtual user-interfaces, games, online entertainment, web sites and communication devices.

   

10. Partners In Rhyme

    Partners In Rhyme provide free resources, help and advice to amateur and professional multimedia producers, film makers, musicians and students in their search for music, sound effects and audio tools to complete their projects inexpensively and quickly.

    

11. Soundboard

    Soundboard.com puts all your audio clips, as well as millions from other users in one, easy to manage location. Its mission is to invite everyone to help us create a central site for audio clips in a format that anyone with a connection and a browser can enjoy.

    

12. FreeSound.org

    The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, … released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a “sounds-like” type of browsing and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license.

    

13. Acoustica

    Acoustica has a great database and will help you find that ever so elusive sound effect!

    

14. Ljudo

    Ljudo gives free access to more than 1200 sound effects. The sounds are available in two formats: RealAudio and Mp3. Audition with RealAudioplayer or download as an MP3. Ljudo includes multilingual access, which translates the word you are searching for from your language into English.

    

15. Nature Sounds

    Nature Sounds.ca includes free online samples and as well as full-length (usually CD-length or longer!) downloads of quality nature sound mp3s. Some are mixed and edited field recordings, others are free of intervention.

    

16. Pac DV

    PacDV allows you to use the sound effects on their web site free of charge in your video, film, audio and multimedia productions.

    

17. Alc Ljudprod

    Alc Ljudprod have assembled their sound effects in MP3 format and they are free to download and use.

    

18. Hollywood Edge

    The Hollywood Edge is the leading Hollywood Sound Effects Library. These are the Sound Efx used in the big award winning Hollywood movies. From explosions to a pin drop.

    

19. Download Sound Effects

    Free Sound Effects to download will send your great specials for Sound-Effects products after you sign up their free newsletter. Also they will keep you updated with the best new SoundFX products from all over the world.

    

20. SNDBRD

    A very simple page which displays all the downloadable sound effects on its main page with a well-arranged list.

    

21. Brandens

    Many people make a living as Foley Artists adding sound f/x to movies and the like. Brandens has a large collection of sound f/x here in a few categories.

    

22. Animal Sounds

    Over 280 animal sounds available for free download. You can even read the provided description to know better about the particular animal sound.

    

23. I Love Waves

    ILovesWaves is your ultimate categorized .wav source. You can download sound effects from categories like animals, beeps and clicks, birds, cartoons, halloween, around the home, around the work place, insects, music, nature, people, vehicles and war.

    

24. Simply The Best Sound

    The sound files featured in SimplytheBest Sounds were gathered from various collections on the Internet, were created by our editors or submitted by their visitors.

    

25. Zero 1 Media

    Free wav sound samples from zero 1media. All sounds are in wav format. You can download sound inkickdrums, snaredrums, toms, highhats, loops, beat phrases, noises, voices, synth phrases, keyboards and synth sounds and effects.

    

26. Boogie Jack

    Funny, weird, annoying…you’ll find all kinds of sound effects at Boogie Jack.

    

27. AutoSpeak

    AutoSpeak Library of Sounds features the sounds of race cars, dragsters, motorcycles and other auto-related sounds.

    

28. Special Operations

    Special Operations offers free military sound effects for explosion sounds, battle sounds, machine gun sounds, rifle sounds, shortgun sounds, artillery sounds and others.

    

29. Little Music Club

    Littlemusicclub.com where you will find SERIOUS BIG sfx wavs that “rocks”and some other useful music links. For copyright purposes you should contact their respective owners by checking the properties section of each file where applicable.

    

30. Guide to Animal Sounds on the Net

    There are many samples of animal sounds on the World Wide Web and FTP sites, but finding them takes some patience and a bit of luck. This website provides a guide that much more convenient to have an index specifically for animal sounds.

    

31. Stoutman’s Sounds

    Sounds of all kinds for your listening and downloading pleasure! Stoutman’s Sounds is going to be putting up more sounds as time permits.

    

32. Cool Wavs

    Cool wavs is the place where you can look for some cool, funny, sexy wavs.

    

33. Free Audio Clips

    FreeAudioClips.com is loaded with tons of wav, midi and au files for your listening and downloading pleasure!
    Select a category on the right and easily find what you’re looking for. Or, use the quick "audio clip keyword search" to search through the database for that special sound clip!

    

34. Event Sounds

    Event sounds lets you download wavs so you can change the sounds your computer makes such as startup sounds, mail sounds, shut down sounds, error sounds, movie sounds and tv sounds.

    

35. WavCentral

    All of WavCentral’s audio files have been databased and categorized — to make searching and accessing EASY. Over 504 sound effects are available for free download.

    

36. WavPlanet

    Wavplanet, the only audio page that lets users upload to its collection and has become one of the largest on the Internet with thousands of movie and TV files, hundreds of sound effects and MIDI files.

    

37. Movie Sound Clips

    More sound effects categories are currently being worked on Movie Sound Clips. That includes more updates for the current categories, especially weapon sound effects, as well as new object sound effects, answering machine messages and lots more.

    

38. Wav-Sounds

    Wav-Sounds.com is the family friendly wav site. The place to find some of the best free wav sound files around like Answering Machine Wav Sounds, Cartoon Wav Sounds, E-mail Wav Sounds, Funny Wav Sounds, Movie Wav Sounds, Parody Wav Sounds, Various Wav Sounds and Vehicle Wav Sounds.

    

39. 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.

    

40. Tintagel’s Free Sound File Archive

    Sound files at Tintagel are provided free of charge, without any representation or warranty whatsoever. To the best of our knowledge, all wave, midi, and audio files presented here are in the public domain and are available for use without restriction.

    

41. Pachd

    Over 80 free sound effects are available for download at Pachd.

    

42. Amazing Sounds

    Amazing sounds is where you will find all kinds of WAV files. Their database has more than 1.000 WAV Sounds for you to download, FREE!! Their content is made basically for multimedia developers or creators that want to use these files; so you won’t find a lot of movie, serial, or other sounds here.

    

43. Wav Sound Files

    A complete archive for wav sound files download.

    

44. The Recordist

    The Recordist presents a collection of free sound effects in MP3 format. These effects are from The Recordist SFX Library and the “Special Edition”. The MP3 stereo versions are high quality 44.1 192k compressed.

    

45. Sound Jay

    Sound Jay allows you to use the sounds on our website free of charge and royalty free in your projects but you are NOT allowed to post the sounds on any web site for others to download, link directly to individual sound files, or sell the sounds to anyone else.

    

46. FreeSFX

    The free sound effects found within the categories on the site are royalty-free and free to download and use within your audio/visual productions. You do not have to declare the useage of these sounds to any performing rights organizations.

    

47. Sounds FX Page

    Sounds FX Page has a small collection of Sounds FX files saved in WAV format. Instead of creating a rather humongous plethora of sound directories, they thought you would get more use out of a fairly small selection of really good sound files.

    

48. Free Sound Effects

    Free Sound Effects has converted our Stage Sounds Series so you can pick and choose your effects to create your own customized CD. The sound effects are available in a smaller MP3 format and a larger WAV file-self-extracting zip file.

    

49. Water Sounds

    A mini collection of water sounds for ocean surf, rain sounds, stream, water sounds and waterfall.

    

50. 3dmm Studio

    The best movies always have great sound effects, and realistic background noises. So, to help you in your quest for better sounds, 3dmm Studio has compiled and categorised several sound packs. Rubin’s ‘3dmm Sound’ packs require you to import the .3mm file into your movie, where-as the packs complied by Will Cheyney are standard zips with categorised .wav files.

    

51. Media College

    MediaCollege.com is a free educational and resource website for all forms of electronic media. Topics include video & television production, audio work, photography, graphics, web design and more.They have hundreds of exclusive tutorials with supporting illustrations, videos, sound bytes and interactive features.

    

52. 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 mainly dedicated to people involved in video production , video montage ,multimedia projects and etc.

    

53. Wav Surfer

    Wav surfer provides free sound effects in wav files for movies, animals, musical, television and misc.

    

54. A1 Prank Calls

    A1 Prank Calls – The best free sounds, April Fools’ prank items and the funniest prank call humor.

    

55. Sounds & Noise

    Sounds & Noise provides free sound effects for animal sounds, human sounds, trains, planes and automobiles, weapons, horns, bells and whistles, sound of nature and household sounds.