One project I’m working on this week is sound design for a new theatre production, something I’ve walked into at relatively the last minute.

In the past I’ve hired sound designers for theatre productions - those who can source the sound effects, get the music right, get the cues sorted for the stage and leave us with a magnificent soundscape of pure audio delights.

This job also falls into my ‘free work’ category due to my continued involvement with and development of the theatre company.

What’s been making my job that bit easier are the samples available from Free-Loops.com. Over 5,000 of them in fact, with a lot of the samples covered by a Creative Commons. If you don’t want to go through the downloading process of single-clicking 3,000+ sound loops, you can contribute $20 to the site and get access to a single download file of the entire free loop archive.

If you’re working as a podcast producer, in radio, freelancing with some audio work then this is a solid starting point to explore. There is also a selection of free VST plugins you can download to integrate with your preferred audio editor along with some free standalone multimedia applications to help you with your work.

More Free Sound Loops

Another resource I picked up during the week was SoundSnap.com offering a multitude of free MP3 samples to download. The interface is a lot cleaner and certainly easier to navigate around with clips also available in WAV format (not all clips).

Then there’s the old reliable of SoundDogs.com, which I find to be hit and miss quality-wise depending on what you’re after but it’s always worth a look for short effects / sounds.. You do indeed have to pay to download samples from SoundDogs.com (or grab the MP3 links if you want a low-quality copy.) For commercial use and project use you must open a professional account. The previews, which are low in quality are for demonstration purposes only, with high quality samples available with a pro account.

As with any audio or video download, be sure and read any accompanying license agreements or terms and conditions if using samples in a commercial project or venture.

If you have any free audio resources you would like to add, just leave a comment and I’ll get it added to the list above.

Update 1: Try also, Free Sound Project

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