Free Sound at YouTube Sound Effects Channel

Where can you find free sound effects for your animation? Sound design is something that animators at a big studio take for granted - because someone else does it for you.

But when you are creating your own animation, and your own animation demo reel, you need to think (at least a little) about sound effects, and sound design, for your shots. One excellent resource for royalty-free sound effects is the YouTube Sound Effects Channel.

The YouTube Sound Effects Channel also includes links to other similar sites at YouTube. So, if you can't find what you need, try a new channel. You can also (of course) use royalty-free sites like freesound.org and findsound.org.

In a perfect world, you might delegate the sound design of your work to a professional (or aspiring) sound designer. Check out this blog post for how to get the most out of a collaboration with a sound designer.  But it's often the case that the quickest and best way to get something done is to do it yourself.

Remember that most sound design tends to get done in editing software such as Premiere or Final Cut. Sound design is hard in Autodesk Maya because you only get one sound channel; so you can't layer in sound effects. To find out how to use audio in Maya, see this blog post.

To see some animation featuring especially impressive sound design, check out the work of Animation Apprentice graduate Lee Caller, below.

To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our next classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.