A stock sound effect is a prerecorded

sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...

intended to be reused with an entertainment product, as opposed to

creating Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing *Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it *Creationism, the belief that ...

a new and unique sound effect. It is intended to work within a sound effect library.

History

As far back as

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

, sound effects have been used in entertainment productions. Sound effects (also known as ''sound FX'', ''SFX'', or simply ''FX'') are used to enhance

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s, and

online media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...

. Sound effects were originally added to productions by creating the sounds needed in real-time. Various devices and props were utilized to approximate the actual sounds, including coconut shells for horse hooves, and a sheet of metal for thunder. With the advent of

and specifically

radio dramas Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

, the role of sound effects became more important. When cinema went from silent to "

talkies A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

", sound effects became a large part of this new medium, too.

Audio recording Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording te ...

technology continued to evolve, making it easier to record and replay sound. As this happened, the more commonly used and harder-to-replicate sound effects were pre-recorded to make them more accessible. Prerecording also allowed the same sound effect to be used many times. Both producers' and listeners' sensibilities began evolving with the technology, and the need for more realistic sound effects or for using the "real" sound increased. Therefore, a more urgent need developed for prerecorded sound effects. Over time, the quality of audio recording and playback increased, as did the demand for a wider variety of highly specific sounds. For example, rather than use a generic gunshot, a producer might request a gunshot from a specific type of gun, shot under precise conditions. Access to "real" sound effects became increasingly important to producers. These collections of prerecorded sound effects, both real and artificial, began to be referred to as stock sound effects and were organized into libraries. As their usage increased, stock sound effects libraries became the valuable assets of

sound design Sound design is the art and practice of creating sound tracks for a variety of needs. It involves specifying, acquiring or creating auditory elements using audio production techniques and tools. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including ...

artists and

production companies A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, an ...

. Some stock sound effects have been reused so many times that they have become easily recognizable and even cliché. Examples of these include the scream of a

red-tailed hawk The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members with ...

, castle thunder, or the

Wilhelm Wilhelm may refer to: People and fictional characters * William Charles John Pitcher, costume designer known professionally as "Wilhelm" * Wilhelm (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname Other uses * Mount ...

and

Howie scream A stock sound effect is a prerecorded sound effect intended to be reused with an entertainment product, as opposed to creating a new and unique sound effect. It is intended to work within a sound effect library. History As far back as Ancient Gre ...

s. Many of the original sound effects libraries originated in the mid to late 1950s from film and

television studio A television studio, also called a television production studio, is an installation room in which video productions take place, either for the production of live television and its recording onto video tape or other media such as SSDs, or for t ...

s that employed the artists who created them, such as

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

and

Hanna-Barbera Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

Audio Fidelity Records Audio Fidelity Records, was a record company based in New York City, most active during the 1950s and 1960s. They are best known for having produced the first mass-produced American stereophonic long-playing record in November 1957 (although this ...

was one of the first record labels to join in releasing compilations from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, notably Elektra alongside Jac Holzman's released ''Authentic Sound Effects'' in 1964 as a 13 volume series. Over time, independent companies such as ''Sound Ideas'' and ''Hollywood Edge'' became involved, both distributing the major studios' libraries as well as making their own available to the public. The

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

ushered in a new generation of technology, entertainment media, and sound effects libraries.

Sounddogs Sounddogs.com, Inc. is a commercial online library of sound effects based in Marina Del Rey, California, with offices in Canada, Argentina, and Uruguay. It is the first and largest online sound effects and production music library on the Internet ...

became the first to distribute sound effects libraries over the internet and

Soundrangers Soundrangers was the first online sound library of original sound effects and production music designed for specifically for interactive media such as video games, websites and interactive software. Soundrangers was also one of the first sound ...

became the first to create an all-new sound effects library for internet-based entertainment. Dozens of other websites now provide stock sounds for

movie A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

s, video games, and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

. Others such as

Freesound Freesound is a collaborative repository of Creative Commons licensed audio samples, and non-profit organisation, with more than 500,000 sounds and effects (as of May 2021), and 8 million registered users (as of March 2019). Sounds are uploaded ...

aim to provide free sound effects under the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

. Over the years, with the evolution of

sound recording Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording te ...

technology and new formats, the format used for sound effects libraries also evolved. Sound libraries are now available on many types of media, including

vinyl records A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove ...

reel-to-reel tape Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...

cassette tapes The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...

compact discs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octobe ...

hard drives A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...

, and via the internet. Sound effects libraries now include more complex, layered, and mixed sounds along with a wider variety of incidental real-world sounds.

Often-used examples

;

Wilhelm scream The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect that has been used in a number of films and TV series, beginning in 1951 with the film ''Distant Drums''. The scream is usually used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from a ...

: sound of a man screaming, first used in a 1951 Western and used as a

running joke A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling. Though they are similar, catchphrases are not ...

by sound designers in many films and television shows. ; Howie Scream : (also known as the Howie Long scream or Screams 3; Man, Gut-Wrenching Scream and Fall into Distance) is a frequently used film, television, and video game stock sound effect for a

scream Scream may refer to: *Screaming, a loud vocalization Amusement rides * Scream (Heide Park), a gyro drop tower in Soltau, Germany * Scream! (ride), a tower ride at Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Six Flags New England * Scream! (roller coaster), at ...

. Often compared to the

, its prominence in a number of movies has launched a few nicknames such as Howie Long Scream, in reference to

Howie Long Howard Matthew Moses Long (born January 6, 1960) is an American sports analyst and former professional football player. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons as a defensive end, spending his entire career with the Raide ...

's character's death scene in the 1996 film '' Broken Arrow''. It appears to have originated from a fight scene in the 1980 film ''

The Ninth Configuration ''The Ninth Configuration'' (also known as ''Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane'') is a 1980 American psychological drama film written, produced, and directed by William Peter Blatty, in his directorial debut. The second installment in Blatty's "Fai ...

''. ; Click Plink: (also known as the Clicker Plinker or Plink, Cartoon - Sour Plink) a common

poking or plucking sound in cartoons. ; WB's Slide string : a slide string 1/7 short / long / shuttered. ;

Tarzan yell The Tarzan yell or Tarzan's jungle call is the distinctive, ululating yell of the character Tarzan as portrayed by actor Johnny Weissmuller in the films based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs starting with ''Tarzan the Ape Man'' ( ...

: distinctive, ululating yell of the character

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...

as portrayed by actor

Johnny Weissmuller Johnny Weissmuller (born Johann Peter Weißmüller; June 2, 1904 – January 20, 1984) was an American Olympic swimmer, water polo player and actor. He was known for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century. H ...

in the films based on the character created by

Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American author, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best-known for creating the characters Tarzan and John Carter, he ...

starting with ''

Tarzan the Ape Man Tarzan, the Ape Man may refer to * Tarzan, a fictional character * ''Tarzan the Ape Man'' (1932 film), with Johnny Weissmuller * ''Tarzan, the Ape Man'' (1959 film) with Denny Miller * ''Tarzan, the Ape Man'' (1981 film) with Richard Harris and ...

'' (

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...

). ;

Goofy holler Goofy is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. He is a tall, anthropomorphic dog who typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled fedora. Goofy is a ...

: the cry that the Disney character

Goofy Goofy is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. He is a tall, Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic dog who typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled f ...

makes when falling or being launched into the air, that can be transcribed as "Yaa-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooey!" ;Universal telephone ring: a ringing telephone, used in the opening credits of ''

The Rockford Files ''The Rockford Files'' is an American detective drama television series starring James Garner that aired on the NBC network from September 13, 1974 to January 10, 1980, and remains in syndication. Garner portrays Los Angeles private investigator ...

''. Sound designer

Ben Burtt Benjamin Burtt Jr. (born July 12, 1948) is an American sound designer, film director and editor, screenwriter, and voice actor. As a sound designer, his credits include the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' film series, ''Invasion of the Body ...

has said of it: "No matter where the scene is, an office, an outside payphone, or deep in a cave - all Universal telephones will ring with the same 'tittle-little-little-ling.' I don't like it because it's so artificial." ''HollywoodLostandFound.net''. ;

Common loon The common loon or great northern diver (''Gavia immer'') is a large member of the loon, or diver, family of birds. Breeding adults have a plumage that includes a broad black head and neck with a greenish, purplish, or bluish sheen, blackish o ...

calls: the wailing call of the loon is widely used in film and television to evoke wilderness and suspense. ; Castle thunder: a loud

thunder Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Depending upon the distance from and nature of the lightning, it can range from a long, low rumble to a sudden, loud crack. The sudden increase in temperature and hence pressure caused by the lightning pr ...

clap during a rainstorm, originally recorded for the 1931

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

film ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...

''. ; Diddy laugh: (also known as Two Children Giggling or Two Young Kids Giggle) a sound of two

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

ren giggling acquired by The Hollywood Edge on August 13, 1990, originally recorded in 1978 for the 1990

TriStar Pictures TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled as Tri-Star until 1991) is an American film studio and production company that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, part of the multinational conglomerate Sony. It is a corporate sibling of Sony ...

film '' Air America''.

References

External links

*{{cite news, url= https://www.nytimes.com/1932/07/03/archives/variety-of-noises-in-sound-effects-library.html , work= The New York Times, title= Variety of Noises in Sound Effects Library, date= July 3, 1932 Sound effects Film and video technology Film and video terminology

History

Often-used examples

See also

References

External links