Last summer I found myself with a little extra time on my hands and a big idea. Coming on the heels of an original Boom Box Library offering, “Magic Chimes,” which I recorded back in 2021, I wanted to expand on the idea of an all encompassing percussion library. I received classical training as a percussionist at the Indiana University School of Music (now the Jacobs School). We would spend hours in master classes focused on one instrument, perfecting for example, the ideal triangle performance. Hours. On the triangle. Needless to say, I felt qualified for the task. Here’s my chance to revisit those roots and put together something really special.
Whether you are a newly graduated student or you are a long time picture editor looking to delve more into sound, jumping into the freelance world can be intimidating. You might have some money saved up and are wondering where to allocate it to best help you freelance career. After securing a decent computer and a Pro Tools subscription it can be easy to fall into the mindset that you need the newest shiniest plugin or the fanciest piece of hardware. While plugins and gear are nice to have and can indeed help you, finding quality sound effect libraries to add to your personal sound collection is perhaps a more worthwhile endeavor.
So I’m getting in to work, normal day, pretty routine. Except I see this shopping cart in the corner next to our parking lot. It gives me pause. In my nearly two decades in this business, I’ve always struggled to find good shopping cart sounds.
Build your library! We say it all the time in blog posts, and it's advice we always give to our interns, but this tip often raises the question: What do I buy? There are a ton of amazing commercial libraries out there to purchase. If you’re overwhelmed and unsure of what to buy, this blog post is for you!
Can you believe Fall is already here? Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year, so to help us all get into the spirit I thought up a fun list of Fall-themed sounds you should consider recording for your sound library this spooky time of year!
For aspiring editors and audio students, I always come across one tip in—to start building up a personal SFX library. So I complied a list of 10 spring inspired sounds, that if you have access to, you should go out and record this refreshing time of year!
What is Soundly? Soundly is a freemium audio library management software that lets you organize, tag, and audition your sound effect and add them into your projects in a concise and incredibly simple way. For this blogpost I decided to put myself in the shoes of someone just starting off in the sound editor world. When you’re just starting off in the industry your budget is going to be your biggest limiter. You don’t have the freedom to drop a ton of money on multiple professional grade libraries and a reliable audio library management software to get started on your work. Sometimes the free option is really the only option. This is where Soundly comes in.
This week, rather than design tips and tricks or a how-to post on building your career as a sound editor, we have an exciting announcement to make! We are knee deep in the creative stages of producing our first Boom Box Post sound library, which we will be releasing this spring. This is a long-awaited next step in our business, and we are stoked to share it with you.
But, before we put the finishing touches on everything, we wanted to ask you a few very important questions--because you, our readers, are our biggest and best resource. We don't want to put out anything that doesn't meet your fabulous expectations. So, to help us out, would you please fill out this short survey about your sound library wants/needs/loves/hates? Your expertise means more to us than you could ever know.
