Search - 101 Sound Effects :: 101 Digital Sound Effects: Sounds of Nature

Best budget collection of sound effects out there

Michael D. Sweeney | Berkeley, CA United States | 04/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are a lot of "100 Great Sound Effects" or "200 Sounds on Disc" and so forth. This is the only set I know of that is truly worth the price.



The majority of the budget collections you'll run into are re-compiled from other CDs (mostly the BBC's), and not only is it the same fifty sound effects over and over again they are also bad recordings of recordings, with noise, sudden cut-offs (to fit more on to a CD), duplications and strange track names, etc.



This is not. Clean, well-separated sounds, sounds you won't find in a hundred other collections. And useful. The 101 Digital collections -- four CDs total -- cover the bread-and-butter for almost any sound design use.



If you are a young theater sound designer, videographer, animator, you will find that with the entire 101 collection in hand you'll be able to pull 80% of your effects needs from stock. That's a lot less trips to the library to borrow the BBC collection, or online to SoundDogs to purchase the sounds you need.



I particularly like Sound of Nature because about 1/3 of it is just plain useable nature beds -- 2-3 minute long ambiances of forests, riversides, etc.



Sure, this doesn't do everything. It is a budget collection, not General or Hollywood Edge or something. But if ever you want to put down forty bucks on a basic collection of effects, this is where you should take it."