In this article, I will show you the websites I use to download sound effects for my YouTube videos, both free and paid, with the aim of providing you with a good variety of options.
Introduction Whether you create children’s videos, gameplays, funny or professional videos, these options will be very useful to you. No matter what type of content you produce, you will always need sound effects.
Try exploring all of them to find the sounds you need. Start with the free options, and if you can’t find what you need there, you can also look into paid alternatives.
When searching for sound effects or music, you will generally come across three types of licenses, which I’ll summarize here so you can identify and know how to use them:
Creative Commons: Creative Commons is an organization that protects the intellectual property rights of artists. Typically, when searching for sound effects, you will come across the following types of licenses:
| Type of license | Meaning |
|---|---|
 Attribution required | Credit must be given to the author. |
 Non-Commercial use | You cannot use the material for commercial purposes, such as for companies (but you can have profit-oriented uses, for example, educational material, even if you make a profit) |
 Public Domain | This is when artists have chosen to waive all personal or property rights to the material, and you are allowed to use it. |
Public Domain
When the time allowed by law has passed, and the material has entered the public domain, it means that anyone can use it for any purpose.
Royalty-free
Many believe that “royalty-free” means you don’t pay for the license or that acquiring it necessarily means it can be used for commercial purposes.
However, this is not always the case. Typically, when acquiring a license (whether for music, images, effects, software), you may obtain a license for commercial use or for personal (non-commercial) use, but in both cases, you pay a price to access the material.
freesoundeffects.com
This is a page where you can download free sound effects. While some are paid, the variety of no-cost sounds you’ll find is quite considerable.
For instance, there are sounds of rain, airplanes, wind, doors, and many more.
I believe it’s a good option for your videos. To download them, you need to click on the sound name (as the buttons on the right side, for some reason, do not work). After that, on the next page, you can download it in either .mp3 or .wav format.
Keep in mind that you can only use these sounds for your videos or projects where you plan to incorporate them. You are not allowed to download them separately for resale or redistribution.
freesound.org
This is the one I use the most; you’ll find many free sound effects, some of which I also include in my videos.
To download them, you just need to create a free account, type in a keyword for the sound you’re looking for, and a list of options will appear. Click on the sound you like, and then on the download button.
You’ll come across a variety of sounds such as explosions, rain, doors, footsteps, animals, and countless others that you can incorporate into your videos.
For each sound, it’s important to check the type of free license, which you can see in the icons on the left side. Some may require you to give credit in your video, others may specify a non-commercial license, and some may be in the public domain.
So, it’s crucial to validate the licensing details for each sound.
epidemicsound.com
This is the most popular sound effects service, as the files are obviously of much better quality, being managed by a company.
For this reason, it’s a paid service (although you can get a free trial month here).
Another advantage of Epidemic Sound is its music library. Although YouTube has its own free library, it’s so widely used that you practically find it in every video, diminishing the uniqueness of yours.
Not to mention the fact that they have music that caters to specific themes. For example, if you want something similar to a theme from The Lord of the Rings, you’ll find it there.
Their payment model is through a monthly subscription, which, unless you produce many videos, can be somewhat costly. Starting from $12 USD per month (if you pay for the entire year) up to $25 USD per month.
audiio.com
Este sistema de música y efectos de sonido tiene una ventaja enorme sobre Epidemic Sound, que aunque también es de paga, tiene la posibilidad de pago único.
Esta última es una gran ventaja, ya que aunque la licencia perpetua de música es distinta a la de efectos de sonido (es decir, son productos distintos con precios diferentes), con ese único pago tienes acceso ilimitado a todos los efectos de sonido (o música, según lo que hayas contratado) de por vida.
Tengo que admitir que su librería es un poco más limitada que la de epidemicsound, aunque es normal ya que es una empresa que tiene menos tiempo en el mercado y debe aún agregar más colaboraciones a su plataforma.
El precio de la licencia perpetua de música de audiio es de $299 USD (pago único) mientras que la licencia perpetua de efectos de sonido es de $199 USD.
Wondershare’s Filmstock
This is another paid service. Wondershare is the company behind Filmora, a very popular video editor (which I use myself), but it has the feature that you can purchase individual sound effects.
If you can’t find a particular sound in the free options and don’t want to pay for a subscription or a large amount, this is another option.
Simply go to this link, choose music or sound effect, and enter a keyword.
You’ll see various sounds or songs that you can add to your cart individually and use as many times as you want in your projects.
I hope these options have helped you find the sound you’re looking for your project.
If you’re interested, you can visit this website and find content about video editing and monetizing your projects.
Until next time.
Youtube’s audio library
Many YouTube videos incorporate various sound effects from the YouTube Audio Library, where you can find different useful effects for your videos for free.
Sometimes, you may encounter difficulties in finding the specific sound you’re looking for, but it’s a good alternative.
To access the library, simply log in to your YouTube Studio, then look for the Audio Library option on the left side.
There, you will find options for music and sound effects that you can download.