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Show HN: Professional sound effects for UI projects

166 pointsby iambrakesover 10 years ago

19 comments

GuiAover 10 years ago
I just bought this. I was very excited about it - it seemed like the sounds would be varied and of good quality; and for $18 it would be a complete steal.<p>Sadly for UI work the selection and quality are just not there.<p>First of all, a lot of sounds (especially those in the MUSICAL TONES &#x2F; RHYTHMIC &#x2F; SPACEY folders) are more than a second long and use more than one note&#x2F;sound. This is extremely distracting and out of place for UI - the sounds have too much &quot;story&quot; to them already. In UIs, the sound should subtly accompany the action, give it some weight, and that&#x27;s it. It should definitely not become the user&#x27;s center of attention or even be noticeable at all. That&#x27;s a really hard thing to do, that even the big players fuck up - a lot of alert sounds on major operating systems are terrible, if not down right terrifying (one of my favorites ~good~ examples, as a contrast is Tweetbot 2).<p>There is also the problem that a lot of sounds have audible static&#x2F;background noise. A very noticeable one is Air Pop.wav in INPUTS. On my K240s it&#x27;s borderline painful.<p>The names of the folders are quite disappointing. SPACEY? LOOPS? RHYTHMIC? A solid set of UI sounds would have folders like APERTURE SOUNDS (with sounds from dozens of existing cameras + synthesized ones), CLICKS (with sounds from a variety buttons, some clicky, some soft, some very short, some a bit longer , some plastic-y, some metal-ly, etc.), SLIDERS (same as buttons but with sliders), and so on. Those are the sounds that UI designers need.<p>The best ones are in INPUTS - some amount are usable, some could be usable with some editing (e.g. the slider sounds that&#x27;d need to be split into 3-4 distinct sounds for each file and then mapped to a slider), but some remain completely useless for UI work (e.g. Twangy.wav, which would make any interface feel like Microsoft Bob, or Reverse Woodpecker.wav which would make the user feel like their computer is glitching).<p>I&#x27;m disappointed because I feel like what I&#x27;ve bought has nothing to do with what I, as a UI designer, was led to believe I&#x27;d get :(
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salimmadjdover 10 years ago
I&#x27;ve been using freesounds. They have a large selection of free sound effects: <a href="https://www.freesound.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freesound.org</a>
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jrochkind1over 10 years ago
Neat. The license terms make it difficult&#x2F;impossible to use for something created by a business, or other kind of team, rather than a single individual:<p>&gt; The maximum number of users of this sound effects library is limited to ONE. It is unlawful to distribute any of the audio files to ANY ADDITIONAL USERS. This license allows ONE individual...<p>So... if a company (or university department, or non-profit entity, or small volunteer team) wants to use it, they need a license for... every employee that has access to the source code repo? And another one for every new hire? Or...?
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jordansthingsover 10 years ago
These are some nice UI sounds! If you&#x27;re interested in learning more about the use of sounds in UI, I have a blog just about that called Beyond The Beep <a href="http://beyondthebeep.tumblr.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;beyondthebeep.tumblr.com</a>
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JonnieCacheover 10 years ago
If you need something a bit bigger and fancier, I can recommended The Interface from Boom Library: <a href="http://www.boomlibrary.com/boomlibrary/products/the-interface" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.boomlibrary.com&#x2F;boomlibrary&#x2F;products&#x2F;the-interfac...</a><p>It&#x27;s considerably more expensive but also considerably larger.<p>I&#x27;m a huge fan of everything Boom do. Their nature stuff is amazing. SFX design is in my list of fantasy jobs: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2prl_DTrukc" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2prl_DTrukc</a>
jamespittsover 10 years ago
Awesome work, definitely keep going at it. This is an overlooked aspect of UX and you could write a lot about how to use sound effectively in an app.<p>At rapt.fm I would spend time hunting for the right sound, it was often really hard and rewarding. Sometimes I ended up using effects seemingly unrelated the intended action, but in a humorous way (for example, a smack sound for challenging people to rap battles).<p>A lot of thought has to go into sound design. Games have done it for years but with phone, pad, and real-time web apps it is becoming crucial.
j-hernandezover 10 years ago
Awesome effort and always great to see Atlanta on HN! Thanks so much for sharing this, can&#x27;t wait to pick it up and give it a try. The demo was one of the best presentations I&#x27;ve seen in a while.<p>Minor nit - I went to check who was behind it and the https link in the footer hangs, <a href="http://dunktank.co" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dunktank.co</a> works fine though
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zellynover 10 years ago
The swoosh sounds are pretty funny: sounds like someone recording themselves making swooshing sounds :-)
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iambrakesover 10 years ago
Thanks everyone for the support today. The biggest concern has been the license and uses. In trying to make it easier to understand, we have rewritten the license in simpler terms.<p>For anyone who purchased previously, no rights have been removed. In fact, the new license is more flexible. If anyone has questions, please reach out.<p>The new license can be found here. <a href="https://soundkit.io/license.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;soundkit.io&#x2F;license.html</a>
incisionover 10 years ago
Very slick.<p>I would definitely use this if I had a need for it beyond changing the default notifications on my phone&#x2F;desktop.<p>One suggestion, I think the those little &#x27;devices&#x27; are the perfect way to demonstrate why I would want this, but it wasn&#x27;t immediately obvious to me that they were interactive at all.<p>A unique color or subtle animation for the play buttons to make them eye-catching might be worthwhile since clicking was definitely a revelation.
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Spearchuckerover 10 years ago
Cool. Problem is though that on the rare occasions where I need sounds I need very specific sounds, and if I can&#x27;t listen to&#x2F;preview the sound I&#x27;m not going to buy the library. Case in point, a stopwatch app I build a few weeks ago that needed beeps like a hand-held stopwatch makes.<p><a href="http://bit.ly/12dOjeH" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;12dOjeH</a>
alexissantosover 10 years ago
Great stuff! I don&#x27;t need them for any projects at the moment, but I&#x27;ll probably wind up buying &#x27;em for future use.
TheSisb2over 10 years ago
I simply love those video demos. Great presentation! Gives me high hopes for the quality of sound files. Purchased immediately.
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kekubover 10 years ago
Thank you so much. I was recently looking for a UI sound library, but was not able to find one to fit my small hobby projects. This is just awesome. I love your license! Best luck with it.
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weewooweewooover 10 years ago
I was about to buy, but the sound of Bongo Beat Down cuts off too quickly. How can I be sure that I&#x27;m getting quality sound effects out of the set 300?
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gearoidocover 10 years ago
Purchased! This is just what I was looking for Hipster CEO
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adamnemecekover 10 years ago
What SW&#x2F;HW did you use to make these?
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swandiveover 10 years ago
Good job on these!
jbverschoorover 10 years ago
Nice... will buy.