Forget the Music. Sound Effects for RPGs?

[redboxrazor]

There are plenty of great posts on these forums regarding good sources of music for your tabletop RPG session, but in my experience, I have found that well-placed sound effects and background noise can be just as effective as music (and the two used together can be amazing).

So I'm wondering, where do you guys find good sound effects for your games?

It seems like most of those "free wav" sites don't have anything worthwhile. I'm looking for stuff like jungle ambience, waves, water dripping in a cavern, campfires (the first time I used a campfire sound effect a few years ago when the party set up camp, my players were astonished), etc.

The soundtrack to the PC game Vampire, the Masquerade has lots of good sounds in this vein, for those looking for the same.

 

[MarkB]

It's not widely applicable for other games, but for my Star Wars Saga Edition games I've found the Official Star Wars Soundboard very handy. A great variety of effects, plus a primitive mixing tool.

 

[fba827]

a long time ago, (early-mid 90's, i think), D&D had adventures that came with CDs and the CDs had various door creeks, dripping water in cavern noises, evil villain laughter echoing through the chamber, etc. and the adventure had little notes as to what CD track to play at any given moment.

It was good in theory, but in actual practice, it became a distraction to need to cue up the sound effect. I'd spend more time skipping to the right CD track than the actual length of the sound file itself.

Now, it might be easier with a website index and just point and click (rather than jumping around track numbers on a CD player), but I'd say that it's only worth it if it's a -good- and well organized index or else you'll spend more time searching for the right sound link than it is worth.

 

[Werebat]

I have an extensive musical and sound collection on my iPhone, which I use at every gaming session. In addition to funny/appropriate "quips" (pac-man dying when a PC dies, Daffy Duck's "You're hurting me... Put me down, please!" from when the abominable snowman is mangling him for when a PC gets grappled by something large, etc.), I have combat music, background music, and "Noises".

What you are describing I would probably put in the category of "Background Music", as I mix actual music with ambient sound effects, but there you go.

With a little research you can figure out how to rip soundtracks from nearly every video game out there. A great one for what you are looking for is World of Warcraft. Besides their music, they have beautiful background ambient tracks for underwater, swamp, jungle, etc.

I've made my own ambient tracks by cobbling together ambient "beds" and various noises from several different games... One of these days I should really upload them somewhere. Any ideas where I could? I'm not sure of the legality of the tracks, but then I'm not sure the companies involved would care.

Edit: And the ambient tracks from Vampire: Bloodlines are also fantastic! Youtube can also provide a lot of decent material, if you get a decent sound capture program.

- Ron ^*^

 

[Diamond Cross]

The Sound Effects Library

 

[TheAuldGrump]

For ambient sounds there are many MP3s available for such things as yoga and meditation - here's a quick search on Amazon for Earth Sounds. For steampunk I sometimes use Rail Dynamics.

Rain storms, wind, wolves, dripping caves... there is a lot available that work very well for RPGs. I use a bunch of them, starting with a theme, then fading to the ambients. Syrinscape and/or RPGDeck are handy for controlling sounds and music - you can have the background music/ambient sound and still trigger things like gunshots or screams.

The Auld Grump

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Themed sound effect CDs are pretty cheap $4-7, last I checked. Quality varies- and you do want to make sure it's not a sound + music one on the ambient ones.

Nothing ruins a good hour of whalesong worse than a New Age hack noodling his synthesizer all over it.

 

[questing gm]

Free Nature Sounds

You can mix your own nature-related sound effects and download them as a MP3.

 

[redboxrazor]

Just what I was looking for. : )

I hadn't really thought about putting together a soundboard, but that seems like a great idea. I'm also going to try out the programs that were suggested for music/sound management.

Any specific soundtracks for a jungle-themed adventure? I'm going to be running part 1 of the Serpent's Skull adventure path next week.

 

[IronWolf]

freesound.org is probably worth looking at as well.