16,000 sound effects, in wav format, thanks to the BBC.
http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/
Free for “personal, educational or research purposes”.
7 Likes
2 Likes
I wonder if an acceptable use would be to use these sounds as impulse responses? 
1 Like
Sorry about a noob question…
I’ve tried Google and the only mention of IR I could find is that they are used to capture a reverberation response from a single sample (if I understood this correctly).
How would one use an existing sound as an IR (if you can share a Youtube video or an article off web about this, please)?
IRs are just audio samples of reverbs or echoes. A convolver can load such samples to simulate reverb. What is commonly used is a single full spectrum click or bang, and then if its reverb tail in a real room is recorded with it, if things worked fine then you can use that sound with a convolver as reverb. Often sine sweeps are used to “excite” a room, the recordings then have to be fixed so the sweep becomes “pushed together” to a single “click”, with superiour quality.
Other sounds can also be loaded into a convolver for the fun of it. But then results won’t be like reverb, but rather interesting (or deafening…) resonances, the longer the sample is the more chaotic things will be. Take care with the levels, set to lowest then raise with caution, convolvers were made for specific reverb or resonance IRs, not for random samples…
But you need the recording of the sound of a full spectrum click casting reverb somewhere, to be able to simulate that reverb. You cannot just extract the reverb from other sounds, you need the response be full spectrum and from a single click.
2 Likes
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation Clouds Gone! It is much appreciated.
I’ve just tried it in Renoise and using a snare sound as the impulse can give a really nice reverb effect.
(Sorry for going off-topic there and thanks for understanding.)
1 Like