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Sound Effects for YouTube

Supercharge Your YouTube Videos with Free Sound Effects

Why Do Sound Effects Matter for YouTube?

Sound effects capture attention, create anticipation, and highlight key moments in a video. They can evoke emotions like excitement, suspense, or humor, making the content more immersive. For example, a quick "whoosh" effect when transitioning between clips keeps the viewer’s interest, or a “ding” sound when revealing important text emphasizes the message. Adding background ambient sounds, such as light city noise during outdoor shots or gentle wind for nature scenes, creates an environment that feels real and dynamic.

Free YouTube Sound Pack

This YouTube sound pack is a great starting point for all of your sound effect needs.

The pack includes ambient background noises, impactful sounds like explosions and crashes, everyday foley sounds, musical jingles, and a variety of realistic and cartoonish animal noises.

For gaming content, there are specific categories such as dramatic game over sounds, power-up effects, level up jingles, weapon sounds, and menu navigation clicks and hovers.

Vlogging sound effects include transition sounds to indicate scene changes, clicking and typing sounds, alert tones, and gentle background music to set the mood.

Tutorials and how-to videos benefit from progress sounds like ticking clocks, error alerts, and success celebrations.

Finally, comedy and skit content can utilize laughter tracks, slapstick sound effects, and exaggerated cartoon noises to enhance the humorous tone.

YouTube Sound Effects Library:

Gaming Sounds

Game sound, science fiction game, mechanical buzz, power up

Game sound, bright positive level up tone, could also be complete, success, bonus or win award

Game sound, science fiction game, hyper electron stretch or power up 1

Whooshes

Big cinematic whoosh, fast and close with an airy tail

Airy whoosh into impact, electricity spark 1

Cinematic whoosh into impact, missile-like, explosion

Airy whoosh into impact, electricity spark 2

Airy whoosh into impact, electricity spark 3

Cartoon & Animation

Shadow Tag – sneaky cartoon music with bursts of liveliness

Cartoon bubble popping, or other pop 7

Cartoon impact, generic, drum-like hit with rise in pitch on tail 4

Cartoon success fanfare

Cartoon pop 1

Impacts

Fist hit wooden wall, slightly loose rattle 3

Car crash, skid followed by crashing

Car crash, skid then smash, heavy, metal and glass shatter

Body fall on cement 1

Car crash, impact, head on smash, metal and glass breaking

Laughter

2x females laughing, giggling

Boy, 9 years old, hysterical laugh

18 month old boy single laugh

High pitched cute, sweet female laugh, giggle

Male, crazy laugh

Audience Engagement

Audience, 200 people, clap, cheer, accolade, rise in intensity, comedy club, Komedia, Comic Boom, UK

Crowd of 25 people (male and female) cheer, shout yay

Large audience cheer and clap

Applause, approx 8 people

Large audience, crowd applause, internal

Nature

Ambience, Ambiance, Ambient, Forest, Nature, Florida, Woods, Wild, Grass, Outdoor, Trees, Day, Dusk, Birds, Crickets, Bee, Buzzing

Water, underwater movement 3

Aftermath of a thunderstorm, light rain and drips, distant rumbles of thunder

Ambience, English Coast, Cornwall, Beach, Waves, Water, Sea, Seagulls, Crashing Water

Beach sea waves, no human activity

Animal

Cat meow, hungry

Birds, tawny owl, eagle owl

Spider movement, scuttle through leaves and undergrowth 1

Bee fly, buzz against window 1

Dolphins, underwater song, clicks and calls, Caribbean sea

If you haven’t already, sign up for a free account with us. Once you’ve done that you’ll be able to start downloading our sfx right away, instantly to your device. There are a few questions we get asked Frequently regarding attribution and complying with our License Agreement, so here we will clear up a few of those questions.

Crediting us is required if you’re a free Basic member. We have made this easy and there are a number of ways you can do it. The most common method is to mention in your YouTube video description that the sound effects were obtained from ZapSplat. A simple line of text such as “Sound Effects from ZapSplat.com” is enough, but if you wish to go one step further, you can also credit the contributor, such as “sound effect by [contributor name] from ZapSplat.com. Our contributors aways welcome a little recognition for their work.

As per our License Agreement, yes you are required to credit us as a Basic member. However to remove this requirement, you can upgrade for the price of a coffee which removes the need to attribute us. To find our more about that, click here.

Will I receive a content ID claim or copyright strike for using your sounds?

No, you won’t. We spend a lot of time and energy making sure all our sounds are safe for YouTube. If this did happen, which is highly unlikely, just let us know and we will get this resolved for you.

This is a big one and a question we get asked A LOT. The answer depends on a couple of things. Yes you can, so long as our sounds are not the only element used in the relaxation video. You can take our sounds, mix them with other sounds and music for this purpose. But you can not just take, for example, one of our rain sounds and loop it without mixing any other sounds or music with it.

For more information, please read our License Agreement which explains everything you need to know.

Okay so this is something that sometimes our users get confused by. Basically, you can download and use our sfx and songs in unlimited videos, so long as you credit us in each one separately (unless you have donated and upgraded, then there is no requirement). If you’ve upgraded to Gold, any sound or song downloaded from our website retains the attribution removal for life.

That’s about it… basically as long as you follow the terms set out in our License Agreement, you can download and use our sounds legally and safely and use them to take your videos to the next level.

We are not the only online sound library you can use and while we are certain you’ll find more than you need here at ZapSplat, we also recommend you check out the following resources. This list will be updated regularly, so check back for more. The list includes free and paid resources, which are labeled accordingly.

YouTube sound library (free)

You’ll kick yourself if you didn’t realise this library was available for you and has thousands of free sound effects for you to use. The library contains a wide variety and will prove extremely useful, so go check it out.

Adobe Audition library (free)

If you have an active license to use Adobe Audition, you also are allowed to use this HUGE library of thousands of professional sound effects conveniently arranged into themed folders for quick download.

FreeToUseSounds.com (free)

If you’ve not come across Marcel and Libby’s sound library yet, you’ll be glad you found them. The two young sound recordists are travelling the world documenting their time by recording mostly ambience sound effects from the countries they visit. They have very generously allowed these libraries to be completely free to download (or you can pay a fee to say thanks). This is such a unique library and one that’s continually growing. The library is fascinating to listen to and use, with ambiences and atmospheres from almost every continent. Go grab some downloads for your YouTube videos.

YourFreeSounds.com (free and paid)

A newbie on the scene, but one that should not be overlooked, Your Free Sounds is a growing library of free and paid for sound effects. We really love the simple classic design of the site that’s easy to navigate, displays sounds nice and simply with previews for each and allows you to download them quickly. The list of sounds isn’t massive right now, but we know they’re recording more weekly and is one to watch.

Freesound.org (free)

If you’ve never checked our freesound.org, it’s a must. The library was created and is to this day run by Music Technology Group of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. The library hosts sounds licensed under Creative Commons so it’s always important to check each file’s licence type and abide by the terms. Freesound is a great resource and has so many sounds that it’s one for the list. However the quality of sounds can vary. You’ll find some gems, but also some that are low quality and less useful.

Freesfx.co.uk (free)

Hundreds of free sound effects here to download after registration. The library on offer contains some great content that you’ll find useful. It’s a nice and simple library without all the bells and whistles, but that’s not a bad thing considering most of the time you want to get in and out quickly with the right sounds for your videos.

PMSFX (free and paid)

We love PMSFX (who are also a contributor here at ZapSplat) as they record and create some exceptional sound libraries. While the libraries they offer are paid, you can grab this free sampler pack (and use them royalty free in your YouTube videos). As of this writing, it contains 661 sounds at almost 10GB.

SoundSnap.com (paid)

A paid for only sound library, SoundSnap makes this list because of the great selection they offer. Almost any sound you can think of is available here and with an affordable subscription offering, grabbing what you need is quick and won’t break the bank. We highly recommend you check them out.

TheSoundPackTree.com (free and paid)

We’re lucky enough to have a selection of sounds from these guys here at Zapsplat, so you’ll likely have heard some of their amazing content here. However if you want more, head over to their website where they’re offering a great list of free SFX plus their full library too!

What type of sound effects are there and how should you use them?

This is a great question and one that we will answer below. Keep in mind, creativity is subjective and you should consider your audience, or the message your video is trying to get across. How you use the visual and audio elements will translate this message in the appropriate way if done right.

Spot sound effects

Spot sound effects are sounds that represent a single event. These one-shot sounds can be anything from an impact, punch, kiss, splat… you get the picture. They’re often the most heavily used sound as depending on how complex the scene or environment the sounds are being placed into is, the more there will be and they will likely need to be layered correctly to sound just right.

Ambience & background sounds

As the name suggests, these sounds typically don’t represent an action or event, but allow you to add depth and sometimes realism to your video. These could be anything from nature sounds (rain, wind, thunder, birds etc.) to subtle drones, air atmospheres or even more abstract elements for things like science fiction themed works. These recordings are usually long (2 to 5 minutes) and would be more subtle and quieter in your videos.

Production elements

A production element is a sound (often designed) that enhances something in an exaggerated way. A good example is a transition effect. Probably the most classic transition is the whoosh, the fast airy swiping sound that you hear that splices one scene to another. These audio cues help tell the user ‘on to the next scene’, and can convey a passing of time or space. But please do not fall into the trap of overusing this type of transition effect, it’s kind of overused (but still great). Be creative and find alternatives. Depending on the theme of your video, you can experiment with musical sounds and many others to get the right effect.

Sound Effects for YouTube

Why Do Sound Effects Matter for YouTube?

Free YouTube Sound Pack

YouTube Sound Effects Library:

Gaming Sounds

Whooshes

Cartoon & Animation

Impacts

Laughter

Audience Engagement

Nature

Animal

How to use our sound effects in your videos

How do I credit ZapSplat?

Do I have to credit ZapSplat and what if I don’t want to?

Are these sounds safe for YouTube?

Can I use your sounds in relaxation videos?

How many YouTube videos can I use them in?

Other recommended sound effect libraries

YouTube sound library (free)

Adobe Audition library (free)

FreeToUseSounds.com (free)

YourFreeSounds.com (free and paid)

Freesound.org (free)

Freesfx.co.uk (free)

PMSFX (free and paid)

SoundSnap.com (paid)

TheSoundPackTree.com (free and paid)

What type of sound effects are there and how should you use them?

Spot sound effects

Ambience & background sounds

Production elements

Search our library