Show HN: Professional sound effects for UI projects
soundkit.io
soundkit.io
Sadly for UI work the selection and quality are just not there.
First of all, a lot of sounds (especially those in the MUSICAL TONES / RHYTHMIC / SPACEY folders) are more than a second long and use more than one note/sound. This is extremely distracting and out of place for UI - the sounds have too much "story" to them already. In UIs, the sound should subtly accompany the action, give it some weight, and that's it. It should definitely not become the user's center of attention or even be noticeable at all. That'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).
There is also the problem that a lot of sounds have audible static/background noise. A very noticeable one is Air Pop.wav in INPUTS. On my K240s it's borderline painful.
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.
The best ones are in INPUTS - some amount are usable, some could be usable with some editing (e.g. the slider sounds that'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).
I'm disappointed because I feel like what I've bought has nothing to do with what I, as a UI designer, was led to believe I'd get :(
Hopefully you'll take his(?) feedback into consideration for the sound packs -- it's a great idea, it just needs to be refined some more.
In general, I think CC-BY is fantastic. CC-BY-SA is typically useless for anything except open source projects.
> 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...
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...?
From my experience this is typical for most licenses on most royalty free items. The same type of license can be found at sites like Shutterstock at the Boom Library that another user mentioned in the comments.
It's just the nature of the business. I believe the prices are fair for the quantity and unlimited project use. But it wouldn't be fair to just then share all of them with as many people as you had in an organization.
These sounds are meant for web apps, right? I would imagine they will wind up in a source control repository for a web app.
So there's only one individual that's allowed to add them to the source control repo?
The license says "It is unlawful to distribute any of the audio files to ANY ADDITIONAL USERS", does that mean it's unlawful if other individuals have access to that repo and check it out? Or they can check out the repo, but they can't... write code that uses the sounds added to the repo, only that one guy can write code? Can another individual fix bugs in his code? Can another individual deploy the code? Or to the other extreme, as long as you have one individual committing all the sound files to the source repo, the entire rest of the company can then write code using them?
None of those make much sense, I can't think of anything else that does.
But if Boom Library has the same sort of license and has been succesful, then either it makes sense in a way I don't understand... or nobody uses Boom Library for projects from companies or team entities, just one-man operations... or everyone's just ignoring the license and doing what they think probably makes sense.
Looking up the Boom license, it does say "If you want to purchase a multiuser license, please contact us directly." So I'd guess some are doing that, and others are probably ignoring and violating the license.
1.) Purchaser buys SoundKit then adds the sounds to a commercial product like a toolkit that they want to sell. Or they add the sounds to a website template that they sell to others. Anything where another user would come along and use those sounds commercially for their own projects.
2.) Purchaser buys SoundKit then gives it to their friends for free.
3.) Purchaser buys SoundKit then places it on a server at an office for everyone to use.
4.) Someone accesses a repo who doesn't have a license for SoundKit, they pull the sounds and use them on another project.
On the other hand, if you buy the license and then you work on a project like a web or mobile app and you want to add the sounds, go for it. If someone else adds to the project or makes changes, that's not a problem. As long as a license owner is involved with the project and added them.
I really don't want to limit the use of the product, I just have to try and keep from everyone giving it to everyone for every use. And regarding the company issue, I should add a multiuser license. It is common in these situations.
At the end of the day, most people are probably not using their licenses correctly for all sorts of design elements, but this gives us some sort of protection in a worst case scenario.
I'll try and update the wording of the license to be as clear as possible for future buyers. If you have already purchased, feat not, the usage will become more flexible, not less.
Those scenarios involve redistributing the audio files to a public audience, which the license loudly forbids in its current form.
This is similar. However, I'm going to work on wording that makes the concerned users more comfortable. I understand that this is a tricky situation. And I'm much more interested design then legal matters. I hope I can ease the concerns.
I think if you want to target a software developer audience you will need a single-project, multiple-user model. The majority of projects where we would use this are a revolving door of contractors, and nobody is going to do the accounting to figure out how many licenses that is.
https://creativemarket.com/licenses/simple
Perhaps something along these lines will make everyone feel good about it.
Also, what websites would you use if you'd needed sounds for your app?
It's considerably more expensive but also considerably larger.
I'm a huge fan of everything Boom do. Their nature stuff is amazing. SFX design is in my list of fantasy jobs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2prl_DTrukc
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).
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.
Minor nit - I went to check who was behind it and the https link in the footer hangs, http://dunktank.co works fine though
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.
The new license can be found here. https://soundkit.io/license.html
I would definitely use this if I had a need for it beyond changing the default notifications on my phone/desktop.
One suggestion, I think the those little 'devices' are the perfect way to demonstrate why I would want this, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me that they were interactive at all.
A unique color or subtle animation for the play buttons to make them eye-catching might be worthwhile since clicking was definitely a revelation.
Credit for the animations goes to http://chika-yeah.com
The point of the product is to be a good value for the price. I encourage you to listen to all of the sounds available in the videos and listening samples to decide if it's a good value.
Everything was mastered in Pro Tools at another studio for consistency.