5 Free Sound and Audio Track Sites for Freelancers

High quality or even amatuer videos have so many components and in order to impress your clients, you have to pay attention to all of them.

Audio is one of those crucial elements. No audio, no story (for the most part).

The correct use of audio and sound effects can elevate the visual message, create the right mood and enhance storytelling.

As a freelance editor or videographer, however, you know that finding high quality audio tracks that are affordable at the same time is far from an easy accomplishment.

Just look at the most popular sites:

Building your arsenal of tools is one of the essentials for career enhancement. Making sure your clients are satisfied is heavily dependent on an extensive resource library that you can draw from.

The good news is that you can add a good range of free sound and audio track sites to your bookmarks list.

These will give you access to sufficiently large audio libraries that will be a good choice for the completion of nearly every editing and post-production process.

If you’re looking for ideas about the best sound and audio sites, you’ve come to the right place. Here are five excellent and free sites we consider much better than some paid sites because of their libraries, copyright / licensing agreements and categories.

Freesound

Freesound is a top choice for freelance editors because of several characteristics.

First of all, all of the audio and sound tracks in the library are licensed under Creative Commons. Not only that, the database is huge with 500,000 files at the moment and new packs are being added all the time.

Most of the files require credit or backlinks to their original creators, but there are also some completely free that don’t require anything.

Freesound allows you to use the files uploaded there for commercial projects, which is obviously important for freelance videographers and editors.

Here are a couple of additional characteristics that make Freesound easy and great:

You can browse by tags and geotags to easily discover the kinds of sounds you’re looking for
Packs group together similar kinds of sounds, which means you’ll have access to numerous files, getting to decide which one is best matched to your project specifications
There’s no need to create an account or log in if you just want to preview a sound or an audio file
Freesound is actually a community that’s heavily focused on the needs of its users (check out the Freesound blog for some interesting and practical information)
Users can review the sounds and the packs, leaving star ratings for others to read before downloading
High quality sound effects that will be excellent, even for the most complicated and demanding projects

There aren’t that many downsides to using Freesound. If you visit the site, you’ll find out its design isn’t the most impressive or intuitive one. After you get used to that you’ll be able to browse through Freesound relatively fast.

SoundBible

With a name like that, Sound Bible had to make it to the list.

You’ll enjoy a good library of thousands of sound effects and royalty free audio. Licensing requirements vary by creator, which is why you need to check out whether credit / attribution is required before downloading any of the Sound Bible files.

The website’s design is much better than Freesound and you can easily search for the kind of audio or sound effect you’re looking for.

A few other noteworthy characteristics include:

High quality sound effects
Sound files are available in two formats – WAV and MP3
You can listen to audio samples without having to create an account or log in
There’s also a collection of premium sounds if you need something a bit more exclusive
Weekly updates add new sound files to the library

While Sound Bible isn’t the biggest database out there, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Still, even if you can’t find the sound file you need, you can make a community request within Sound Bible for it. Just like Freesound, Sound Bible is highly community-focused, which can be a very important perk for every freelancer.

FreeSFX

While the design isn’t too impressive once again, FreeSFX does deliver in terms of library quality.

Their sound effect database offers fairly easy navigation and according to the official presentation, there are more than 5,000 sound effects featured.

Royalty-free music tracks are also available for videos. While their collection isn’t that huge, there’s still a lot of variety and you can cover most projects.

Here’s what stands out about FreeSFX:

A good catalog of isolated, specialty, foley and background sounds
Sound preview is available without having to sign up or log in
It’s very easy to search for the kind of sound you need
New sound effects are uploaded regularly (you can sign up for email alerts about when new files have become available)

Keep in mind that while the sound effects are free, you still need to provide credit to the original creators. Also, FreeSFX features only MP3 files, which is a bit outdated for 2021.

YouTube Audio Library

The world’s biggest video platform provides opportunities for the download and commercial use of sound and audio files.

YouTube Studio has its own audio library that’s built in within the platform. You can choose among free music tracks and sound effects that are fairly easy to browse through. As of July 2021, there are about 10,900 sound effects and a good selection of free music.

Here’s what you’ll get with the YouTube audio library:

A good range of sound file categories (animals, ambiances, horror, cartoon, sports, foley, impacts, etc.) that are very easy to browse through
There are additional filters like genres, vocals, duration, instruments
Sound files are very easy to preview and download (you’re not limited to use within the YouTube platform)

Just like FreeSFX, YouTube’s audio library gives you access to files exclusively in MP3 format. If you need an alternative, you’ll have to look for a different platform.

Zapsplat

The name sounds funny but Zapsplat means serious business. This free audio platform gives you access to over 91,000 professional sound effects and music tracks you can utilize in any commercial projects.

Just like in the case of other websites, Zapsplat categorizes its sounds to make them fairly easy to find. A couple of other noteworthy characteristics include:

Files are available in MP3 and WAV formats
A premium membership opportunity is also available (giving access to a bigger sound library and allowing use without attribution)
Up to 200 new sound effects and audio tracks are added on a daily basis
The website is very intuitive and clean in design, increasing usability
You can follow your favorite sound accounts and creators to access their entire portfolio effortlessly

Zapsplat is an excellent choice for video editors, but there are some limitations to having a free account.

If you have a free account and you download three files, you’ll have to wait 10 minutes before a new download becomes available. Also, you’ll be exposed to ads, which can definitely get annoying.

Final thoughts

Going for free audio doesn’t mean you’re making a quality compromise. In fact, many royalty free tracks are exceptional and they’ll definitely add to the overall appeal of the videos you’re editing.

The five websites mentioned above are just a small selection of all the opportunities out there. You’ll come across many other intriguing opportunities and new platforms are being launched on a regular basis. It’s not free, but Adobe just launched Adobe Stock Audio in 2020.

Looking for such opportunities and adding them to your toolbox will quickly expand the range of projects you’ll be capable of working on.

Also, finding good resources is just a small part of building a successful freelance video editing career and you should always build on top of your audio editing skills.