Another thing that’s really exciting: Soundly founders Peder and Christian are huge fans of A Sound Effect, so they brought me on board to be their exclusive distributor of premium independent sound effects! I’m currently working on bringing the libraries from the independent SFX community into Soundly.
So how does Soundly work? Check out the video introduction, read my interview with founder Peder Jørgensen – and download it for free below, so you can try it yourself:
Hi Peder, just what is Soundly?
Soundly is an app for Mac and Windows that gives you access to a big 96kHz, 24-bit sound effects library in the cloud, and let’s you drag and drop sound effects from the cloud library straight into your project. It works with every sound and video editor that we have tested it with, and we’ve tested it with a lot. You can also add effects like pitching, reversing, summing, hear it in real time and have it instantly printed to the sound when you drag it out.
When did you get the idea for Soundly, and how long has it been in the works?
I started doing more and more sound design on my laptop, and it was a drag to always have to have a hard drive of sound effects with me, so I started researching if it was possible to solve this all in the cloud. I’m a decent coder and tested different ideas, and when I got the first test version running, I really felt I was onto something big. I was amazed at how fluent and fast everything was feeling and I just went from there.
I was amazed at how fluent and fast everything was feeling and I just went from there
I’ve been working on this on and off for the last 5 years, and we have been running beta tests for the last two years so it feels like it’s ready to meet the rest of the world.
Download Soundly for free below:
Download for Windows • Download for Mac
Soundly offers a unique cloud based approach to sound effects. How does it work, and how about performance?
Files come down blistering fast from the cloud in very high quality and people often won’t believe it’s possible to do it that fast, but we have done some very smart things to make this work as fast as it does. The servers are running on Google’s own infrastructure so this is very fast wherever you are, and scales perfectly when we are doing stress loads – so I’m very confident the servers will hold up even under heavy load.
Soundly comes with librarian features too, so you can manage your existing catalog too – how does the librarian aspect work?
Yes, you can also use Soundly to index your local sound effects or music and use it as a regular librarian tool.
You can also use Soundly to index your local sound effects or music and use it as a regular librarian tool
It supports meta data in many different formats and you can also import your entire library from other sound library tools.
A cool feature is that you can monitor a local folder, so if you add new sound effects to your sound effects folder they will be indexed by Soundly and instantly available.
I’m really happy to have A Sound Effect on board for the Soundly app – and the independent SFX libraries are gradually being added. The A Sound Effect website will continue to work just as before, of course, and I have lots of exciting things coming up here, too. I look forward to sharing them with you!
There’s also a premium SFX library included. What’s the story behind that one?
The idea behind the app was to join a librarian app and sound effects in one tool. So from the very beginning I’ve been trying to get a good sound library on board. It’s been a lot of work as most people with a good library won’t sell it as a subscription. They want to sell the whole thing for a high sum instead of what we are doing, selling a subscription at $14.99 a month. I knew Christian Schaanning from the sound design community and he has done some great films here in Norway and has also been doing some work in LA on films like Transformers 3. You can check out his imdb here.
I had just lost another Library and met him randomly and drunkenly late at a bar in Oslo… Mid week. I had been to an award show – I do sound for tv and radio adds – and he had had a seminar with some junior sound designers. We made one of those drunken deals where we where going to meet tomorrow and discuss this further, and we actually did.
As it turned out, he has made one of the best sounding sound libraries I’ve ever heard
As it turned out, he has made one of the best sounding sound libraries I’ve ever heard. It wasn’t organized yet, but he promised to get it named and tagged, and he did. We uploaded the library to the beta testers in March, and they instantly loved it. As the library is in the cloud we are constantly adding new sound effects and it’s growing every day. Christian has now joined the company and we are trying our best to save the world, together.
Popular on A Sound Effect right now - article continues below:
-
-
This is a unique bicycle library that captures road surfaces from the perspective of super quiet bicycle. These are clean, quiet, nicely performed true exterior rides. Including multiple perspectives, speeds and actions. From fast passbys on asphalt to slow onboard recordings and smooth stops.
The Extra Surfaces library provides 162 sounds captured on the following road types Large Bricks, Gravel, Grit, Icy Asphalt.
The four additional ‘onboard road’ surfaces are the perfect extension for your other ‘City Bicycle’ library of taste. Just add it as a layer, mix it and voila your bicycle can move from gravel to bricks to grit or from large bricks to slippery icy asphalt roads.
Speeds and actions:
Three speeds. Departures from slow, medium to fast getaways. Arrivals from slow stops with gently brakes to smooth departures.
Five perspectives:
1. Onboard Front: captures the whirring tire and surface sound.
2. Onboard Pedal: nice overall combination of pedaling, crank creaks, chain rattle, tire and surface sounds.
3. Onboard Rear: close up sound of the rear axle, with chain, sprocket and switching of gear.
4. Tracking shot: mono recording of the passby, keeping the bike in focus while passing by.
5. Static XY shot: stereo recording of the passby that emphasizes speed.
Overview of perspectives and mic placement:
Onboard recordings are 2-3 minutes long depending on speed. Higher speeds > shorter duration.
All 3 onboard mics are edited in sync with one another to make layering easy.
All Passbys, Arrivals and Departures move from Left to Right.Metadata & Markers:
Because we know how important metadata is for your sound libraries we have created a consistent and intuitive description method that adheres to the Universal Category System. This allows you to find the sound you need easily, whether you work in a database like Soundminer/Basehead/PT Workspace work, or a Exporer/Finder window. We made a video that helps you navigate the library ans find your best bicycle sounds faster and easier.
CategoryFull
A quick way to filter out sounds you don’t need: like handling sounds or vice versa bicycle onboards.UserCategory
Fastest way to find the type of action you need for all bicycles. Passby needed, just click and voila.
OpenTier
Once you’ve selected the bike you can open up OpenTier and audition and select the perspective you want to use.Scene &Â Performer
This field contains the type of bicycle or other sound. So you can find the bike you like fast.iXMLTrackLayout
This is a neat little identifier you will find in the Waveform displays and you can see in a glance what Listening position you are.
MicPerspective
We have another way to find perspectives but it is more limited to distance to the recorded subject.
So passbys are MED – EXT and handling are CU – EXT. Exterior? Of course: we recorded everything outside!UserComments
We used this field to create the UserData and give you the minimal set of information about the recording in the filename.Additionally, we added Markers to some wave files, so specific sound events are easy to spot in Soundminer and other apps.
If you have any questions about this, please contact us info@frickandtraa.com!
Need more?
The GoodBike library is a part of the ‘City Bicycles – Complete Bundle‘ available here in the A Sound Effect store. It consists of all 4 bicycles and includes additional surfaces and extras ranging from one-off bicycle passes captured in the city and bounces and rattles. If you buy the complete bundle you get 1 package for free!Here’s a handy comparison table:
Responses:344 AUDIO: ‘City Bicycles has a plethora of content, for a great price. The perfect balance between a great concept, great presentation and outstanding execution, lands them an almost perfect score of 4.9..‘
The Audio Spotlight: City Bicycles is worth getting if you are in need of great sounding and well edited bicycle sounds.
Watch a video created by Zdravko Djordjevic.
-
This is a unique bicycle library that captures this characteristic bike in clean, quiet, nicely performed true exterior rides. Including multiple perspectives, speeds and actions. From fast passbys on asphalt to slow onboard recordings and smooth stops.
The GoodBike is a smooth sounding retro bike that doesn’t rattle or squeak, it has a really nice tire sound for a subtle presence in the mix.
Speeds and actions:
Three speeds. Departures from slow, medium to fast getaways. Arrivals from slow stops with gently squeaking handbrakes to heavy stuttering skids.Five perspectives:
1. Onboard Front: captures the whirring tire and surface sound.
2. Onboard Pedal: nice overall combination of pedaling, crank creaks, chain rattle, tire and surface sounds.
3. Onboard Rear: close up sound of the rear axle, with chain, sprocket and switching of gear.
4. Tracking shot: mono recording of the passby, keeping the bike in focus while passing by.
5. Static XY shot: stereo recording of the passby that emphasizes speed.
Overview of perspectives and mic placement:
Onboard recordings are 2-3 minutes long depending on speed. Higher speeds > shorter duration.
All 3 onboard mics are edited in sync with one another to make layering easy.
All Passbys, Arrivals and Departures move from Left to Right.Metadata & Markers:
Because we know how important metadata is for your sound libraries we have created a consistent and intuitive description method that adheres to the Universal Category System. This allows you to find the sound you need easily, whether you work in a database like Soundminer/Basehead/PT Workspace work, or a Exporer/Finder window. We made a video that helps you navigate the library ans find your best bicycle sounds faster and easier.
CategoryFull
A quick way to filter out sounds you don’t need: like handling sounds or vice versa bicycle onboards.UserCategory
Fastest way to find the type of action you need for all bicycles. Passby needed, just click and voila.
OpenTier
Once you’ve selected the bike you can open up OpenTier and audition and select the perspective you want to use.Scene &Â Performer
This field contains the type of bicycle or other sound. So you can find the bike you like fast.iXMLTrackLayout
This is a neat little identifier you will find in the Waveform displays and you can see in a glance what Listening position you are.
MicPerspective
We have another way to find perspectives but it is more limited to distance to the recorded subject.
So passbys are MED – EXT and handling are CU – EXT. Exterior? Of course: we recorded everything outside!UserComments
We used this field to create the UserData and give you the minimal set of information about the recording in the filename.Additionally, we added Markers to some wave files, so specific sound events are easy to spot in Soundminer and other apps.
If you have any questions about this, please contact us info@frickandtraa.com!
Need more?
The GoodBike library is a part of the ‘City Bicycles – Complete Bundle‘ available here in the A Sound Effect store. It consists of all 4 bicycles and includes additional surfaces and extras ranging from one-off bicycle passes captured in the city and bounces and rattles. If you buy the complete bundle you get 1 package for free!Here’s a handy comparison table:
Here’s a handy comparison table:
Responses:344 AUDIO: ‘City Bicycles has a plethora of content, for a great price. The perfect balance between a great concept, great presentation and outstanding execution, lands them an almost perfect score of 4.9..‘
The Audio Spotlight: City Bicycles is worth getting if you are in need of great sounding and well edited bicycle sounds.
Watch a video created by Zdravko Djordjevic.
-
80 %OFFEnds 1760911199
-
-
20 %OFF -
-
-
15 %OFF
What’s ahead for Soundly?
We have a lot of stuff coming out the door, and upgrading will always be free as this is subscription based. We like to keep things secret before we release new features, but I can say that we are working on a revolutionary way for sound designers and video editors to work together in the cloud. Get on board now and join the revolution :)
• FREE TO DOWNLOAD and comes with 300+ free sound effects, hand-picked from the exclusive Soundly PRO premium SFX catalog
• 2 PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS: PRO ($14.99/m, 5000+ SFX), 24HR pass ($9.99)
• ACCESS sound effects in the cloud from anywhere in the world
• DRAG-AND-DROP whole sound files – or snippets – from the Soundly cloud straight into your DAW, video editing suite or to your desktop
• TWEAK AND EDIT pitch, speed and reverse on any sound, and hear the results in real-time
• IMPORT LOCAL FILES – including metadata -, to easily manage your existing SFX collections
• INSTANT SEARCH to quickly find the sounds you need, across cloud libraries + local files
• THE STORE allows you to get additional free and premium sound effects libraries – immediately delivered as you need them
• BUILT FOR SPEED, as Soundly uses Google’s infrastructure for unparalleled redundancy, safety and speed
Visit getsoundly.com for more
Please share this:
-
-
20 %OFF
-
-
-
15 %OFF
sorry for my language, but this is fucking amazing!! drag and drop works perfectly, playback is fast, the only thing right now is lack of sounds, but that is ofcourse will change in the near future as i imagine. Again amazing app!! Will be going for paid subscription asap.
Fantastic, thanks Linas, glad to hear that! And indeed, there’s much more content and features on the way – stay tuned :)
Just curious about adding libraries. Is that only for the Subscription version?
Is there any way to get my Filemaker database into your program? I have a ton of sound effects that are using the Filemake as the search engine. But I see i can drag my folders into your program but how do I get my database to link to it?
Just got word from Peder at Soundly that he might be able to help with that Filemaker database :) You can email him at mail@getsoundly.com
Awesome app, thank you
Hi there, I am very impressed with what I had seen of this software and I am extremely interested in using this in my workflow, but have a few questions. I have a pretty extensive sound library on a server and was wondering if your software will allow me to add all of libraries and then search them locally? I was also wondering if the the metadata feature allows you to add metadata to preexisting libraries? If you could answer these questions for me, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Hi Anthony,
Thanks so much for checking out Soundly!
Yes, there is no limit on the amount of local files you can index if you subscribe to Soundly. In the Soundly Free version, there is a limit of 2500 local files.
You can add metadata to whatever audio file you have indexed in Soundly, and Soundly will also print this meta data to the wave file itself.
Thanks for your interest in Soundly! We are very happy that you like it!!
Best Christian
Soundly