VSTAlarm is giving away UK Household by Field Reports, a Glitchedtones sublabel, for free for a limited time.
As a BPB reader, you’ve probably already downloaded some of the free field recordings and foley sounds available on our sound design label 99Sounds. We offer a variety of free options, including the recently released City Sounds and Water Sounds libraries.
With that in mind, you might be wondering why you should bother adding more samples to your hard drive.
What sets the UK Household sound library apart is its focus on the mundane sounds of domesticity we are immersed in our everyday lives.
Field recording is a labor of love, and it’s an art form in itself. As producers, sometimes we feel like our mixes are static and lifeless, and most of the time, this can be addressed by sound selection.
A touch of organicity and realism can be achieved by adding some real-life sound objects into our tracks.
Layering these organic sounds with other sound sources like synths and samples can help immerse the listener into the auditory narrative.
The first compositional exercise I was told at the sound design school was to intentionally listen to the sounds around us and record them. Then, the act of using them musically would be the next big step.
So, don’t underestimate the value of sound collections like UK Household.
This one, in particular, is quite large, with a total of 819 files and 1.3 GB in digital weight.
They are enriched with extensive descriptive names, to ensure you can find quickly the sounds you are looking for.
The recordings were mostly taken indoors, with a good variety of sources captured from the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the bedroom, and the dining room.
Expect to hear the clink of cooking utensils, the static hum of appliances, the ubiquitous creak of doors, and the swish of drawers opening to name a few.
Some sounds feature variations with names such as ‘clatter 1’ and ‘clatter 2’ or ‘shut 1’ and ‘shut 2’.
This is incredibly useful if you want to insert round-robin variations in your compositions.
Let’s say you want to transform the domestic sound objects into a set of custom percussions, for instance.
Overall the collection is rich and varied in sound content, with a lot of interesting material.
The sound files are rendered in WAV format and are typically short in length, so ready to be dragged into your project and used straight away.
Whether you’re into game audio, film music, or music production I think you should give these sounds a spin.
The download process is a bit convoluted, but not too complicated. You should first complete the free checkout on the VST Alarm website. You will then receive a coupon code that you should redeem at Glitchedtones to receive your free copy of UK Household.
So, it’s a two-step process (you need to complete two separate checkouts), but it’s definitely worth the effort if you need free household sounds for layering and sound design.
Again, if you love these types of sound libraries, you can check out our indie cinematic label 99Sounds, which offers a lot of great free releases.
Download: UK Household (FREE on VSTalarm for a limited time)
More:
- 99Sounds Releases FREE Drumplayer Drum VST Plugin
- 99Sounds Release FREE Cinematic Electronica By HydraTek
Last Updated on September 14, 2023 by Tomislav Zlatic.
