zachlipton said:
I have to second the recomendation of
sounddogs.com. Their prices are pretty cheap (roughly $5 for an average
effect I would say) and their catalog covers such a wide range of effects that you can basically find everything you need. They have free
mp3 previews of everything and they will give you a full uncompressed AIFF or WAV file after you
purchase.
I've gotten through entire shows from sounddogs. Be careful though, it's easy to go on a purchasing spree and rack up a $50 bill pretty quick (it's a wonderful feeling to do this when you have someone else paying the bill however
)
I have two professional CD libraries that are probably about 100 CDs total. Both had downloadable
cue databases, so I downloaded them, merged them into a single Access database, and copied all the actual cues from CD to a hard drive. Now I can do Access keyword searches for effects (such as "telephone"). All the telephone cues come up in a list, and I can click on them and
play the sample off the hard drive to
preview them. Works pretty well overall and much better than using the hardcopy
cue directories that came with the libraries and popping multiple CDs in the drive to hear the various phone cues.
That being said, those libraries cost me hundreds of dollars and I'll probably never use most of the cues. And even at 100 CDs, they tend to be broad-but-generic and often don't have the exact cues I'm looking for.
If I were starting over, I would probably skip the CD libraries and just go with Sounddogs.com. They have a huge library of very specific sound effects. Almost all the major sound effects libraries seem to be available. Need a specific '55 Chevy
effect? They might have 50 of them to choose from. I can usually get the cues I need for a show for somewhere between $25 and $50 dollars. My biggest complaint about them is the online previews they provide are of low-res quality (understandable) and pretty short. So sometimes it can be a little difficult to know what the final purchased
cue will sound like. Example: a low res rain storm environment sounds like static. But the final WAV file might sound great.
And the cues are usually ready to download within a few minutes of placing the order. WHich can be great if you're working under the usual time crunch.
Dave