The Best Royalty Free Sound Effects for YouTube - Hassle-Free SFX to Make Your Videos Stand Above the Rest
Jourdan Aldredge
Apr 19, 2024
Whether you’re a seasoned YouTube Pro or someone starting a channel for the first time, there’s always going to be something new to learn about the process. And because YouTube is constantly updating its algorithm and the general YouTube-watching public is always evolving, there’s always room for improving your videos as well.
One way content creators of any level can immediately give their videos that extra sauce is by adding sound effects. Now, we know what you’re thinking: Sound effects can be cheesy or, dare we say, cringe-worthy at times.
However, when done well and with the best sounds behind you, these extra auditory effects can help you elevate your content to a much higher standard and give your videos a much better shot of engaging your viewers, gaining new followers, and ultimately being more successful.
So, to help you on your YouTube filmmaking journey, here are some of our best royalty free sound effect selections and playlists for your YouTube videos, as well as some helpful tips and tricks to get the most out of the sound effects you put in your videos.
10 top royalty free sound effects for YouTube
Before we dive into all of our insights and tricks for working with royalty free sound effects (and explore what royalty free means), let’s give you the good right here at the top. Of course, there are tens of thousands of different sound effects available not just in our library here at Soundstripe but across the world wide web.
But if you had to ask us to share some of our favorite SFX specifically picked for your YouTube videos, these would be some of our top selections. So, for your sound effects listening pleasure, check out our top picks below.
Description: Airy and liquid whooshed in combination with crackling.
Description: Airy whoosh in, zap into harmonic moving synth pad, and airy whoosh out.
Description: Melodic and suspenseful sequence with whoosh.
Description: Combination of static electricity-like sounds, distorted voice, beeping, and distant growl.
Description: Power up sound with an airy whoosh and beefy servo.
Description: Very short zip into a punchy hit.
Description: Heavily distorted bass/kick impact with long decay.
Description: Long swoosh with a heavy drum hit and slightly metallic decay.
Description: The crowd is cheering and bawling of joy and excitement in German.
Description: Ambience in city commercial zone. Train passing by and forklift moving around in the background.
These are just ten of our best selections; if you’d like to see thousands more, visit our full sound effects library, or keep reading this article, as we’ll share some of our best curated sound effects playlists below.
How do sound effects work on YouTube?
We’ll explore a bit more about the art of using sound effects in your videos as an editing practice. However, if you’re curious about what kind of sound effects you can use in your videos and how you’ll want to use them, then let’s briefly discuss.
As with any music or audio you use on YouTube, you’ll want to be absolutely sure that the content or assets you’re using are either wholly created by you or correctly licensed for you to use.
Yes, this is true for sound effects, even if they’re only a few seconds long. So, even if you’re just making videos for a personal channel, if you ever want to monetize or sell any products or services, you’re going to want to avoid those free sound effects sites that you can find outline, unless they offer royalty-free sound effect options like the ones you can find here at Soundstripe.
What are royalty free sound effects?
At the end of the day, your best bet for music or sound effects (or other video or photo assets, for that matter) is royalty free options that can be licensed from royalty free music websites like Soundstripe.
This is because sound effects, like songs and other musical tracks, are created by artists who deserve compensation. And that’s what royalty free music is more or less. Read here if you want to know more about what royalty free music is (and is not).
Basically, though, companies like Soundstripe handle both compensating the artists who created the music or sound effects and providing full protection and coverage for creators to use the music and sound effects on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, etc.…
Our top sound effects playlists for YouTube
With all that being explained, let’s give you more royalty free sound effects options by sharing some of our favorite and most popular sound effects playlists, which should help you find even more great SFX for YouTube videos.
Description: Cinematic sound effects, pre-arranged into powerful sequences that you can cut your footage to
Description: Electrical hums, buzzes, and sparks signal a device's turning on.
Description: Movement of various textures to add an extra layer of believability to your project.
Description: Soundscapes, transitions, and hits designed for epic films and TV.
Description: Human sounds like humming, cheering, coughing, etc. Welcome to the human condition.
Description: Digital alerts and pings that would make R2 beep with joy.
Description: Experience the hustle and bustle of city life with these sounds
If you’d like to further explore more sound effects, here are some additional royalty free sound effect playlists that would be great for your YouTube videos.
Tips for using royalty free sound effects in YouTube videos
Now, we could fill up an entire article, if not a book, about how to use sound effects in your videos. There’s so much value well-selected and edited sound effects can do for your videos. However, for the sake of brevity, here are some of the key ways in which sound effects can help make your videos better, more fun, and overall more enjoyable:
- Provide an auditory bedrock for intros and outros
- Liven up boring transitions from shot to shot
- Add sounds for any stock video shots
- Make motion, in general more dynamic and fun
- Safely sell punches and explosions
In addition to these ways, royalty free sound effects are always a great idea to add to your videos. They’re easy to work with and generally a good practice to add to your regular YouTube filmmaking and video editing process.