May 30, 2024
Tracing its roots from Dirty Harry to John Wick, the art of a well-choreographed and expertly filmed fight scene is a crucial part of what makes cinema—and all types of high-octane content creation—particularly impactful and memorable.
And while we might all aspire to shoot fight scenes on the largest scale and with the biggest explosions and budgets, for most of us any fight scenes we shoot are going to need to be DIY and low to no budget.
Still, just because you’re shooting an action-packed fight scene for your YouTube channel or a video to share across social media, you’ll still need ways to safely make your impacts convincing and believable.
While there are, of course, plenty of filmmaking tricks to try to make your fight scenes seem more gritty and naturalistic, by far the best way to give your fights an extra kick is to add impactful and explosive sound effects.
So, to help you safely and convincingly shoot action sequences for your projects, let us share with you some of the best royalty free sound effects for fight scenes and provide some helpful tips and tricks for knocking them out.
10 top royalty free sound effects for fight scenes
Now, while we’ll get into some tips for how to use these royalty free sound effects in your fight scenes as a way to make them more lifelike and entertaining, let’s start by giving you some options to browse through here at the start.
Keep in mind that these sound effects are royalty free sound effects, which we’ll explain a bit more below, but rest assured that if you choose to use any of these SFX for your fight scenes and license them through Soundstripe, you’ll be getting sound effects that are fully protected from any copyright issues or concerns.
Also, it’s worth noting that these fight scene sound effects are curated based on what sounds might be most helpful for your action scenes. These sound effects include punch sounds, gunshots, sword slices, and other dramatic hits that should give your videos that extra punch of realism.
(We should quickly mention that these are just our top ten royalty free sound effects for fight scenes. If you’d like to check out more, try our full sound effects library here at Soundstripe.
If you’d like to check out more, try our full library here at Soundstripe.)
Description: Thrown rotating knife hitting a surface.
Description: Bloodily slashing with a sickle.
Description: Fast whoosh sound effects.
Description: Designed reload sound of a small gun.
Description: Loop: Firing a salvo with an automatic assault rifle.
Description: An exploding salvo of fireworks.
Description: Tom is hit with long, rumbling decay.
Description: Epic metal impact with scary reverb and very subtle chimes element.
Description: Short approach and impact of an arrow on wood.
Description: Reverberant and echoing shot impact.
As mentioned above, these are just some of our top selections that we think you could possibly use in your fight scenes and action sequences.
If you want to peruse more than just these ten SFX options, you can check out the several thousand more we offer in our full sound effects library—or scroll along as we get to some of our best curated sound effects playlists below.
How do sound effects work in fight scenes?
So, how do one actually use these sound effects in fight scenes? That's another great question. Let’s answer it below with the following insights and tips.
In general, though, sound effects are used in fight scenes to help “sell” action. These actions include impacts such as kicks, punches, and various items being smashed about, as well as actions such as gunshots, sword slices, stabs, and many different forms of explosions.
We should also mention that sound effects are one of the best ways to help ensure that your fight scenes and action sequences are shot as safely as possible. There’s no need to fire any weapons on set or ever actually strike anyone in a choreographed fight scene.
Filmmaking is the art of fakery, and sound effects are one of the most effective ways to believably and safely fake the dangerous impacts and hits in fights. As such, sound effects are actually more of an editing trick than a filmmaking trick and are often added after all of the fight scenes and sequences have been planned, choreographed, and shot.
Sound effects are added by video editors and sound designers when the fight sequences are put together in an edit. They work best when placed precisely when the moment of impact is seen on screen. And, when done correctly, a well-timed sound effect can turn a shot that might look silly or unbelievable into a very realistic—and cinematic—moment.
Why royalty free sound effects?
We should also talk a bit about this “royalty free” term we keep throwing around in this piece. Whether you’re super familiar with this term or not, you’re actually more familiar with how it works and what it protects than you might think.
Royalty free is a term related to copyrights and—more specifically—the right of artists to have their art, such as music and sound effects, protected from being used without proper citation and compensation.
These copyrights belong to the composers and the artists who created or recorded these audio elements. As such, using such tracks and sound effects without proper permission is unethical and illegal. Utilizing unlicensed songs like those by Taylor Swift in your films or shows can lead to legal repercussions.
To access music and sound effects for your videos and streams legally, easily, and affordably, consider using royalty free music licensing platforms like Soundstripe. With options for single-song or sound effect purchases and subscription plans that unlock thousands of audio assets, Soundstripe provides a convenient solution for sourcing audio content for your videos and streams across various platforms and channels.
For further insight into royalty free music and sound effects, here’s a great primer on what is royalty free music (and what is not).
Our top sound effects playlists for fight scenes
Now that we’ve covered what royalty free sound effects are and why you might want to use them for your fight scenes, let’s give you some more playlists chock-full of great royalty free sound effects to use in your action sequences.
Description: Parry, parry, thrust. Shoot bang, we have an arsenal of audio at your fingertips.
Description: Recordings of explosions of various intensities and objects
Description: Bang! Pop! Thud! Nothing but the hits on a variety of materials.
Description: Brace for impact! Sound designs for major collisions. Buckle up, buttercup.
Description: The machine keeps running with the mechanical sounds of an industrial environment.
Description: Video game SFX ranging from the arcade era to current generation platforms.
Description: Soundscapes, transitions, and hits are designed for epic films and TV.
If you’d like to dive deeper and explore even more options, we have some additional royalty free sound effect playlists that would also be great for your gaming streams or other needs.
Remember to always keep safety first
To wrap things up, we want to leave you with one final warning: Always make safety your top priority when writing, shooting, or even editing fight scenes and action sequences. Whether you use our royalty free sound effects or not, it will always be safer—and ultimately more appealing to your audience—to add impact sounds and effects after the fact rather than trying to record them while on set.
Be safe, have fun, and make great fight scenes!