Pro Sound Effects has released its Hybrid Library and new Expansion Program for freelance sound designers and independent media creators worldwide. Since 2012, Pro Sound Effects has chosen to support the growing number of freelancers by providing access to a big feature, big studio library which they value at $10,000 for a much more affordable price of $1,500. The Expansion collections are valued at $2,500 and they are following these to approved freelancers for $500.

100 Units Available Until December 31st 2014

Until December 31st 2014, Pro Sound Effects is making 100 more Hybrid Library units available to sound designers who apply and qualify for the special freelancer pricing. In addition, all Hybrid Library owners gain access to the Expansion Program, which ensures the Hybrid Library is continually updated.

Hybrid Library Key Features:

 

• 56,477 Sound Effects on Hard Drive: 338 GB of professional sound delivered on a USB 3.0 hard drive
• Categories include Ambiences, Animals, History, Nature, Science Fiction, Technology, Warfare and beyond
• They curate sound effects content from the top recordists and sound designers including Blastwave FX, BBC, BOOM, Foundation, Sound Control SE.
• Online Access to 215,000+ sounds from any computer through the Pro Sound Effects Online Library
• Masterful Metadata for lightning fast, pinpoint searches
• Free Annual Updates: 2014 Update includes 400 new sounds (6.4 GB) from Blastwave FX plus enhanced metadata
• 100% Royalty-Free Lifetime License

 

Expansion Program Key Features:

The Expansion Program provides freelancers with a way to update and refresh their sound effects libraries. Expansions 1 and 2 are sound effects compilations that are only available to Hybrid Library owners. 

 

• Expansion 1: New Room Tones, Ambiences, Footsteps, and Foley; 10,856 sounds (54 GB) on 64 GB USB Flash Drive.
• Expansion 2: 1,000 hand-picked BBC Ambiences, Outdoor Impulse Responses, and Production Elements; 2,721 sounds (62 GB) on 64 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive.
• Soundminer Add-On: Search, Audition, Drag-n-Drop to application

 

Will I End Up With Duplications?

This in an interesting idea, but because this is curated content, as an owner of a number of collections including the BBC libraries, I was concerned to know how many duplicates I am going to pick up if I take advantage of this offer? So I downloaded the listings with the metadata from the product pages…

 

• The Hybrid Library is mainly Blastwave FX, and their own Pro Sound Effects Foundation Library.
• The Expansion 1 Library contains more Blastwave FX, Cinematic Trailer FXs from BOOM, Room Tones from Soundeffects.ch and Soundrangers content.
• The Expansion 2 library contains a selection of BBC sound effects from a variety of discs, some more Blastwave FX, some unattributed outdoor impulse responses which contain Google co-ordinates so you can see where they were taken, Cinematic Hits 7 Transitions, Whooshes, some Hockey FXs and World Cup 2014 FXs.

 

So for me the Expansion 2 collection is less appealing as I have all the BBC libraries. But by downloading the metadata files, which are available in pdf and Excel formats, you can check out for yourself if you will end up with too many duplications by taking advatage of this offer.