In this, the final edition of our regular Sunday Sound Effects Roundup we look at sound effects libraries from Mindful Audio, Airborne Sound, Tovusound, HISSandaROAR and Sound Spark as well as a new desktop app from Sounddogs and a free Pro Tools sound effects editing template from Pro Sound Effects.

Mindful Audio Release Cargo Trucks

Cargo Trucks is a collection of onboard multi-channel recordings of heavy goods vehicles, also known as cargo trucks or lorries. The first truck in the library is a 2012 Mercedes-Benz Actros semi end dump truck, a vehicle used to haul tarmac and other material from quarries in Europe. It is powered by a 12 litre V6 Diesel engine doing 480 HP and sounds as mean as you can imagine.

The Actros was wired up using a pair of DPA 4060s in the cabin, a DPA 4061 and a Sennheiser MKH8040 on the engine, and a second Sennheiser MKH8040 on the exhaust. These mics were plugged into the Sound Devices Mixpre-6 and 633 recorders. Each perspective sounds different and can be layered for creative vehicle sound design. The recordings cover more than 32 minutes of driving on country roads and on a motorway. There are two engine starts and stops, idling, accelerating, decelerating, driving slowly and driving fast.

The cabin DPAs sound muffled, as you would expect from a truck with good sound insulation. This perspective includes occasional indicator clicks and power seat movement. The engine perspectives sound meaty and occasionally bright, including a good deal of creaks and other metal rattles caused by the elements that connected the tractor unit to the trailer. The exhaust perspective is a little more muffled and bassy, exactly as you would expect. These 3 perspectives also include the typical high-speed hum associated with long-haul trucks.

The 1.1 update adds the sounds of a mean and growly MAN TGA, powered by a 12 litre 410hp Diesel engine and we understand that more trucks will be added to the collection as they are recorded. If you buy your copy now, you will receive all subsequent updates for free.

• 3 mono and one stereo synced .wav files, 32 minutes each

• Recorded and presented at 24 bit/96 kHz

• 2.49 GB .zip archive/2.63 GB uncompressed size

• recorded on Sound Devices 633 and Mixpre-6 with DPA 4060, DPA 4061 and Sennheiser MKH 8040 microphones

• Free lifetime updates

• Price: $125 plus taxes

New Free Sound Bundle From Airborne Sound: Crowd Sound FX

Airborne Sound has released the second in their Micro Pack series - Crowds, which follows their Construction Micro Pack. The new Micro Pack: Crowd sound library gathers field recordings of voices, footsteps, talking, and movement. Featured locations include:

• Food court

• Subway station

• Cafe

The tracks were recorded in ORTF stereo. Some takes feature tandem field recordings from two perspectives for additional tonal texture.

The Micro Pack: Crowds sound fx library includes:

• 10 + 10 sound clips.

• 832 megabytes.

• 3 formats: 96 kHz/24-bit or 44.1 kHz/16-bit mono WAV files, MP3 320 kilobits.

• Includes 19+ fields of metadata in 4 formats (Soundminer, BWAV, MacOS Spotlight, ID3v2).

• As an additional option, you can choose to download an add-on of 10 bonus looped versions for $0.99.

Tovusound Release Metal Comb Music Boxes Library

Lovingly assembled over decades, the Jacobi Collection is one of the most extraordinary of its kind. Let your heart beat faster and immerse yourself in the fascinating world of music boxes.
These are recordings of 18th-century music slot machines from the private collection Jacobi in Germany. These antique instruments need a lot of care not to fall silent. Unfortunately, this happens again and again, as the maintenance can quickly overtake the benefits. For this reason, part of the purchase price will go towards keeping these treasures in full working order. 

• 13 Music boxes

• 30 songs

• Up to 4 Variations

• 128 meta-tagged WAV files recorded with Neumann KMR184 and Schoeps CCM as Stereo X/Y and M/S.

• Price: $129 - Until 30th June 2018 - $89

HISSandaROAR Release Beaches Volume 2 And Open Road Passes

Tim Prebble travelled the length of New Zealand, recording a wide range of pristine beaches but especially targeting locations with a unique tonality.

Some favourites include a beach at Tora with gorgeous gravel drag on each outgoing wave, and a number of locations on Stewart Island/Rakiura accessible only via water taxi.

• 7.9GB download

• 50 Files

• 24bit 96kHz .WAV files

• Price: $49

After recording our DOPPLER TRUCK HORN Library it soon became apparent they had also captured hours of car passes, all travelling 60mph/100kmph... So Tim waded through the recordings and extracted over 100 of the cleanest individual vehicle passes, in case you ever need them for freeway, expressway and open road scenes.. or to experiment processing the inherent kinetic nature of these sounds

• 1.3GB download

• 200 Files

• 24bit 96kHz stereo .WAV files

• Price: $29

Sound Spark Release Forest Ambience Library

The Forest Ambience 1 library focuses on the ambient sounds of Central Florida's forest ecology.  The focus of this library is a collection of as much general background ambience as possible with minimal focus on any one individual element.  It also focuses on a Mid Day – Early Dusk time frame.

The range of ambiences includes windy gusts through thick canopies, forests alive with birds and bugs, and erie dead silences, void of any life recorded near one of the nation's largest active bombing ranges.  Also included are a few plane flyovers and some outdoor trail ambience near an apartment complex as a bonus.

• 73 files

• 73 sounds

• 24 bit / 96 kHz

• 3.03 GB Includes metadata

• Duration: Approx. 87 minutes total

• Price: $30 plus taxes

Sounddogs Release Desktop Application

Sounddogs has released its own desktop application, to bring their sound effects directly to your workflow. The subscription-based license system avoids dealing with browsers, payments and download links and there is a free version too.

• Advanced and Fast search for both Cloud and Local Libraries

• Navigation through Categories and Subcategories

• Built-in high-quality preview player

• Individual and Bulk Download

• Drag and Drop full or partial selections of the sounds from the application directly to folders or Pro Tools.

• Access instantly to the SFXs you need from any studio with internet connection.

Two versions: Free and Subscription

• FREE version: it will work as a search engine and management tool for your local sound effects libraries. You will still be able to explore and preview our cloud libraries.

• SUBSCRIPTION version: Online access to download high-quality and full metadata sound files. The main objective of the application is to take care of sound designers with a download offer limited to a reasonable professional use, defined as normal work-related pulling from the library. High-quality previews are included for subscribers for a quick and better search. Subscription plans start at $200 per year for 2000 downloads.

Learn more at the Sounddogs website.

How To Create Pro Tools Session Templates For Sound Effects Editing

Pro Sound Effects are offering a free Pro Tools Session Template created by  David Forshee, to everyone who applies to join their Freelancer Program by August 1st 2018. 

Templates are a very important part of the sound editing process. When I begin a project, it's essential that I’m not wasting energy reorganizing and rerouting tracks.

Instead, when I begin editorial, I want to focus on the story and realize my ideas as quickly as possible. More generally, software and technology that we surround ourselves with should be set up in a way that gives us a reliable framework in which we can be creative and play with sound, with minimal distraction and technical drudgery. Templates are a very important part of the sound editing process. When I begin a project, it's essential that I’m not wasting energy reorganizing and rerouting tracks.

You can learn more about how David creates these templates on the Pro Sound Effects Blog. You can also find out more about the Pro Sound Effects Freelancer Program too.

The End Of The Line

So there we have it, the last in a series of Sound Effect Roundups on Pro Tools Expert and thank you to those that have supported it and found it useful.