where can I find some good crowd sound files? at DVinfo.net

David Lach · July 5th, 2006, 07:51 AM

I'll try to keep the back story short. So I have this client who I videotaped a live show for, but the problem is, nobody showed up and the reason he wanted to shoot it was to get some sponsors for the next year event, but he's afraid having nobody in there will have a negative effect on his sponsorship hunt.

So he asked me to shoot an other crowd (which was done, it was an outside concert and luckily during National Holiday here so there were many outside concerts) and edit that with the live performance to make it look like there were a lot of people present at the show (please no comment on the merit and ethics of such a practice, I'm not thrilled with the idea, but bottom line is the client wants it and I'm there to make it work).

So now I have the crowd but no live sound (I couldn't record the audio while shooting the crowd, there was constant music in the background). I've been looking around on the Internet to find some realistic and nicely fitting crowd sound files that could help me reconstruct the ambiance. But all I found was short 5-6 sec. clips which looped over a 2 hour event would probably sound silly.

I need something fairly longer than that. I probably need a constant and long lasting neutral crowd roar, a few crowd cheers to put between the songs and some clapping, and all that has to be from a crowd of about 2000 persons (so a live football game crowd for example would not work).

Any idea where I can find all this? Free files would be ideal, but I doubt it's possible, and I'm ready to pay if that's what it takes, I need to get that done sooner than later.

Thanks for any input.

Seth Bloombaum · July 5th, 2006, 10:09 AM

sounddogs.com has some shorts in mp3 that you can listen to, but if you look carefully you'll see that their efx for purchase are much longer and higher quality. If I remember, these sorts of efx range from about $6 to $20 USD, not that expensive when you really need them.

Glenn Davidson · July 5th, 2006, 10:52 AM

I agree, Sounddogs.com. I just completed a project and used about 50 effects from them. They offer SFX from multiple libraries. Crowd effects are pretty cheap. I have been down loading aif files and the quality is great. You can select the duration of the effect you want and the cost is pro-rated. Their customer service is good too. Love Da Dogs!

David Lach · July 5th, 2006, 05:14 PM

Thanks for the tip Glenn and Seth I'll have a look at it!

Martin Taidy · July 6th, 2006, 12:31 AM

Yeah sounddogs.com is the place to go. I made this short 2 semesters ago which involve 2 fight scenes. I went to sounddogs and got a whole bunch of fighting sound effects. They could sound better of course but it was surprisingly effective. They have a lot of stuff in there too.

Meryem Ersoz · July 6th, 2006, 07:39 AM

what NLE do you use? soundtrack has a several crowd noise .aiff files. even imovie has one....

also, just doing a straight up live recording of this at a farmer's market or local festival might be good. where i live, they are fiesta-ing constantly, at least every week.....

David Lach · July 6th, 2006, 07:52 AM

I'm using PPro 2.0.

I know that recording live might be a good idea but unfortunatelly I'm too short on time to find a proper sized crowd and spend some time there recording them.

I need to have this completed by Monday and I suspect integrating this crowd with the event I shot will be quite the challenge as there really was nobody there.

July 5th, 2006, 07:51 AM	#1
David Lach Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Montreal, QC, Canada Posts: 570	where can I find some good crowd sound files? I'll try to keep the back story short. So I have this client who I videotaped a live show for, but the problem is, nobody showed up and the reason he wanted to shoot it was to get some sponsors for the next year event, but he's afraid having nobody in there will have a negative effect on his sponsorship hunt. So he asked me to shoot an other crowd (which was done, it was an outside concert and luckily during National Holiday here so there were many outside concerts) and edit that with the live performance to make it look like there were a lot of people present at the show (please no comment on the merit and ethics of such a practice, I'm not thrilled with the idea, but bottom line is the client wants it and I'm there to make it work). So now I have the crowd but no live sound (I couldn't record the audio while shooting the crowd, there was constant music in the background). I've been looking around on the Internet to find some realistic and nicely fitting crowd sound files that could help me reconstruct the ambiance. But all I found was short 5-6 sec. clips which looped over a 2 hour event would probably sound silly. I need something fairly longer than that. I probably need a constant and long lasting neutral crowd roar, a few crowd cheers to put between the songs and some clapping, and all that has to be from a crowd of about 2000 persons (so a live football game crowd for example would not work). Any idea where I can find all this? Free files would be ideal, but I doubt it's possible, and I'm ready to pay if that's what it takes, I need to get that done sooner than later. Thanks for any input.

July 5th, 2006, 10:09 AM	#2
Seth Bloombaum Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 3,420	sounddogs.com has some shorts in mp3 that you can listen to, but if you look carefully you'll see that their efx for purchase are much longer and higher quality. If I remember, these sorts of efx range from about $6 to $20 USD, not that expensive when you really need them.

July 5th, 2006, 10:52 AM	#3
Glenn Davidson Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Nevada City, California Posts: 499	I agree, Sounddogs.com. I just completed a project and used about 50 effects from them. They offer SFX from multiple libraries. Crowd effects are pretty cheap. I have been down loading aif files and the quality is great. You can select the duration of the effect you want and the cost is pro-rated. Their customer service is good too. Love Da Dogs!

July 5th, 2006, 05:14 PM	#4
David Lach Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Montreal, QC, Canada Posts: 570	Thanks for the tip Glenn and Seth I'll have a look at it!

July 6th, 2006, 12:31 AM	#5
Martin Taidy Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 51	Yeah sounddogs.com is the place to go. I made this short 2 semesters ago which involve 2 fight scenes. I went to sounddogs and got a whole bunch of fighting sound effects. They could sound better of course but it was surprisingly effective. They have a lot of stuff in there too.

July 6th, 2006, 07:39 AM	#6
Meryem Ersoz Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Boulder, CO Posts: 3,015	what NLE do you use? soundtrack has a several crowd noise .aiff files. even imovie has one.... also, just doing a straight up live recording of this at a farmer's market or local festival might be good. where i live, they are fiesta-ing constantly, at least every week.....

July 6th, 2006, 07:52 AM	#7
David Lach Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Montreal, QC, Canada Posts: 570	I'm using PPro 2.0. I know that recording live might be a good idea but unfortunatelly I'm too short on time to find a proper sized crowd and spend some time there recording them. I need to have this completed by Monday and I suspect integrating this crowd with the event I shot will be quite the challenge as there really was nobody there.