Sound Effects

[EagleCicada]

I'm currently working solo on a visual novel, and I need sound effects but have no idea how to make them. Is there any way I can make them myself (simple stuff like footsteps, shower water, wind, doors opening/closing, etc.). Is there anywhere I can find free sound effects like these, even for commercial work?

[sugarsaw1]

If you wanted to make sound effects yourself, all you'd really need would be something to record them with (like a phone with a voice recorder or something) and a way to get the recordings off the device and onto your computer (like the USB cord for a phone).

If you don't want to make them yourself, searching "free royalty free sound effects" on Google comes up with tons of results. Just make sure your use of them doesn't violate any of the websites' rules. Most of those websites have tons of choices for the things you suggested.

[EagleCicada]

You mean like for example me recording the sound of a door shutting or the sound of shower water running? That's certainly not a bad idea.

[Alte]

There is a guide to making your own sound effects.
Alternatively, browsing through a list of sound effects for samples. Each license varies. > viewtopic.php?f=68&t=27330&p=330183#p330183

[LydianChord]

In addition to what everyone else has said, if you want to generate your own generic blippy sound effects for things like menus, you can try SFXR. It can produce random sounds that fit several different categories, which you can tweak to your liking.

[J-Ray]

I'm building a library of Creative Commons sound effects.
You may check it out here:
http://www.julianraymusic.com/sound/soundblend/main.php

[greenjelly]

My go-to for Creative Commons sound effects is freesound.org, which can be very useful especially with some sound editing tweaks in Audacity (audacityteam.org) if I need to re-time or pitch-shift things. Audacity can also record sounds directly to a computer if you have a built-in microphone or one that you can directly connect.

[Yolo400]

Freesound is pretty terrible in all honesty. Often the people recording don't stay true to *your* intent, it's better to pick up a recorder and go on outside.

Then low-pass everything.

[PurpleMind]

If you wanted to make sound effects yourself, all you'd really need would be something to record them with (like a phone with a voice recorder or something) and a way to get the recordings off the device and onto your computer (like the USB cord for a phone).

Big danger in using this method is the quality of the recordings. If it's for your own project that you're not planning to release publicly then sure, but phone recordings are usually low-fidelity. A USB microphone/headset microphone would be a much better choice.