Foley/FX Library

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pixelated

Well-known member
Just been relishing Noiz's sound like a budget thread again. Like most of the really great threads here, it's ranged over quite a lot of territory, full of pearls gleaned from decades of experience from many master craftsmen. (Humble and sincere thanks btw. . .)

As I understand it, in big budget projects virtually all non-dialogue sound is created/crafted after the fact, either custom created or pulled from vast libraries of clips. I'm thinking that any audio house's library must be beyond huge - I'm envisioning like many tens of thousands of items.

My question is, how do you ever catalog and cross reference such a collection? The database requirements to allow you to efficiently find what you need must be tremendous. Are there industry standard programs - sort of like a dewey decimal for sound - or are these closely guarded proprietary secrets - each house's method considered a trade secret competitive advantage?

Any suggestions for someone looking to catalog their own custom work for future reference???
 
I know a good many people who use Soundminer to keep track of their libraries. Many of the commercial sound libraries can be purchased with soundminer-compatible databases already prepared.

On the low-budget end of things, conventional database tools like Microsoft Access or Filemaker Pro can be used to track metadata. The real trick is referencing all that searchable metadata with the sound files themselves. For example, a quick search of the database may find a number of candidates, but you still need to pull the clips from a drive. If the metadatabase (is that even a word?) includes drive/folder/filename information, then things get a lot easier.

When I first started building my own library, like effects were organized into folders, and each effect had a descriptive file name. When I began recording effects for other editors, it became necessary to provide them with all the details in the form of a simple tab-deliminated text file formatted to painlessly import into the spreadsheet or database software of their choice. Now, I've imported my entire library's metadata into a single ODB database within OpenOffice, which I periodically back up to a tab-deliminated text file. The nice thing about TXT files is that you can import them into just about any DB or spreadsheet out there.

Of course, as nice as databases and metadata are, a logical folder structure and succinct file naming is the filing system on which I most rely.
 
Soundminer. Two guys who started out small and are still working editors, but SM has become somewhat of a standard. Before that I used something called Sound Log Pro. It was a File maker based application and worked well. I also wrote one in FM that works for simpler stuff. It will catalog and tag and out put to a folder. The big plus with SM is that it embeds the info in the files so if you give me a file that has been "soundminered" I will get all the metadata like descriptions etc, if I bring it into SM. NetMix may have improoved since I haven't looked at it since I switched to Soundminer but a few years back it had a few big issues. First it used QuickTime for it's conversions and QuickTime isn't the best converter around (it truncates to go from 24 bit to 16 bit among others. And NetMix wasn't particularly fast. At the time it was cross platform and SM wasn't but now SM is also. BassHead is PC only I think so it would be out for me but I have heard decent things about it. Some folks use iTunes, it's very basic but you can put in descriptions and audition and pull stuff into "bins".
The big working reasons to use SM (I'm using SMpro so some of these features may not work on the cheaper versions) are spotting lists, spotting directly into the timeline in ProTools, Nuendo and I believe STP. Put your cursor where you need a XXX, go to SM find it hit S and it is transferred and put in the timeline at the cursor. Spotting lists let you compile lists of sounds in bins for a variety of projects/ reels/ etc and then transfer them all at once, and it keeps track of what you have and haven't transferred. Also SM has just about the smoothest speed change on the planet. You can pitch stuff WAY down and it's still smooth, or way up.

And yes libraries are large. Mine is a good size for an individual but no where near as huge as some individuals and it's sitting at a little over 81,000 and there are probably 1,000 that haven't been added yet because they are waiting for me to do the library work. You have to figure that Skywalker Ranch probably has 10 -100 times that much and the big studios that have been around forever...
 
Wow! So glad I asked this question.

Many many thanks to all.

Soundminer it is.

Now to go find another $200. damn.
 
This is a little different than an in-house foley database, but for people such as myself that simply want to share the sound effects, and keep track of my own library, I use www.freesound.org

My personal page is here: http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=230160

It is a Creative Commons site, so dont upload anything you dont want people to use on their own projects, but have a look around.

The creators (basically the University of Barcelona) are working on Version 2 of this software and plan to release it as GPL software, so I can't wait for that. I intend to run this software in-house at the studio and use it for keeping track of session data, versions and tag-searches, etc....
 
Lonemonk said:
This is a little different than an in-house foley database, but for people such as myself that simply want to share the sound effects, and keep track of my own library, I use www.freesound.org

....
Click to expand...

It's Foley, not foley, but really you mean FX or SFX or EFX (FX inside the sound community because "is there any other kind?", SFX for sound FX ( but confusing because this is also the abbreviation for Special FX) and EFX = Electronic FX, ie pre recorded as opposed to Foley which is done live to picture).

That aside I didn't see any software, maybe I missed something. Are you using their web service as your database? That would be insanely slow in a production environment.

I should look and see if my old FM database still functions, it's been awhile, and if it does I could stick it on my site and put a link here. It's good if you have nothing else and all the real players are pricey. I did come across one the other day that promised SM support, but I couldn't make it work. It's cheaper that a full function version of SM and it does some cataloging. I think it's called sound grinder. Anyway if the FM DB still works I'll post a link. No support but no $$ either.
 
I also wholeheartedly recommend Soundminer, and if you want to do sound for a living it is a good app to know. But if money is tight or the extra expense of Soundminer is not worth it to you, I know of a few people who use AudioFinder by Iced Audio. It's only $70.
 
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