Sound Ideas - 45 Years of Sound

Brian Nimens, President and CEO of Sound Ideas, began the company as a recording studio in Toronto, Canada in 1978. Sound Ideas offers over 1,000,000 sound effects, production elements and royalty free music tracks for television, film sound design, game development, post-production, interactive media and any other professional audio production use you can throw at us. We offer complete sound effects collections on hard drive, DVD and CD for delivery to your studio by digital download or physical shipment. With the acquisition of The Hollywood Edge Collections we have added over 70,000 high-end, professional royalty free tracks that were designed by Award Winning Sound Designers. In June 2019, Sound Ideas was pleased to acquire SoundDogs.com, the world's first online commercial sound effects and production music library, with a vast, easily-accessible sound library for immediate download.

Sound Effects - In the Beginning

Series 1000, the very first royalty free sound effects library produced by Sound Ideas, was released on reel to reel tape in 1979. In association with the Phillips Corporation in Eindhoven, Netherlands - the birthplace of the compact disc - Sound Ideas published Series 1000 as the world's first compact disc sound effect library in 1985. The following year, Sound Ideas released Series 2000 - a 22 CD set that was the world's first fully digital sound effect library.

Award Winning Sound Effects

The award-winning Series 6000 "The General", was released in 1992 as a 40 CD collection - a stunning assortment of sound effects that covers all the bases - from ambiences to zebras, with 4 CDs of sound designed effects specially produced by some of the industry's most well known names. Many other specialty products, and a series of Series 6000 Extension libraries, have followed The General. In particular, the Series 6000 Extensions offer updated sets of general effects, including comprehensive selections of recent vehicles, new communications devices and weapons.

Sound Ideas acquires Sounddogs.com June 1, 2019

SoundDogs.com started its incredible story in August 1996 and by May of 1997, was the world’s first online commercial sound effects and production music library. Their high profile and well-respected product line includes the Soundstorm library, a seven-time nominee and winner of an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing. Sound Ideas has a long history of collaboration with SoundDogs.com and its owner Rob Nokes. To quote Brian Nimens, the owner of Sound Ideas, “Rob is a leader in the industry. His reputation as a sound recorder, designer and editor is unmatched; and the skill with which he has developed and grown the Sounddogs.com brand and site is remarkable. I have known Rob for decades and I am thrilled that Sound Ideas will be able to move forward with the Sounddogs.com name.”

The General HD - Hi-Definition Sound Effects

Sound Ideas "Signature" collection is The General HD Sound Effects Library – a 24 bit / 96 kHz high definition signature collection with 26,307 premium sound effects on hard drive. The General HD Sound Effects Collection was 3 very busy years in the making. We sent our audio and recording engineers out into the field with state-of-the-art recording equipment to start all over again and create a completely new sound effects library in high-definition. The result of their incredible work is a mammoth general sound effects library featuring brand new sound effects recordings - all originally made at 24 bit / 96 kHz.

Feature Film Collaboration

The world's most recognized film studios have collaborated with Sound Ideas to produce sound effect libraries from the archives of Hanna-Barbera, Lucasfilm, Turner Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., Jay Ward Productions and the Saul Zaentz Film Center.

Royalty Free Production Music

Sound Ideas uses the same care and professionalism it’s famous for with its sound effects to produce high quality royalty free production music. The Mix Music Library is a tremendous resource for commercial and promotional applications, and the Tune Drive series of Hard Drives offers more than 80 CDs of production music in the most used musical genres.

Production Elements & Musical Elements

Our production elements collections Elements Café and The Big Whoosh are staples of the broadcast imaging industry. We have whooshes, transitions, bumpers, dissolves, beds, IDs, intros, logos and every imaging working part you can think of.

The Future

Dedicated to the world of professional audio, Sound Ideas keeps its ears tuned to the future needs of sound designers and producers through the creation of new material and the adoption of new technologies. We are determined to continually improve industry standards for royalty free sound effects.