sfx Archives - The PowerPoint Blog

Introduction to AudioBlocks

AudioBlocks.com is a great resource that TLC Creative Services uses often we’re looking for sound to put in a presentation. Audioblocks is a sister company/service to Videoblocks which we reviewed in the previous post.

audioblocks-1

AudioBlocks is a subscription service (i.e. Annual fee) and you get unlimited downloads. The entire audio library is royalty-free so you can legally download and use sounds in both commercial and personal projects, without having to pay any additional fees. The library has over 100,000 sound effects, loops and music and adds new clips continuously.

Clips are available in MP3 and WAV file formats.

audioblocks-3

A really good option is that the Search feature can be filtered by keyword or style. Searches can be filtered by music, SFX or loops. My favorite search option is by duration to further focus the results. Additional search filters are by Music category, genre, mood, and even instruments. Daetona did a sample search for polka music and found 21 results (that’s a lot of Polka!). The duration of clips ranged from 00:11 seconds to 03:23, and if I needed just a short clip, the duration filter would even further focus the results.

audioblocks-2

TLC Creative has been using AudioBlocks’ online subscription since it launched a few years ago. We were even a customer of their CD-ROM collections before that. The lowest price I have found for an annual subscription is currently $99/year. A less valuable monthly subscription is also available for $79.

-Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-08-10T08:34:44-07:00March 9th, 2016|Resource/Misc|

YouTube Downloader HD – also for audio files!

Videos are great in presentations (when used properly). Audio is also a great element to add to presentations (again, when used properly). YouTube is a great resource for audio as well as video – for example, search “applause sound effect” or “applause sfx” and there are hundreds of audio files that could be used in a presentation.

YouTube Downloader HD is free software that also allows any YouTube video to be downloaded as an MP3 audio.

Downloading audio files is easy. Go to the video on YouTube. Copy the URL address of the video.

Open the YouTube to MP3 software, and paste the video’s address into the Video URL field.

In the audio settings dropdown, select the quality of the sound.

Click download.

Now insert the downloaded .mp3 into PowerPoint and set the animation as needed (Note: PPT 2010 and above can embed .mp3 format).

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-08-16T09:04:55-07:00October 5th, 2012|Tutorial|

JewelBeat Review

We integrate multimedia (music, video, etc.) into a lot of projects. TLC Creative Services has also invested in a lot of royalty free music for our resource library. JewelBeat makes a lot financial sense with royalty free tracks at $.99 each.

What does “Royalty Free” mean for music? No performing rights fees, mechanical licenses, cue sheets, ASCAP or BMI expenses to worry about. For a presentation, it means when the music is purchased, you have the license to use it – anywhere.

I like that all tracks can be previewed for the full length. And there is a free demo (sound marked and low quality) to test and confirm it fits with your project. The site says 35,000+ music tracks and it is a wide range of styles. On the technical side, tracks are generally .mp3 format, 44Hz with a 128k bit rate (ie. good).

One of the best online deals is their hundreds of FREE downloads. Even better, make just a single $.99 purchase and you jump to 1,000+ FREE music tracks, SFX and loops.

Jewelbeat.com

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-08-16T09:05:52-07:00September 28th, 2012|Resource/Misc|

Speaker Icon Evolution

Audio files (music, narration, sound effects, etc.) are represented on slides with speaker icon.

Here is the speaker icon used in PPT 2003

Here is the speaker icon used in PPT 2007 and 2010

In addition, when you rollover a PPT 2007/2010 speaker icon a mini player bar is displayed

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-08-16T09:19:41-07:00July 23rd, 2012|Tutorial|

Set Movie To Mute

Sometimes a movie has sound, but you don’t want it. There are lots of reasons; video of a surgery and you don’t want the audience to hear ‘Uh-oh’ in the background, a screen capture video and the application sound FX are distracting, or any number of other reasons.

From within PPT you can set a movie to play muted.

PPT 2003:
1. Select movie

2. Right-click and choose EDIT MOVIE OBJECT

3. Click speaker icon and click MUTE

PPT 2007:
1. Select movie

2. Go to OPTIONS tab and click the speaker icon

3. Select MUTE

PPT 2010:
1. Select movie

2. Go to PLAYBACK tab, click the speaker icon, select MUTE

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-08-16T11:15:12-07:00August 10th, 2010|Tutorial|

Snapsound.com for FREE sound fx

If you need some sound effect (fx) for a presentation, a great, FREE, online resource is soundsnap.com. You do need to register and then 5 downloads per month are free.

There are a lot of sound fx here and the collection seems to be continuously growing. All are free to download and royalty free for use. One of the best features is you can download almost any audio file in either .mp3 or .wav format (I prefer .wav as it can be embedded into PowerPoint).

Visit the site by clicking here.

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T12:16:23-07:00December 9th, 2008|Software/Add-Ins|