Stock Sound Effect Usage is Getting Out of Control

The entertainment industry is powered by sound, particularly stock sound effects. You probably heard one in the most recent movie you watched. Pretty much every medium including film, television, video games, and music have a constant use of stock sounds. If you’re up for a challenge, try watching an episode of an anime without hearing at least one stock sound effect. It’s impossible. Stock sounds are even used in a lot of YouTube videos these days.

Intro

Sound effects have become an accepted part of the industry and they have only been getting worse. Sound designers and editors are still using old sound effects that are like 60+ years old, and even started using an insane amount of sounds. Stock sounds went from simple and non-intrusive to outright annoying. They’re loud, thrown at your face, and smutty. It’s gotten pretty bad. A lot of people, including myself, are getting tired of it. More people are either muting audio or ear plugging than ever before. Some of them have gone to war over this and sometimes prevent users from muting audio. It’s led to a big debate online. Are using stock sounds right or wrong? How do companies both big and small supposed to gain a reputation for their soundtracks if you mute the audio?

It’s Getting Worse

In order for me to explain how bad stock sound effect usage is getting, I extensively searched the Sound Effects Wiki, and it is really bad. First of all, they’re now extremely invasive. Where have we gone from the days of the classic Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes shorts? Major studios have created many great stock sounds but some of them are not even good. Older libraries are still being used today and are often placed in segments that are unskippable and constantly interruptive.

I can’t watch an anime or play a Mario game without getting bombarded with stock sounds. It’s not just that. Some sounds are being used obnoxiously and in unusual scenarios. One library in particular, the Hanna-Barbera Sound Effects Library, is used everywhere. Almost anything you can imagine uses one or more overused sounds. How do people enjoy their favorite entertainment like this? A lot of companies do a terrible job of screening their products over sound usage. How many times have you fallen for a sound you hate? Or better yet: how many times have you heard the infamous Big Whistle Zing Out or Wilhelm Scream?

It can get even more worse. Any use of one or two sounds from the Hanna-Barbera library aren’t enough. They were relatively common in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s before Sound Ideas came to power and reduced that number by a considerable percentage. However, the library can be heavily used in an effort to bring in that retro feel. Sometimes, a lot is used at the beginning. Yes, it’s been around for ages, and users on the Sound Effects Wiki have been making public service announcements over falling for these hated sounds.

If you know the Sound Effects Wiki, they are a great resource to help you make informed choices. Sometimes the sounds used on certain pages are not listed. You may think it would be safe, but no. You would be mistaken once you watch or play. If that’s not bad enough, stock sound effects end up slowing down or breaking consumers’ immersions. Sometimes, entertainment can be unenjoyable over the amount of stock sounds used.

We Don’t Need to Hear Those Sounds

Some sounds are bad. The sounds you’re hearing today are part of the problem. You can’t easily find the sounds you’re interested in. Sound Ideas is making millions of dollars from the sale of their libraries. We realized the more copies of libraries are sold, the more likely stock sound are going to be used. The sounds know the industry better than it was over a hundred years ago. Everybody knows the media the sounds originate from. Sound Ideas knows every sound effect in existence. They appear in every piece of media in existence and are constantly logged by the Sound Effects Wiki.

That’s not even all of it. Sometimes the actors themselves have created sounds from their voice that are hated by fans. Is nothing sacred? What about that new movie or game you bought? It’s even got actor-created sounds that aren’t even stock. It’s a really creepy idea about actors’ voices being used in disliked sounds. The most nefarious things in the industry aren’t even just sounds. If you don’t want to use stock sound effects out of the fear of driving your audience away, just become a foley artist and make all of your own sounds. That’s not a bad thing. We’re talking about the sound effects generated in theatre in the days before motion pictures became a thing. Nowadays, stock sound effects have become more invasive and insidious. Blocking them is the only way to keep yourself safe.

The Unsustainable Future

All of the issues with sounds nowadays will not get any better. Companies are going to keep using stock sounds. The problem is these big providers such as Sound Ideas, The Hollywood Edge, and SoundDogs are not providing new and unique sounds. They’ve already engulfed the entire world’s media with them. The market is saturated and why do companies keep using the same sounds over and over? They need to be more unique. Sure, they are still profitable but putting in more of these or even cracking down on evasion will just drive their reputation downhill. They need to create their own sounds. The Pokémon games had a pretty good record until they started adding overused sounds in Generation XII. Same thing with Super Mario when they started in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.

You’re already paying a few dozen dollars for a movie or game and you don’t realize your buying stock sounds you don’t like. Want to remove them? Sorry, there’s nothing you can do except mute. What’s the endgame of the entertainment industry? They can’t just keep using the same sounds forever. Once it gets bad enough, people will eventually stop playing or mute the audio. Less and less new companies are using stock sounds. There’s Freesound that features Creative Commons-licensed audio, even though some of the sounds offered are hated. Some game developers have removed disliked stock sounds based on user feedback.

Everyone is using stock sounds to create their environments. We’ve all gotten used to them, but their overuse has made the industry a much worse place. They’re pretty much unwatchable or unplayable because every piece of media relies on stock sounds for the sound design. There’s no incentive to make media good. As long as they can get you to hear a sound, they’ve won. That’s why nobody respects Hanna-Barbera or Sound Ideas anymore. The good sound design of games in the 1980s have been replaced with this junk today. Some are even of poor quality. They want the sounds to stick in your head like a curse. The more time you spend, the more cursed you will get.

It doesn’t make anything better. They’re doing it to increase engagement and keep you in longer. If it involves ruining your mental health, so be it. People are getting tired of this. Looking the other way around, there’s a whole another angle that excessive use of stock sounds is taking a toll on the world’s mental health. How are you supposed to be content while trying not to hear these? It’s intuitive that the more sounds that are used, the less satisfied you will become. For all of you who want to declare war on this, a study that took place on the Sound Effects Wiki showed that the more stock sounds people are exposed to, the less satisfied they’ll feel. The world’s entertainment is being ruined by overuse fast. We don’t need any more of this.

Afterword

It shouldn’t come as a surprise on how bad stock sound overuse has become. More and more people are muting audio and plugging ears. It’s certainly not a bad thing to not use any, no matter how many original sounds you create, and people are getting tired of falling for something they hate and breaking their immersion. People are also tired of invasive sounds that are not screened by companies, sounds that are irrelevant to the scenario, things getting worse that result in more frequent usage, and something they don’t want. They’re against everything overused sounds stand for.

Stock sounds are not the only method of setting up sound design. The more we get away from it, the better society will be. There are plenty of people who want good sounds. You can create your own sounds or go to FreeSound. The entertainment industry can survive without stock sounds. The biggest losers will be sounds that aren’t supported by everyone. Does that make any loss? They won’t go away any time soon. You will continue to hear these sounds unless companies find other ways to create their own sounds. Honestly, that’s good riddance.