Free Human Sound Effects: Breathing, Voices and Reactions

About these human & voices sounds

Human sound effects show what somebody's going through in a way music and background sound can't. For breathing there's Inhale and Exhale Breathing and Oxygen Mask Breaths. Grunt, Agony Yelp and Karate Screams are the effort and pain ones. Then everyday sounds like Cough and Cracking Knuckles. Some are voice clips too. Loud Yay is for reactions. Let Me Whisper in Your Ear works for close, quiet moments or funny ones. Ho Ho Ho is for the holidays, and French Person Speaking works as background chatter.

Pick the voice before you pick the sound. Age, gender and how hard somebody's pushing are obvious on a scream or a grunt. A mismatch pulls people out faster than a missing sound would. Think about how big the reaction should be. A light exhale works for tension and a full yelp works for an injury. Use the loud one too early and you've got nowhere left to go. For games, grab several versions of the same action so repeated hits or jumps don't sound identical. Breathing works best when it's as long as the shot. Go for a longer take you can trim, not a short loop you have to repeat.

Match how close the recording sounds to how close the camera is. A close breath under a wide shot feels wrong. So roll off some of the highs and add early reflections to push it back. Shifting the pitch one or two semitones lets you get several different voices out of one person. Go too far and the formants give it away, so use a formant-preserving shifter if you have one. Put breaths in the gaps between lines, not under them. And watch for pops and mouth clicks, since close recordings pick those up easily. A high-pass at 100 Hz and a light de-clicker clean up most takes.

Every sound here is free for personal and commercial projects, with no credit required. Read the license.