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alt title(s): Stock Sound Effect There are many different sounds in the world. However, you wouldn't know it from watching television.
Many, many different sounds are used over and over and over... so much so, in fact, that many people can recognize the sound in question. It's not that the sound is similar. It's that the sound is exactly the same. And unlike Stock Footage, which is usually isolated to one show, these sounds span multiple shows, and even cross into other media, such as video games.
Now, see if you can name each and every time you've heard one of these sounds:
- Stock Screams (e.g. Wilhelm Scream) — used so often they have their own entry.
- The Creaky Metal Door — Every metal door, no matter the size, no matter how fast they're opened, makes the exact same sound: A high-pitched squeak followed by a slightly lower-pitched whine.
- There's an equally widespread sample used for wooden doors. Appears in Diablo and around 1000 movies.
- There's also The "Rusty Metal Trapdoor", as this troper calls it. Heard as a scare sound in the Halo series on Flood-infested levels.
- The Electric Sound — Whenever one sees electricity, they always hear the electric buzzing it might make, if real electricity made much sound at all. Alternating current will make a low 50 or 60 Hz (depending on which country's grid it is) hum because magnetic materials change their shape as the current flowing through them changes, which can be heard at electric substations and faintly if a fluorescent striplight is on in an otherwise silent room, and also create a faint mains hum
 on any nearby speaker because of the changing magnetic field.
- Heard in Marathon, along with the "electric spark" stock sound effect.
- Starcraft by Blizzard Entertainment has many stock sounds used, notably sound which is made when something is clicked, many of the electrical-sounding construction sounds when the protoss build a building, as well as the echoey radio-type noises that the protoss observers make.
- And the "Mutalisk Screech".
- And the "zappedi-zap" sound of Lockdown. That one appears in movies and games all over the place.
- Ahem! Let us not forget the the sound of entering CD of Starcraft into computer!
- And that sound emitted when terran building is lifted off the ground.
- In Call of Duty 4, finishing any of the challenges in multiplayer makes the sound of a rock guitar that was similar to when the Terrans Academy was selected.
- Civilization 2 has quite a few of these. Including the "swordfight" and "cannon" sounds that tends to show up a lot. Also the "bugle call" sound that dragoons and cavalry make. ("Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-raaaaa"
- Castle Thunder (as in Universal's Frankenstein).
- This troper has also heard the Castle Thunder sound in many Disney movies made from the 1930s to the late-1980s and on many pre-1991 Hanna Barbera cartoons, which often had their own distinct stock sound effects anyway. [1] often featured the Castle Thunder, but beginning in the early 2000s they began phasing it out for newly-recorded lightning strikes and thunderclaps that were often recorded specifically for them, and do not have the campiness or charm level as the old thunder did. (More info on the sound effect.)
- Generic Horror Thunder; that 'Tchik-ak-ak-ak-ak!' sound that the thunder and lightning always make in horror movies. Did you ever hear that sound in a real storm?
- There appears to be several commonly used thunder sounds. Most of them last much less time than in Real Life. It is also because of the difficulty to get pure thunder sound without rain in the background.
- Animal Sounds — Owls always hoot the same way, the eagle always screeches that way (It's actually the cry of a Red-tailed Hawk, no matter how often it's used for an eagle.), the coyote always howls, all dolphins sound like Flipper, and all monkeys go ooh-ooh-ooh-ah-ah-ah. And not just similarly...the exact same way every time.
- This troper remembers the owl thing from a Birds of Prey presentation at his college; a man from a wildlive preserve brought in some real live owls and described them, and also mentioned how they had somewhat distinct sounds. The Eastern Screech Owl, Barred Owl and Barn Owl all make a screeching/cawing kind of sound (but he only mentioned this, those birds were quiet that day), and he also showed us this cool Great Horned Owl, which according to him, is the ONLY owl that actually hoots (and this owl was actually hooting quite a bit, too! It was pretty neat to see.)
- There is apparently only one recording of a kookaburra, and it's used in every jungle scene ever filmed despite the fact that kookaburras only live in Australia and New Guinea.
- There are a set of "wolf" sounds — cries, howls, and whimpers — which have been used for at least 50 years in various projects.
- The "krayt dragon call" in Star Wars that Ben Kenobi uses to scare the Sandpeople is also the sound of Dewbacks and a few other creatures.
- Bear growls also get used for all sorts of animals and monsters, sometimes even ones that shouldn't even be able to vocalize.
- The common loon call is used in many wilderness settings, even on other planets, as in the Marathon games.
- If you ask anyone what a frog sounds like they will go ribbit, but only frogs native to Hollywood makes that sound.
- I think only bullfrogs make that sound in real life.
- The "cougar growl" stock sound is used as the death sound for the Sniffer Dogs in Silent Hill 4.
- Not to mention the several monsters that sound like red-tailed hawks when hit or killed (or is it a cat screeching?), eg Pendulums, whose main sound sounds like a looping distorted hawk call. The hummers, those bat/mosquito hybrid things, use a bee buzzing sound.
- That Poor Cat
- Voice artist Frank Welker has spent the past several decades producing the sounds of an astonishing array of creatures both real and imaginary — all with just his voice. He's also the voice of Megatron in Transformers and Freddie in Scooby Doo, if you can believe it (and is currently the voice of Scooby, a role originally portrayed by Don Messick).
- This troper, after playing Warcraft for hours on end, has heard the stock pig grunt they used in several movies and TV shows.
- Chewbacca's growls are a mix of different animal stock sounds, eg lion, walrus, bear, tiger.
- This seems to apply to ravens as well—I know the same caw can be heard in Diablo and Geneforge.
- Easily 50% of all anime in existence use the same sound effect of chirping crickets at some point, either to show how hot it is outside or just a add a touch of melancholy to the scene.
- How about squeaks for mice/rats/small rodents that aren't nearly as vocal as stock sound effects make them out to be?
- The Door Sound — When a futuristic door opens, it always sounds either like the "fschhht" Star Trek doors or the doors from Doom. The Doom Doors are also used for a number of other Sci Fi sounds, such as rising lifts etc.
- Also, many doors and elevators use the "Big Door", "Platform", and "Heavy Platform"(also heard in the Quake series) sounds from the Marathon series. The ambient sounds in those games are also mostly stock sounds, eg the wind, the loon sound, water dripping, water sloshing, and the Pfhor ship ambience.
- Star Wars door sounds are occasionally used, particularly in games set in that universe.
- The magic or technology sound "schwep-schwep" sound. This troper first heard it in Doom II's final level when the big-bad creates a new baddie.
- Sometimes used as a door opening sound. Also used in the Marathon series for the fusion pistol's projectile impact sound.
- The "creak" ambient sound heard on the Jjaro space station in Marathon Infinity is used in many other media, including the Metal Gear Solid series and Silent Hill 3.
- The Red Alert — All ships have the same red alert klaxon. You'll hear it prominently whenever anyone calls for one on Star Trek.
- Justified in that it's almost always used on ships built by and for the same stargoing civilization, who would want a standardized sound for "the shit just got real, get your ass where it's supposed to be" across all their ships, stations and installations, and probably bled from there to civilian-sector ships built by that same civilization.
- Futurama uses the Star Trek sound effect but extends it by adding a pitched-up version after the original. This variant was actually introduced in Star Trek: The Animated Series.
- The sound of the sensor pings in Star Trek too, "Pinng plink plink plink pinng" Used in almost every bridge scene in a futuristic universe.
- The Air Raid Siren (Attack Tone) — heard in nuclear war movies such as The Day After, and the Silent Hill games.
- The Godzilla Roar — Prerequisite for giant monsters, more high pitched than what you'd expect from something that big.
- The Gyrosprinters (or is it the Prongheads) in Alien Planet make the same sound as awakening Insane Cancer monsters in Silent Hill 3.
- The Sparklies — A sort of light tinkling noise heard whenever sparkles are present.
- The many "Alien Electronics" stock sounds: The holo-switches in the Halo games use such a sound.
- The 'Tron' footstep 'pnnk-pnnk' sounds that appear repeatedly in anime from the eighties onward; notable Fight! Iczer-1 and the original Bubblegum Crisis/Crash.
- The foghorn — Inexplicably used for stinky objects.
- Possibly because it is a way to refer to flatus sounds without running afoul of censors.
- Another possibility is the fact that sea ports can stink of rotting fish among other things, and the foghorn is meant to evoke that smell.
- Originated in 1930s radio ads for Lifebuoy soap; they prominently featured a stentorian cry of "B.O.!", in the tone of a foghorn, to evoke the soap's protection ("B.O." was a euphemistic abbreviation for "body odor").
- This also happens in a number of older Looney Tunes cartoons.
- A foghorn or boat horn sound (not the bomb siren) is used several times in Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4.
- The Universal Studios telephone ring — Used in many older works. Sound engineers don't use it anymore because of a noticeable warble in the recording.
- The Universal Studios Big Gun Sound and Universal Studios Small Gun Sound. The former was also used for the explosion in Body Heat.
- Generic police radio: a female voice going "Seven eight six five, code six, one-oh-five North Avenue . . ."
- That, or some other police radio stock sound, was used throughout the Grand Theft Auto series and in Sim City 3000 when one builds a police station.
- The "squark!" sound after every transmission (called MDC-1200 and actually used by some police radio systems)
- The Trombone of Failure: Mwah, mwah, mwahwahwah! Usually used in old cartoons to indicate that a character has comically failed to complete a relatively simple task.
- There's also the "trumpet of failure" death chime on some early PowerPC Macintosh computers, is that also a stock sound? It was followed a "rim shot" sound similar to above.
- A similar failure indicator, the "Crash and Burn" sound effect: squealing tires, followed by something metallic crashing into something solid.
- And the "klaxon of failure" (uuuuuuuh uaaaaah), heard in Ren And Stimpy.
- The "horns of failure" of The Price is Right
- Stock Arcade Sounds usually based on Atari 2600 Pac-Man.
- Whenever a child's innocent laughter needs to feature in a scene, it's almost always the same sound clip. This troper has heard that clip in a Dannon yogurt commercial, the recent Rambo sequel, the opening sequence to Diddy Kong Racing, and one of the alternate Windows 95/98 shutdown sounds, among numerous other places he's probably forgotten about. It's also the same sound used in the game Roller Coaster tycoon.
- Stargate:SG 1 used this sound clip at least eleven times (that I counted; probably actually more) in the single episode "Learning Curve".
- It appears in the Doctor Who episode "The Family of Blood." Threw this troper right out of the Tear Jerker scene.
- It can also be used to creep the hell out of you as it was used in Conkers Bad Fur Day's Haunted Castle level.
- In the same vein, babies always cry the same screeching "ooowaaah ooowaaah."
- Babies also always laugh with the same "Ah ha ha ha... heh!" giggle.
- Also the sound of children cheering in any cartoon featuring a little league baseball game, also heard in Recess many times.
- The two-honk doppler-effect truck pass.
- The sound *ting-ting* sound when something explodes which sounds like metal pieces tinking off each other. Commonly used used when tanks, cars, and some buildings are blown up.
- Anytime a group (usually people) gets smashed by a large object, the noise is likely to be a Bowling Pin Smash.
- The railroad crossing. Whenever there is a railroad crossing, you know well in advance the car will stop for whatever reason right in the middle of it, and you know exactly the stock crossing bells and train horn you will hear. In fact, you even know the sound the car will make while the hapless driver tries to start it again instead of doing something sensible like open the door and run away.
- Extended sound of glass breaking. You know the one. It goes on and on and finishes on a slightly quieter echo of the first crash. Shows up everywhere, especially in cartoon Overly Long Gags where falling through a window is played for laughs.
- Not to mention that pottery with sometimes among glass seems break with the same sound over and over. Video games are particularly heavy offenders.
- Afterward, a single circular object may be heard wobbling to a stop, especially when it's following a variety of crashing noises.
- The "Yabbity Yabbity" sound originating in an early 1930's Looney Tunes short was used many times in later shorts and other cartoons throughout the years, the sound usually occurs after a characters hits his head and shakes it to regain consciousness or if a character is preparing to charge into something. The sound was made by blowing a certain tune on a trombone and speeding up the sound.
- The sound whenever a character in a Hanna Barbera cartoon is preparing to run away, is sometimes used in other cartoons one example is in the John Kricfalusi cartoon "Boo Runs Wild" in which during the fight scene between Yogi and Ranger Smith as they are exchanging punches the sound can be heard as the punches connect.
- This troper heard Hanna-Barbera's stock sound effects in, of all places, Great Teacher Onizuka.
- Hanna-Barbera's sound effects are pretty distinctive; I also recall other studios using them from the 60s to the 80s including (but not limited to) Ruby-Spears, Filmation, Di C, Nelvana, Spumco, etc. Today nearly EVERY cartoon studio uses them. Jay Ward Productions (the creators of Rocky And Bullwinkle also had their own distinct sound effects library, with loads of unusual twangy kind of sounds.)
- Generic monster roar which is even more common than Godzilla roar. Example is here.
- The classic rim shot that you hear after a bad joke.
- The loud chink heard in several Disney and later 1960s Looney Tunes shorts when a character hits his head on metal, one of the most notable examples is in Peter Pan when Captain Hook hits his head on a cave wall after he tells Smee to row away from the crocodile, this sound has been used several times since, one of the most unusual uses of it occurs in Freddy vs Jason when Freddy Krueger uses his powers to slam Jason Voorhees into a ceiling.
- When jungle-themed music plays, it's quite common to hear the stock tribal sounds which go "Uh" "ah" "ussi" and "buielabuielamammare".
- All of the screams from the Exile games were stock. All of them.
- The school bell used in high-school anime: always the Westminster chime, and oddly enough, almost always played using the Tubular Bell patch on a Yamaha FM synthesizer.
- Sure beats the loud irritating fire alarm-like school bell often heard when a school is depicted! Some commercials turn it up so high it can make your ears bleed!
- The unmistakable sound of a large crowd cheering while someone goes 'WOO, WOOO!' in the background. Has been heard in SO many shows that only a few can be named from the top of my head, and it's pretty surprising that no one else has seemed to recognize it so far. It's known for sure that it tends to loop, over and over, when Criss does his stunts in Criss Angel: Mindfreak. Even when there aren't many people there. Cue the many facepalms made by this troper. It can be heard at the 1:52, 2:31, 2:38 — and probably way more marks — in this video.
- There seem to be only a few stock sounds used for the static heard when tuning through a radio dial. For one example, the radio static at the beginning of Justice's "D.A.N.C.E." is identical to the "Radio Tuning 01" stock sound included with Apple's GarageBand. Another different clip is used in both Bomb The Bass' "Megablast" and Eiffel 65's "Europop". Then there's a third one used in Fastball's "The Way" that the troper posting this swears he's heard somewhere else.
- Used in an incredible amount of media is the toilet flush from the chron 'o' johns in Day of the Tentacle. The same sound can be heard on television, films and other games.
- The sound of the fan in Silent Hill's alternate school has been used in many other places, including the wind tunnel in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, and the ventilation fan in the alternate mall in Silent Hill 3.
- The first edition of Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time used stock sound samples of Muslim chants in the Fire Temple music. These, of course, were removed in later versions.
- The power-down sound, heard when a blackout occurs. This sound is used to great effect in the music during the lighthouse sequence in the first Silent Hill game.
- The "wham" sound. Used when a picture, logo, or other object zooms onto the screen, and for the display of a disturbing image. Also used for spawning enemies in the Game Cube game P.N. 03.
- The "vavoom" sound heard when picking up power-ups in certain games, including PN 03, also the sound of the Temporary Platforms in Astroman's stage in Mega Man 8.
- The security camera rotation sound, e.g. the indestructible cameras in Splinter Cell. Sometimes this sound is used for other electronic devices too.
- Prison door slamming and locking. Heard in Wolfenstein 3D and the Sim games.
- Security alarm sounds. The alarm sound in the Nintendo 64 adaptation of Goldeneye is also used for the gates in Gradius IV's High Speed Stage, and appears in the Dance Dance Revolution song "Dead End". Another stock alarm sound is used in both Tomorrow Never Dies(the game) and Perfect Dark.
- The Bullhorn Klaxon.
- There's also the alarm when a submarine dives. A stock sound similar to this is used in Halo 3 when a Scarab is damaged or exploding.
- There's this arpeggiated tingly chord that's the staple of Japanese dating sims and visual novels, sounding when a special event occurs or during the transition between screens. It also occurs in anime when such games are parodied.
- The "metallic sweep". Heard in many electronic music tracks, eg. BT - Flaming June, Veracocha - Carte Blanche, and Signum - First Strike. Also used in the I-70 Mountain Bridge music in Syphon Filter 2.
- The menu select sound in R Type Final is the same as the klaxon sound in the song PARANOiA from Dance Dance Revolution.
- In Silent Hill 3, the Numb Bodies sound the same as the Resident Evil zombies, and the sound of the Closers' footsteps is the "zombie chewing" sound.
- Then there are stock sound loops of wind howling. Wind rarely does that sound in Real Life.
- "Dr. Davis, telephone please" and "Dr. Blair, Dr. Blair, Dr. J. Hamilton, Dr. J. Hamilton" being paged in any hospital scene.
- The sound of a cooing baby is the same in many TV shows, movies and commercials. It's similar to the sound heard at the end of the Prince song "Delirious."
- Also heard in the chorus of Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?"
And then there are the sounds that are smaller, but even more universal...so much so that some have slipped into The Coconut Effect, where not having that sound effect sounds wrong:
- Gun sounds have their own page, but let us note:
- The Bullet Ricochet — there are actually two of these. Both have the initial hit, and then the Doppler effect as the bullet goes whizzing by.
- The Hollywood Silencer — A gun with an automatic silencer always sounds like a laser, with the pew-pew sound, or else, as Roger Ebert pointed out, it makes a sound like a cat sneezing (he refers to this stock sound as The Cat Sneeze Effect in his Book of Hollywood Cliches). A real silencer -as they appear in films- only marginally masks a gun's noise, and doesn't change it at all. It's been described as like a car door being slammed, but louder - not the sort of thing you can get away with while mingling with the bad guys at a dinner party. Of course, some real silencers can mask the report well enough that only the striking of the firing pin can be heard, but they're far too big to be concealed practically. In an automatic or semi-automatic, the cycling of the action itself is quite loud, because it involves quite powerful springs (the springs have to react against the explosive force of the gun being fired in order to be useful in the first place).
- Let us not forget the explosions! Play Pocket Tanks to hear most of the stock explosion sounds used anywhere.
- The Mean Right Hook — When fist meets jaw, for some reason it resembles a drum beat.
- The Sonar Ping — A constant in low grade submarine movies. Almost always heard when the boat is submerged even when there are no other ships in the area. Submarines very rarely use their active sonar because it loudly broadcasts their presence to any other ships (or entities) in the area.
- The ambient music in Silent Hill 2's hotel contains a sonar ping type sound, along with a stock heartbeat sound effect, which appears many other times in the series. Similar ambience is heard on the Southvale streets in Silent Hill 3.
- At several points in SH 3, an "ultrasound heartbeat" can be heard, possibly referring to the God fetus that Heather is "pregnant" with.
- Momentary Feedback on a PA system — Amazingly this usually fixes itself after a second or so. Or there's some guy who turns a dial back and forth a couple of times.
- Hollywood PA systems appear to be equipped with intelligent microphones which can sense how nervous the person approaching the mike is and feedback accordingly. Thus, a generally nervous character who is dragged onto the stage will say "Hell- WHHEEOOOOOO - er ... um ... hello." Whereas a cocksure, confident character will never cause feedback, no matter how unexpectedly loudly he booms into the mike.
- There's an element of Truth In Television at work here. The standard Feedback Squeal isn't caused by the volume of the person talking into the mike, it's caused when the mike is pointed at a speaker that it's attached to. A confident person is less likely to wave the mike around aimlessly.
- The Squealing Tyre Turn — Regardless of things like the differential which exist to prevent it, and regardless of the speed of the vehicle, all cars going around corners have squealing tyres. Even on dirt roads.
- Which is basically what 'World's Scariest Police Chases' or virtually any police chase show John Bunnell hosts runs off. The shows 'Most Shocking' and 'Most Daring' are sometimes guilty of this, also. The same tire screeching sounds that are available in most Powerpoint applications are found in the shows, constantly re-used in the form of slowing it down, speeding it up, clipping it, or just simply changing the pitch of it. They do that with horns, crashes, people screaming, etc., and if you'll notice, one screech sound effect will be used when the assailant makes a risky move, but when they replay it in slow motion, they use a different one! For some reason, you can hear people scream, and hear clear, crisp car sound effects when they show footage from a helicopter... and you'll notice that every single chase sequence shot from the air involving any more than one police vehicle will have a collaboration of sirens consisting of two "wail" tones and one "yelp" tone going off incessantly until the clip ends.
- The "clank" sound, used for car crashes, which can also be heard in some racing games such as San Francisco Rush.
- Whenever a fire alarm goes off on a movie or TV, whether a building is burning or it's a fire drill or some punk decides to pull the alarm for fun, it is almost always a bell that sounds similar to a school bell or a general signaling bell. In America, bells used as fire alarms is VERY scarce. All public schools I attended when I was younger used the old loud electric buzzers for their fire alarms. My high school's was the loudest, sounding similar to a nuclear reactor alarm or basketball scoreboard. But the elementary school I attended for kindergarten had scarier-sounding electric horns that pulsed and flashed red lights (old Simplex fire alarms, same kind as in this clip.) Then my college used the newer alarms that screech long and loud with flashing strobes. You'd almost never see alarms with strobe lights on movies and TV.
- Some of the buildings at my college, notably the chemistry building used Star Trek style "klaxon" alarms, but a few had extremely loud and scary horns or buzzers that sounded like a "reactor gone critical" alarm. My high school had various types of buzzers, klaxons, and whistles. My kindergarten and elementary schools had the aforementioned reactor alarm-type buzzers. I first heard the newer whistles or "screamers" with strobe lights in middle school.
- Sometimes, the aforementioned air-raid siren stock sound is used for a fire alarm or fire truck siren on TV.
- This is more common in anime, but any Laser Blade will do the 'snap-hiss' of a lightsabre igniting, and the 'vooooom' when it's swung through the air.
- If there are ever any ducks quacking, especially in British media, it is usually the same soundclip. It's particulary jarring as if they used single quacks, nobody would notice that it's a stock sample... however, they instead use a sample which sounds like "Quack quack quack quock quock quack quack quock quock", which is downright unmistakable. Amongst other media, it has been used in Simon the Sorceror, Teletubbies, and The Legend of Dick and Dom.
- The Record Needle Scratch. A scene is going along normally then something shocking and unusual is seen and the background music will come to a screeching halt. At the moment the music stops the record scratch is played.
- The alarms in home security commercials usually either sound like a car alarm or a Star Trek klaxon. Haven't heard any real home alarms that sound like this.
- Jurassic Park actually came up with the brilliant idea of taking multiple stock sound effects of various animals and mixing them together to create the roars of dinosaurs. The sounds would be inputted into a keyboard, where the Sound Effects team would "play" for individual scenes. For example, Tyrannosaurus Rex's roar is a baby elephant mixed with a tiger and an alligator, and its breath is a whale's blow [2]. No wonder it had won an Award for Best Sound Mixing! Unfortunately, this would cause many to use these sounds for their own dinosaurs...
- ...or any animal meant to be seen as exotic and powerful. The new Avatar movie uses those exact same Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor screams for the Thanator, a panther-like creature.
- The scream of peeps on a downward heading coaster in Roller Coaster Tycoon seems to be popping up all over the place in advertisements these days.
- The Amen Break
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