The BBC has a great collection of over 16,000 sound effects that you can add to your PowerPoint presentations.
Use them as a trigger sound for a click on a presentation, as a novel background noise or even an alert sound on your computer or smartphone.
Sound Effects Galore
Exploring the 16,000 sound effects available by word searches, categories and length.
- Chickens – including ‘More or less normal chicken’ or ‘Indisposed Chicken’
- Orgy (we’re not kidding) – either a ‘Standard Orgy’ or a ‘Comic Orgy’
- South American parrot talking & screeching
- the interior of a busy Belgian post office
- an inflating rubber dinghy
- Brawling, by number of fighters. Three, Six or 36 plus a Saloon Brawl.
- A dozen different sounds from a Siamese Cat, “other cats are available”
- search by country like Australia or Germany.
- There are over 70 results for ‘car horn’: single, double, ‘angry’, from different cars and even countries.
- Fourteen different klaxon sounds including Trolleybus and Submarine.
For a unique ring tone or alert sound for new email try searching for short comedy sound effects.
Searching Sound Effects
The web interface has all you could hope for. Word searches, categories, sortable columns, click to play plus a download button.
The search engine has good features to narrow down your list.
Download
These days, you can choose between WAV and MP3 for download.
In the past only WAV was available. For most purposes, MP3 is the most compatible choice.
For more on using audio in PowerPoint presentations go to AUDIO TRICKS AND TRAPS IN POWERPOINT
Licensing
The sound effects are available free for non-commercial use.
Commercial use requires a licence. Click on More Details for the sound then Buy Sound.
Converting WAV to MP3
The downloads are in WAV audio format. WAV is partly compatible with PowerPoint (depending on the device) so converting WAV to MP3 is a good idea.
