THE Internet Archive’s USC Optical Sound Effects Library is a collection of hundreds of sound effects recordings created for Hollywood studios from the early 1930s through the 1980s. The recordings were donated to USC and have now been digitized for playback and upload to the Internet Archive.
THE Internet Archive’s USC Optical Sound Effects Library has three collections within it. The Gold and Red libraries consist of sound effects created in the 1930s and 1940s. The Sunset Editorial Library has sound effects recordings made from the 1930s through the 1980s.
As you look through the Internet Archive’s USC Optical Sound Effects Library you’ll find sound effects for things like classic cartoon noises (boing! Pow!), clashing swords (classic swordsman movie sounds), voices of crowds, and planes taking off and flying around the sky.
All library recordings are short. Some are presented by a speaker, others are not. The ones that have an intro that you can still use if you download the MP3 and then do a quick edit to remove the intro.
Education requests
I’ve long said that the best way to make sure you don’t accidentally commit copyright infringement is to use your own original audio recordings. When this is not practical or possible, use audio files that are in the public domain or licensed under Creative Commons. The Internet Archive’s USC Optical Sound Effects Library might be a good source of free sound effects for your students’ next video project or podcast project.
For more modern sound effects, check out the resources I have featured here.