Best free sources for UI audio samples - or best tool for creating them

Question

Where can a developer find free, high-quality audio samples for use in an application?

I'm specifically interested in sounds like you might expect when you have a new mail message, when a scheduled appointment is happening soon, or when your electronic device is fully charged. Things like a nice metallic beep with a smooth echo, or a soft two-tone harmony.

Along the same lines, are there any good free (or cheap) apps that a developer could use to make those types of sounds?

This is the audio equivalent to, "where can I find awesome free icons?"

Answer 1

Soundsnap (free to some extent)

Answer 2

http://www.freesound.org/

Answer 3

To answer the question about how to create sounds, find yourself an audio program (a.k.a a DAW) that can host VSTi's. There are loads of options, and almost all offer an entry level version of their application that is competitively priced. Here are three to get you started:

• Cakewalk SONAR
• REAPER
• Cubase

Then head off to the KVR VST database and download some free VSTi's. You then input MIDI notes into those VSTi's and you should be able to create all kinds of creative / weird sounding bleeps and bloops, swooshes and echoes to use as sound effects.

Answer 4

Check out sfxr, it's not the greatest sound tool around but for size, speed and simplicity its hard to beat.

sfxr was designed to generate sounds for games but some of the styles could work well for any interface.