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    Free Sounds

    Rain Sound Effects

    99SoundsBy Updated:120 Comments4 Mins Read

    Rain Sound Effects is a free thunderstorm sound library featuring 64 royalty-free rain and thunder sounds.

    The free download link is located at the end of this article.

    Free Rain Sounds

    I recorded these free rain sound effects during a spring storm on the streets of Belgrade. The sounds were captured using a portable Edirol R-09 stereo audio recorder.

    The library contains all the rain and thunder sound effects you may need to evoke the atmosphere of a rainy day in a large city. You can hear the cars passing by on some of the recordings, tires splashing through puddles, and people walking around in a hurry.

    The rest of the audio content was recorded in quieter parts of the city, far from the busy downtown. These are perfect for use as sleep sounds or a rain background in video projects and game development.

    I also recorded the beautiful sound of raindrops falling on an umbrella. The subtle sound of rain dropping on the surface of an umbrella is almost like vinyl noise.

    There are also around twenty recordings of distant thunder rumble. These can be mixed with clean recordings of rain if you need background noise for a movie or an audio project.

    The coolest sounds in this library are the samples of seven extremely loud thunders that struck very close, even too close if you ask me. Those are the most valuable samples in the pack because recording a storm from such a close distance is indeed a very rare opportunity.

    The funny thing is that I got a bit scared at one moment, so I turned off the recorder and took shelter inside a building.

    This is something I regret from today’s perspective.

    There would have been around five or six more fantastic thunder strike samples if I kept recording that time. Still, at that moment, I was pretty sure that staying outside would be too dangerous, so I played it safe.

    Play the last sample in the “Heavy Thunder” folder at a loud volume, and you’ll understand why I chickened out. It was almost as if the storm was trying to tell me that it wasn’t playing around and that it didn’t fancy ending up in a free rain sound library.

    Thankfully, I managed to record some fantastic rain and thunder sounds during this heavy storm, and you can now download them for free.

    Rain Loops

    Most of the samples in the “Rain” and “Distant Thunder” folders have been edited to loop perfectly. You can easily connect multiple copies of the same audio file in an audio track inside your DAW to create infinite rain loops.

    The provided loops can work at any tempo, and of course, there is no need to use time-stretching because the loops do not contain rhythmic content.

    Thunder Sounds

    The “Heavy Thunder” samples are provided as one-shots. They have long tails, so it’s very easy to layer them on top of a rain loop and get natural-sounding results.

    In the audio example embedded in the sidebar, a single rain sample was looped five times, with four different heavy thunder samples layered on top.

    How To Use Free Rain Sound Effects

    The heavy thunder samples have been normalized to -0.1 dB to ensure maximum volume without clipping. The rain and distant thunder loops have been normalized to values ranging from -12 dB to -6 dB, depending on the overall atmosphere and the feel of the loop.

    The rain sounds will probably be rather quiet in your mix anyway, so the normalization settings reflect this.

    No effects were used on any of the sounds provided in the pack. They were only trimmed to find the perfect loop start and endpoints. You can always use additional EQ and dynamic processing to make these recordings fit your project perfectly.

    I suggest filtering some of the low-frequency content, as anything below 60 Hz can most likely be removed without impacting the sound of the samples.

    Summary

    Rain Sounds includes a collection of rain and thunder sound effects for free download.

    All included samples are available in stereo 24-bit WAV format with a 44.1 kHz sampling rate. There are 64 individual audio samples inside, adding up to 659 MB of audio data.

    Links

    Avatar photo

    99Sounds is a boutique sound design label from Belgrade, Serbia. It was launched by Tomislav Zlatic of Bedroom Producers Blog.

    120 Comments

        • Joerg on

          Hi,

          is it allowed to mix these sounds together and use it in monetized youtube videos ?
          Are Credits required ?
          Is there a also a way to work together when I would like to sell those atmos I creat with your sounds ?
          Best from germany
          Joerg

          Reply
          • Avatar photo
            99Sounds on

            Yes, you can use these sounds in monetized YouTube videos, as long as they’re mixed with other sounds (used as a background element, sound effects, etc).

            Reply
            • Vicki Hatt on

              I downloaded 99sounds Thunder an Rain late last night at 2:00am eat but haven’t seen any sign that it downloaded at all

      • 99Sounds on

        Do you have a recorder which you can use for this? Trust me, purchasing my portable recorder was one one of the best purchases I ever did. It really gives you a unique chance to explore new sounds and experiment. Just scan the online ads daily for a bargain price and get one ASAP if you’re like to get into field recording.

        Reply
        • ExtremRaym on

          Sure ! I have a Zoom H4, bought the year it came out (2006 !), I use it all the time but I don’t have heavy fur/dead-cat for it, so it’s a bit inconvenient for windy environment.
          I tested the new Zoom H6 and I have to say that I liked it, the Zoom H4 is not ultra performing (that’s why they made the Zoom H4n few years later), it tends to be a bit squeaking when hand-hold.
          What field recorder do you have ?

          Reply
          • 99Sounds on

            Zoom H4 looks nice! Have you tried their new cheap H1 and H2 models?

            I’ve used Edirol R-09 for this, bought at a bargain price second hand. It’s one of my favorite pieces of gear ever. Awesome little thing.

            Reply
            • ExtremRaym on

              H4 is nice, indeed, but there is better for same price now ;)
              I didn’t test the H1 H2 cause I definitely need a couple of XLR inputs :)
              I have to say that the edirol has a pretty good sound for its size/price !

    7. Fabricio on

      Thanks for making this recordings available!

      Please help me understand your licensing… “The sounds included in the library may not be re-distributed. ” and “You can use them for free in your music, as well as audio and video projects” looks orthogonal to me, but IANAL.

      If I use any of them in a video or in a music, can I redistribute the derivative work? Can I publish my video under a more permissive license that allows redistribution and the use of the work for a virtual instruments, sound libraries and everything else (cc-by-sa or cc-by for example)?

      Reply
      • 99Sounds on

        Hi Fabricio! IANAL either, but I’ll try to explain.

        You are absolutely free to use the samples from Rain And Thunder in a music video, a song, as a backing track for a dialogue, etc. The non-distributing part refers to taking the samples themselves and re-distributing them as your own.

        It is to prevent people from taking these sounds and using them in commercial or non-commercial sound libraries as a sound source. There are websites out there who take other people’s free samples and sell them for profit.

        Please let me know if you need any further details about this. Thanks for visiting!

        Reply

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