This article will guide you on the specific details required to submit Sound Items to AudioJungle. These tips will help you prepare your submissions correctly, to increase chances for approval and to raise potential utility for buyers.
IMPORTANT:
After reading the instructions below, when you are ready to submit a sound effect, Make sure you submit your item to the Sound Queue here.
If you submit a sound effect incorrectly to the music queue, the item will be rejected and you will have to resubmit it again.
Sound Effects
First and most importantly, AudioJungle encourages sound submissions to be as ready to use as possible in visual projects. In other words, the buyer should not generally be required to undertake editing work before being able to use the sounds.
AudioJungle focuses on ready to use sounds for inclusion in media projects. This means sounds should be as "drag and drop" ready as possible, i.e. no environmental sound captures (coughing, sneezing, identifiable speech on recordings, etc.)
Sound effects that are cleanly isolated, and ready for immediate import into projects are more likely to be accepted.
We cannot accept sound effects or recordings which would require significant additional editing by the end user, to trim, extract or otherwise alter or modify the file to make it more acceptable for use in general commercial application settings.
We also cannot accept sound recordings that are overly layered with distinct elements, or with specifically timed elements (for more custom syncing), as this diminishes general commercial utility.
NOTE: AudioJungle does not accept single sample shots, or single instrument note defined as such. For example, we do not accept a single snare hit sound, or any single drum sound (kick, hat, tom).
Exception: A single melodic tone could be considered as an interface sound or prompt.
Sound Submission Tips
Preview watermarking:
- Sounds that are less than two seconds do not require the AudioJungle watermark. It’s encouraged, however, in order to prevent unauthorized use of any sound you submit.
- Previews that contain several short sounds should have a light but discernible watermark over each sound - For example.
- For shorter sounds between 0-30 seconds, the watermark can be placed once every 5 seconds.
- For longer submissions, the watermark can be placed 10 seconds apart, (like on music submissions), unless there is reasonable cause for it not to be. In such a case you should explain your reasoning in the notes to reviewer.
Separate sounds:
- When submitting a series of sounds or different cuts of a recording together, the individual cuts or slices must be available as separate files in the zip archive.
- It’s best to have a second of silence between each sound effect on the preview. If there isn’t enough space between the sounds on the preview, the buyer cannot listen to the sounds as comfortably.
Stereo submissions:
- AudioJungle does not accept submissions in mono format at this time.
Consistent recordings:
- Recordings should have consistent volume levels across the file.
- Volumes should also be consistent between all files (.wav, .mp3 and preview files)
Technical Tips
Avoid intelligible speech:
- On a field or background recording (e.g. urban cityscape, supermarket ambience, crowds, restaurants, etc) it’s important to capture the atmosphere without pronounced words in the foreground, in any language.
- Distinctly understandable or identifiable speech can significantly diminish the utility of a recording in general project applications.
- For instance, in professional video applications, standout speech on a recording can complicate the syncing process and can ultimately become a distraction.
- By conflicting with the main audio, be it a voice-over or another sound i.e. the focus of the narrative at that time.
Avoid background or foreground artefacts:
- Similarly, sounds that seem out of place on the recording can diminish a recording’s utility.
Examples:
- Hum/hiss/white noise
- Excessive room reverb
- Close miking/proximity effect
- Sounds of the microphone being handled.
- Make sure to use a wind screen when recording outdoors to avoid wind buffeting the mic.
- Similarly, It’s always best to use a pop filter for recordings of speech, or if you are making sound effects with your mouth.
Avoid excess panning:
- Sounds that are panned extremely right or left can create misbalance.
- Avoid using a stereo recorder unless the sound you are trying to capture warrants doing so (e.g a vehicle passing by can start panned on one side and finish on the other side).
NOTE: Exceptions to the above can be made for the following kinds of sounds.
- Passbys (such as cars/planes/spaceships/boats that involve the effect of coming from the left to the right (or vice versa).
- Radio imaging effects.
- Trailer transitions, hits, and whooshes.
- Electronic FX risers, stingers, downers.
- Any sound that makes use of the doppler effect.
TIP : As a general rule, whoever is using your sound effects most likely has the capability to pan them as well, so where possible panning should be left to the buyer, as this increases commercial usability.
Avoid excess silence at extremities:
- The submission should not have silent gaps before or after the sound is heard. Make sure your sound files are adequately trimmed.
- Avoid unnecessarily long tails (e.g. car passing by taking 30 seconds to get to the microphone).
Ensure seamless looping, as required:
- There should be no gaps or skipping at the looping point of a looped submission.
- If a loop is of something with a noticeable ‘tempo’ or motion, make sure to keep that in mind at the loop point as well. (e.g. a heartbeat, or steady chirping of a cricket shouldn’t go out of time at the loop point.)
- Ensure non-looping sounds fade out properly. The ending must sound natural to be usable.
- When submitting melodic interface or game sounds (i.e. dings, “Game Over” logos, etc.), always favor high quality sample libraries/instruments.
Categories
- When submitting a sound effect file, take care to select an appropriate category for the item. Do not select the top level Sound category.
- You should select a more specific subcategory, that most matches your submission’s character.
- If you are not sure which category is best, feel free to include comments in the "notes to reviewer" field and a member of the team would be happy to assist you with categorization.
Titles
- Do Not use brand names or trademarks in your sound items’ titles. For example, “Motorcycle Revving” is a better title than “Honda Motorcycle Engine”.
- Titles are encouraged to be generic in order to facilitate discovery by more buyers searching with general terms.
- An exception for this is when the sound is specifically unique to a particular brand, and generally sought as such. e.g. "Jumping on a Pogo Stick".
Sound Packs
Sound Packs are submitted to the same queue as individual sound effects. On the sound upload page, the Sound Pack category must be selected to distinguish the submission.
- Unlike music or ident packs, sound packs Do Not require included items to be approved individually first, and therefore do not need individual item linkage in the description.
- The length field of any grouped sound submission (variations or not), unlike ident and music variations items, must be the TOTAL length of all the sounds in the zip.
- Place the number of unique items in the ‘Number of Unique Sounds’ field. Extremely close variations of a single sound would not count toward this number, just as they do not count toward the item price.
Sound packs submission should maintain a degree of unifying themes. We don’t accept collections of completely random sounds in a bunch, e.g. a zip including of barnyard animals, with car chases, and space warp sounds all bundled together, or anything else that seems like too much of a hodgepodge.