1000 of the World's Greatest Sound Effects. (sound effects on CD-ROM) (Software Review) (Evaluation)
by David English

What a deal! For $49.95, you get a CD-ROM with 1000 royalty-free sound effects, a sound finder utility that lets you attach the sound effects to your Windows system events, and sound editor that also plays audio CDs and MIDI files.

With 1000 different sounds, you certainly get a lot of variety. You'll find one elephant sound, five sets of sneezes (slow sneezes, small sneezes, large sneezes, rapid-fire sneezes, and female sneezes), seven bowling sounds (a gutter ball, a strike, a ball returning, and so on), eight screems (mostly Fay Wray-type screams), 21 science-fiction sounds, 23 horror sounds, 29 drum sounds, 43 sets of footsteps (great for radio dramas), and 99 short music clips (called IDs, they seem to be designed for television and radio news shows). Beavis and Butthead fans will be drawn to the small selection of bodily noises, as well as the nine moans that are reminiscent of Meg Ryan's famous delicatessen scene in When Harry Met Sally. All 1000 sounds are stored in both 8-bit and 16-bit WAV file formats.

You can use the sound finder utility to select the sounds by category (Ambience, Animals, Around the House, At Work, and so on) and list your selected sounds by description (Applause 80/100 people, Applause-longer 80/100 people, Arc welding torch being lit, Arcade game #1, and so on). The program also lets you play sounds randomly, browse through categories, search by keyword, attach sounds to Windows system events, and copy sounds to your hard drive.

The sound editor is actually Sound Impression's Multimedia Sound Studio, an excellent multifunction sound utility. It looks like a four-rack component stereo system and includes a WAV editor, an audio CD player, a MIDI file player, and an audio mixer. The WAV editor is more than sufficient to let you manipulate the CD-ROM's sounds or make your own sonic creations.

Though most of the sound effects in 1000 of the World's Greatest Sound Effects are too specific for everyday use, it's still the world's greatest bargain in PC sound effects.