craigsmith

These effects form three collections:

The Gold and Red Libraries (Gold effects start with “G”, Red with “R”)) consist of high-quality, first generation copies of original nitrate optical sound effects from the 1930s & ’40s created for Hollywood studios. They were collected by a prominent sound editor who worked in the industry for 44 years. The fragile optical elements were donated to USC, and transferred to tape by USC Cinema students in the early 1970s.

I have digitized them for preservation, but they have not been restored. You may want to use some noise reduction. Or you may embrace the noise of history.

Read more about the Gold Library: (https://blog.freesound.org/?p=901)
Read more about the Red Library: (https://blog.freesound.org/?p=1064)

The Sunset Editorial (SSE) Library was also donated to USC around 1990. It includes classic effects from the 1930s into the ’80s. These effects are from 35mm magnetic film. They were often several generations removed from the originals, and not as clean, so some careful restoration was done to make them more useful. SSE effects start with “S”

Read more about the Sunset Editorial Library: (https://blog.freesound.org/?p=1515)

I have been recording and manipulating sound since 1964. After graduating from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, I worked as a sound editor and production mixer in Hollywood, specializing in noisy action-adventure films that are blamed for the downfall of society. I am now Academic Sound Coordinator in the School of Film/Video at California Institute of the Arts.