Here are sound effects you can use in Seussical the Musical. This is a free download. I have provided the files in .wav format so they are ready to burn. The Seussical FX are a single download as a compressed folder.
These are the same effects I used while conducting Seussical the Musical in 2006. It covers effects for the Act II Overture, last scene egg breaking, bird chirping after the egg hatches, Horton’s frustrated elephant call, wild animal grunts for “Monkey Around”, Thunder for opening of Act II, explosion from Jojo’s military scene. I used the water splash sound for when the Cat in the Hat sneezes on the Who’s in “How Lucky You Are”. It was a pretty funny addition.
If you find these sound effects useful or if there’s any problems with them, please drop a note on this post and let me know. Of course I’d love to hear about your Seussical production and how these sound effects worked for you. This sound effects download is free, if you feel like putting a link on your site to mine that would be much appreciated.
Seussical FX Pack Includes:
- bang-wonk
- bird-chirp
- bugle-cartoon
- dog-bark
- elephant-single-call
- explosion
- eggshell-crack
- grunt1
- grunt2
- horn-ahooga
- horn-comedy
- slide-whistle
- thunder
- water-splash
7,676 kb download in compressed file. All sound fx are in .wav format ready to be burned to CD. On a fast internet connection this free download should only take a couple seconds.
DOWNLOAD SEUSSICAL SOUND EFFECTS
Click on link above and save this compressed folder to your computer. Once downloaded, right click on the compressed folder and select “extract” to uncompress the folder contents.
Drop a note and let me know how these worked for you. ROCK ON SEUSSICAL!
TECH NOTES:
I ran the sound fx live from a virtual keyboard on a laptop. It allowed me to time the fx exactly where I wanted them. You could also have a sound tech run the effects, but they might need a couple cd players with fast transports (For instance, in the Overture to Act II if you want three distinct “wonk” sounds, this would require fast juggling between the CD players).
I added the slide whistle in a lot more than the score called for – had a great effect especially in the circus scenes.
Update May 2009
“VIRTUAL KEYBOARD” – Had a question as to what that is. I used the software Kontakt to map these sound effects to a keyboard, then triggered the sounds live from a midi keyboard connected to my laptop. This gives easy triggering for keyboardists that can time the sounds to the action, or trigger the sound effects to the exact beat needed in the scores (like in the Entracte to Act II). Kontakt costs several hundred dollars and has a little learning curve to get into. If you’re used to using music software, you should be able to figure out how to drag the sounds to the software, with only a few *minro* headaches (translation: it’s not super dooper easy for a first time user).