Disc 9
Period Backgrounds – Clearly a first stab at period backgrounds, this features a rather random swath of backgrounds from 1930’s & 1970’s New York City to a Civil War Battleground to an old Western town to workers mending a cobblestone street.
Period Combat – A little more concisely focused collection of period sound effects, this focuses on pre-20th century canons, flint muskets, and WWII explosions and canons.
Period Devices – Returning to the random nature of the period backgrounds, this features a rather eclectic selection of items from different eras fom a 1940’s phone ring to an old camera shutter closing to an old light switch being turned on to a teletype machine running.
Disc 10
Period Vehicles – This features a variety of vehicles from throughout history, from a horse and cart to a stage coach to a steam engine. It then finishes it’s tour of period vehicles by exploring American cars from the Model T to a 1937 Plymouth to a 1948 Ford diesel truck to a 1954 Big Rig. (Although it says a 1954 Big Rig, it sounds enough like a modern 18 wheeler that you could easily use it for this purpose.)
To conclude, my overall impression was that the depth of options was really quite excellent. While there were a few effects that were missing from some of the earlier albums, many of these strangely absent effects are completed in discs 6-10, leaving only a few holes in the set as a whole. Obviously, these holes can be filled with future sets of discs. Besides the more thorough coverage of period effects, I really hope that they add a lot more Title Sequence Effects, as those can be very, very useful! (In fact, I would love to see them release an entire disc of nothing but Title Sequence Effects!)
Performance
While I would say 10% of the effects in this series sounded a little overly digital and unrealistic, this could simply be because not all sound effects sound like what you would normally expect them to. (Some of the most creative sound effects have come from completely disparate sources and worked best because they sounded unreal.) With that said, nearly 90% of the effects in this series sounded extremely good and like you could have heard them in the theater. (Which is appropriate, considering where they come from.) From my perspective, that’s a pretty darn good ratio.
Value
Honestly, considering how expensive good sound effects really are, to be able to get 5,000 sound effects for the original price of $799 (which comes out to about 16 cents an effect!) was a pretty decent value. However, they've now lowered the price to $499 for the ten disc set and lowered the 1-5 or 6-10 five disc set to $279, which makes this set an even more reasonable investment for any low-budget filmmaker, especially if you plan to make more than one film.
Final Comments
As none of us have the time or the money to foley all of our own sound effects, this is a set that any filmmaker should take a look at, even if you don’t think you’re doing very effects-heavy films. Sound effects are not just for action films and slapstick comedies, but can also touch up a great love scene in a romantic drama or add the necessary impact to the flying fonts in a trailer. Plus, the sound design effects included in the later discs give you additional elements that you can weave into the story to give your audience the visceral feeling you want them to have.
