Using Soundly from Home

< Back

Soundly, an alternative to Soundminer, is a cloud-based sound effects search and retrieval program. It can be used in much the same way as Soundminer. Soundly has kindly given us access to their Pro Library. It can also be used to search for and retrieve sounds from Freesound.

Get Soundly Promo Code

Submit a ticket using your alum.calarts.edu email address to get the promo code to use Soundly until the end of access next Spring semester on June 7th, 2024. There are a limited number of codes, do not share the code you are sent, doing so will de-activate your account. If you are already a Soundly user and are looking to renew for Fall 2023, you can skip to ‘Activating Your Soundly Promo Code’ section of this article.

Download Soundly

Go to getsoundly.com and click download. If you have a Computing Kit, Soundly is available on Self Service.

Once downloaded, double-click the file, and drag the app to the Applications folder.

Activating Your Soundly Promo Code

When you first open Soundly, you’ll be presented with the splash screen asking you to Sign in or Register.

If you already have a Soundly account, click Sign In. Enter your email and password and click Sign in.

After logging in, click on the blue-green dropdown with your account email in the top right corner and click Profile.

In the Profile window that pops up, enter your code into the Promo code box and click Submit.

You’ll see another small pop-up window confirming that the code has been applied.

If you are new to Soundly, click Register on the splash page. Enter your CalArts email and create a password. Turn on the switch acknowledging the EULA. Turn on Have promo code and enter the code sent to you in your ticket.

If you already have a paid subscription to Soundly, you can cancel it and use the promo code for 150 days. Go to User > Profile in the Soundly and enter the code into the promo code box.

Quickstart

The main screen looks like this:

There are simple, 1-min tutorials available on YouTube, start with tutorials 1, 3, 7, 8, 9, & 11.

If you want to search for and download sounds from freesound.com, click the Add-ons tab on the upper-left. There is also additional free material here.

You might want to uncheck Freesound when you don’t need it to make your results more manageable.

Have fun!

Table of Contents