Idle sound effects for engines that are running but going nowhere. Cars ticking over at the lights, a tractor shaking on its mounts, a boat burbling at the jetty and a steam train hissing at the platform. Spaceships hum in their docks. The industrial side is here too, with big machines left running between jobs.
Libraries
759
Publishers
80
Formats
Mono, stereo, M/S, surround, ambisonic
Sample rates
44.1 to 192 kHz
Licence
Royalty-free for commercial work
Price range
$9 to $1,199
FiltersAll 759 libraries tagged IdleFilter by the spec, not just the subjectRecorded or designed, sample rate, bit depth, channel format, embedded metadata and file count. Narrow it down before you download anything.
New York City crowd sound effects recorded in Central Park, The Met, Grand Central Station, subway halls, Times Square, Chinatown markets, plus traffic, horns, and bus station platforms.
Airport train sound effects recorded in London, Stockholm, Bangkok, and Toronto, mostly onboard, covering high-speed, electric, and diesel rides with door chimes, PA announcements, starts, stops, and crowds.
Chicago L Train sound effects covering Blue, Brown, and Red Line onboard rides, platform approaches and departures, door opens and shuts, PA announcements, and elevated pass-bys with rail clatter.
London Underground sound effects featuring onboard rides, exterior pass-bys, door chimes, and station PA announcements across the Northern, Victoria, and Circle Lines, plus double decker buses, Thameslink, and Gatwick Express.
Paris Metro sound effects covering MP 73 Line 6 and MF01 Line 5 onboard rides through underground, viaduct, and bridge sections, plus door opens, chimes, idles, and PA announcements.
Toronto transit sound effects covering TTC streetcars, subway trains, Scarborough rapid transit, and the UP Express diesel, with onboard rides, platform pass-bys, door chimes, and PA announcements.
48 to 192 kHz, 24 to 32-bit. Formats: Mono, Stereo.
Panavia Tornado sound effects alongside C-130 Hercules, A400M, Boeing and Airbus airliners, Gulfstream APU runs, Piaggio P-180 passes and Chinook landings, captured at 192 kHz including binaural flybys.
Cessna Aerobat 150K sound effects spanning 41 files of flybys, takeoffs and landings from ground and plane perspectives, ground taxiing, idle, plus cockpit button, handbrake and door Foley, recorded at 192 kHz.
Bombard Explorer motorboat sound effects powered by a 4-stroke Yamaha outboard, covering start-ups, idle, RPM ranges, acceleration, deceleration, shutdowns, and hull water impacts across 335 stereo files at 96kHz/24-bit.
Aodes PathCross 1000 L sound effects covering 101 files of dual-perspective engine and exhaust driving, RPM step holds, pass-bys, revving and cockpit foley recorded at 192 kHz.
Rotax 125 Senior Max Evo go-kart sound effects across 52 WAV files, covering engine and exhaust perspectives of static RPM holds, race track laps, pass-bys, revs, overtakes and false starts.
The idle is the breath before the roar, the steady pulse under the bonnet. Get it right and the vehicle is mostly sold before it moves. Get it wrong and every shot of a parked car sounds fake. Bland loops that fit nothing are the usual culprit. A real engine at idle has character, like a gritty tractor that's seen things, or a moped sputtering impatiently at the kerb. Trains waiting to leave have a heavy presence all their own. Many of the vehicle libraries here record the idle by itself, often from the Exhaust and the engine separately, so it can loop under dialogue and then hand over to a Startup or an Acceleration run. Dropping just the right idle into the timeline is a small joy.
