Good Walla Libraries

Question

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post on this forum. It looks like a great community and I look forward to chatting with you all.

I have been looking for a good walla library lately. Does anyone on here have any good suggestions?

Thanks! Scott

Answer 1

There are very few walla only libraries out there other than the Nightengale Voice Box series from Sound Ideas. You'll find walla tracks in general libraries (like the HE Premiere Edition and Sound Ideas 6000 etc.) which are useful if you're looking for a general bed, but they have been used to death and often sound really canned.

Generally most films hire a loop group (usually 10-12 people, mixed gender) to record walla. In LA they're union, contracted by an ADR group leader, and they're usually quick on their feet and good at improvising for whatever situation you need (I.E. if you need coffee house walla, they'll break out into intellectual conversations about lattes etc..) The place where I used to work did a film set in Saudi Arabia, and they ended up doing a group with Arabic speakers which sounded great. Of course, if you're working on more of a budget, you can also round up some friends who are willing to give it a go for a beer or two. A good loop group is like a great foley artist, they'll bring some real life to your project.

I also suggest recording your own with a pocket recorder or a zepplin in a duffel bag. Much more fun than pulling from a library anyway. The pocket recorder works great in restaurants, malls etc., because they don't stand out too much in this world of pocket gadgets. After doing this for a awhile, you'll find that you become skilled at remembering what public places don't play music (which is often hard to avoid these days). When you master your recordings, just make sure you cut out distinctive/specific voices.

Answer 2

Soundstorm has some great walla recordings too, they can be purchased on a per-track basis on Sounddogs. They have some good restaurant/bar wallas. And if you want some epic teen party type walla tracks, search "rock party" or "frat party" in that library. I discovered some $$$ murmur/movement wallas in that library by searching "golf", wherein there's a set of tracks where somebody hits a golf ball and then you hear crowd murmurs after that.

DigiFX has some great material too, especially as a dense background bed, although they are labeled slightly odd as "hum of voices" instead of "crowd" or "walla".

Oddly enough, I have found "crowd" to be the more effective search instead of "walla", even in the major libraries.

Hopefully that helps! And I do agree with Justin, many times doing your own recordings does the trick.

Answer 3

Freesound.org is a good site. You should check em out. They may have what you're looking for.