Glitch sound effects
A glitch is a texture with a rhythm. Name both in the prompt.
Listen: 10 samples from the glitch collection
Every clip shows the exact prompt that produced it. The render script reads its prompts from the same file as this page. Copy one, change a word and generate your own.
VHS tracking error
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxVHS tape tracking error, warbling analogue distortion with horizontal static sweeps and dropouts
Vinyl skip
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxvinyl record skipping and repeating the same fragment, rhythmic click with surface crackle
Modem handshake
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxdial-up modem handshake, screeching tonal negotiation with white noise bursts, close and dry
Corrupted voice
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxrobotic voice corrupting mid-sentence, bit-crushed stutter breaking into digital garbage, dry
Buffer underrun
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxaudio buffer underrun, repeating fragment of a tone stuttering with hard digital clicks, dry
CRT degauss
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxCRT monitor degaussing, deep electromagnetic thunk with a warbling low hum decaying away
Datamosh sweep
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxdatamoshed digital sweep, granular shredded audio smearing across the stereo field with sharp cuts
Drive failure
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxfailing hard drive, rhythmic mechanical clicking with a straining motor whine, close mic, dry
Scramble burst
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxscrambled encrypted signal burst, dense chattering digital noise with rapid frequency jumps
Power surge
via audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfxelectrical power surge, buzzing mains hum spiking with crackling arcs and a flickering fluorescent tick
Prompts that work
These models respond to physical description. Name the material, the action and the space.
Buffer stutter
digital glitch stutter, short audio buffer repeating rapidly then cutting out, harsh and metallic, 400 ms, no reverb
"Buffer repeating rapidly then cutting out" describes how a real audio glitch happens: a stuck loop that stops. It is more specific than a vague digital sound.
Bit-crushed zap
bit-crushed digital zap, heavily quantized square wave with aliasing artifacts, sharp downward pitch bend, 300 ms, dry
"Aliasing artifacts" pushes the model toward the harsh texture of low bit-depth quantization.
Signal dropout
signal dropout glitch, brief silence gaps punched into a static-laden tone, choppy and irregular, 500 ms
"Silence gaps punched into" a continuous tone make a dropout sound broken. The silence is what carries it.
Corruption burst
data corruption burst, rapid granular clicks and digital noise fragments overlapping, no tonal center, 350 ms, harsh
"No tonal center" stops the model from resolving the clicks into a rhythm or a pitch. Real corruption noise has no underlying structure.
Static flicker
screen static flicker, short bursts of white noise interrupted by silence, uneven rhythm, 600 ms, thin and brittle
"Uneven rhythm" is the key phrase. A metronomic flicker sounds designed; an uneven one sounds like a failing signal.
Making glitch sounds that fit
Prompt for the interruption
Describing a glitch as a sound quality ("digital", "harsh", "electronic") is not enough. What sounds broken is interruption: silence gaps, sudden cutoffs, repeats that stop mid-loop. Prompt the event structure ("repeating rapidly then cutting out", "silence gaps punched into a tone") and treat the texture as secondary. A harsh tone with no interruption sounds like a synth pad.
Name the failure mode
Real digital artifacts come from a few specific mechanisms (buffer underrun, bit-crushing, dropped packets, corrupted data), and each has a distinct sound. "Aliasing", "quantization", "dropout" and "corruption" produce different results in a prompt. Name the failure you want to get a matching texture.
Keep it dry and short
Glitch effects usually sit on top of other audio or video, and reverb or long tails smear the interruption into something smoother. Say "dry" or "no reverb" and keep the duration under a second unless you need a longer breakdown sequence. Sharper edges sound more broken.
Why generate locally
The models run on your machine, which changes the cost, the privacy and what you can automate.
Offline after download
Weights are fetched once. After that, generation, the library and the API all work with the network off. Everything lives in one SQLite file and one folder of WAVs under ~/.soundbox, and nothing is uploaded.
Your agent can use it
Soundbox runs an MCP server in the same process, with tools for generating and listing sounds. Generated files come back as absolute paths, so an agent can copy them into a project.
Licences stated up front
Every model's terms are shown before you download it, and non-commercial weights need an explicit confirmation. Soundbox is MIT. The licence of the model that made a sound governs what you may do with it.
claude mcp add --transport http soundbox http://127.0.0.1:17494/mcpcurl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:17494/api/generate \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"model":"audiocpp-stable-audio-3-sfx","prompt":"8-bit coin pickup blip","duration_s":1}'Frequently asked questions
- Can I use these sounds in a commercial video or game?
- It depends on the model that made them. Soundbox shows each model's licence before you download its weights. The Stable Audio 3 models use the Stability AI Community License: commercial use is free below USD $1M annual revenue, and above that Stability requires an enterprise licence. ACE-Step 1.5 is MIT. MiniMax's models allow commercial use under a revenue cap and require an attribution notice. Some voice and stem-separation models are non-commercial only. Soundbox itself is MIT, but the audio is governed by the licence of the model that made it. Read that licence before you ship; this summary is not legal advice.
- Does this run offline?
- Yes, once the weights are downloaded. Soundbox runs the models locally and stores everything in one SQLite file and one folder of WAVs under ~/.soundbox. There is no account, API key or upload step. Only the initial model download needs the network.
- What hardware do I need?
- An NVIDIA GPU with 8 GB or more. CPU-only is supported, but each generation then takes minutes. That is fine for a few short clips and slow for a large batch.
- Can my coding agent generate these for me?
- Yes. While Soundbox is running it serves MCP at http://127.0.0.1:17494/mcp, with tools for generating and listing sounds. An agent can generate a sound as part of the task it is already doing and gets back an absolute file path to use in your project.
- How is this different from downloading a sample pack?
- A glitch pack gives you a fixed set of failure modes someone else chose, none of them timed to your footage. Generating lets you pick the mechanism (bit-crush, dropout, buffer stutter) and the duration your cut needs, then regenerate with different wording if the first pass sounds too clean or too musical. It costs time and a GPU.