# Which sound for which event

Edit / Sound / Hook and effects. Checked 2026-11-13.

Each kind of event gets a sound the viewer already understands.

- Use when: Placing sound effects on an edit.
- Phrase: a whoosh on the zoom, an impact as the title lands, a soft tick on each counted number
- Page: https://directorchair.ai/sound/sfx-vocabulary
- JSON: https://directorchair.ai/api/sound/sfx-vocabulary.json

## Watch out

- A stricter rule from one creator of coded ads: whooshes only for movement, a pop or a tick for a cut or a morph, no dings, bells or typing sounds, and never the same sample twice at the same pitch. (practitioner; Director Chair notes on Motion graphics with Claude (Rourke Heath) (the sound rules of his free skill))
- One effect per visual event at most. An effect on every caption is the style of a few references, not a default. (practitioner; Director Chair field notes on editing)

## The usual pairs

| Sound | Event |
|---|---|
| Whoosh | a zoom, text sliding in |
| Riser | tension before a reveal |
| Click and impact | text or an object appearing |
| Ding | a right answer, good news |
| Cash register | money, a price |
| Camera shutter | a scene change, before and after |
| Shock | a pattern interrupt |
| Buzzer | a mistake, a myth debunked |

From a creator's TikTok series, collected in our hook framework. Pairs to start from, not rules.

## Prompts

### Any chat model

```
Give me a sound brief: what to record or pick, where it sits on the timeline, the levels, and what to check before export, for a short video about [your product], for [your audience]. The technique is which sound for which event: each kind of event gets a sound the viewer already understands. How it works: a whoosh on the zoom, an impact as the title lands, a soft tick on each counted number. It is right for: placing sound effects on an edit. A stricter rule from one creator of coded ads: whooshes only for movement, a pop or a tick for a cut or a morph, no dings, bells or typing sounds, and never the same sample twice at the same pitch. One effect per visual event at most. Be concrete: numbers, seconds and settings, no theory. Ask me one question first if something you need is missing.
```

## Goes well with

- Sound hook: https://directorchair.ai/sound/sound-hook
- Sound on the peak, not the start: https://directorchair.ai/sound/sfx-on-the-peak
- Word drop: https://directorchair.ai/effect/word-drop

## Source

The pairs come from the Director Chair hook framework (our 2026 synthesis of @marco.thecreative's TikTok series, OpusClip's hook formulas, a Brandefy article, Meta retention research and a Gemini research report), in our own words

Text CC BY 4.0, Director Chair (directorchair.ai). Reference clips and their card texts belong to their makers.