User Guide

How to use SFXPick

Everything you need to drive the app: install it, point it at your audio, and blitz through thousands of clips with the keyboard to find the one. This guide covers the full workflow, the editor, and every shortcut.

1Install & first run

SFXPick is a single, self‑contained Windows program. There's no installer and nothing else to copy alongside it.

  1. Download the zip from the Download button and unzip it anywhere (your Desktop is fine).
  2. Run SFXPick.exe by double‑clicking it. The window opens instantly.
  3. The first time, Windows SmartScreen may warn that the app is unrecognized (it isn't code‑signed yet). Click More info → Run anyway. It's a local, offline app.
verified_user

Safe by design. SFXPick is read‑only: it never moves, renames or changes your audio files. The only time it writes audio is when you export favorites or save something from the editor. Your index and picks live in a small local database at %APPDATA%\soundpick\; nothing is uploaded anywhere.

info

You don't need to install .NET; the runtime is bundled inside the exe. (If you're using the tiny “framework‑dependent” build instead, you'll need the free .NET 8 Desktop Runtime.)

2Anatomy of the window

SFXPick is modeled on a pro sound browser: a library sidebar on the left, a dense list of sounds in the middle, and a full‑width player pinned to the bottom.

The SFXPick window: a sidebar of libraries on the left, a table of sounds in the middle, and a waveform with transport controls along the bottom 1 2 3 4 5
1Sidebar. All sounds, the ✦ Created and ✕ Rejected folders, your favorite Groups, your Libraries and a nested folder tree.
2Toolbar. The search box, a breadcrumb of where you are, the result count, and the Rescan / Editor / Export buttons.
3The list. One row per sound: ★ favorite, Name, Time, sample Rate, Channels and Format.
4Waveform. The shape of the playing clip; click or drag anywhere to scrub.
5Transport. Previous / play / next, a volume slider with a live %, and the time + name.
The main window. Everything is keyboard‑first and dark by default.

3Building your library

Add a folder

Click Add a folder in the sidebar and pick a folder of audio: a sample pack, an SFX collection, your whole sounds drive. SFXPick scans it (and every subfolder) in the background.

  • Two‑phase indexing. The file list appears almost immediately; then duration, sample rate, bit depth and channels fill in as it reads each file. A progress strip shows where it's up to.
  • Libraries can't overlap. A folder can't be added if it sits inside, or contains, a library you already added. Remove the other one first.

Rescan & remove

  • Rescan (toolbar) picks up files you've added or deleted on disk. It works on a single library or folder, on All sounds (every library), and on the Created folder.
  • Right‑click a library in the sidebar to Rescan, Remove from library or Show in Explorer. Removing only forgets it inside SFXPick; your files on disk are never deleted.
  • If a file goes missing from disk, its row is dimmed red and tagged (Not Found).
speed

SFXPick keeps the whole library in memory, so searching, filtering and the folder tree stay instant even at scale. It's been run on a real collection of ~147,000 sounds.

4The fast‑pick loop

This is the heart of SFXPick. Your hands never leave the keyboard:

  1. Arrow ↑ / ↓ to move through the list. Each sound auto‑plays the instant you land on it, with no clicking play.
  2. Space pauses and resumes. ← / → nudge the playhead 2 seconds.
  3. F (or Enter) favorites the sound. D favorites it with a note. X rejects it and clears it out of the way.
  4. Keep going. In a few minutes a pack of 200 clips becomes a shortlist of the handful worth keeping.

Every per‑sound action is also on the right‑click menu (Play, Favorite, Favorite with a note, Reject, Find similar, Open in editor, Show in library, Show in Explorer), which acts on the clicked row even if it isn't selected.

keyboard

Press F1 or ? at any time, even while typing in search, to pop up the in‑app shortcuts cheat‑sheet.

5Browsing & search

Navigate

  • All sounds shows your entire library. Click a library or open its folder tree to narrow to one pack or subfolder. The breadcrumb shows where you are.
  • Re‑click the library name to jump back out of a subfolder to the whole library.

Search

  • Press / to jump to the search box and just start typing. Results rank best‑match first and update as you type.
  • Matching is fuzzy (a subsequence of the filename), and separators are ignored, so excuse me, excuse_me and excuseme all find a file named excuse_me.wav. Your notes are searched too.
  • The ✕ in the box clears the search; Esc leaves the box and returns you to the list.
Searching SFXPick for 'loop': the fuzzy matcher surfaces files like Loops, Pop and Craft, narrowing 740 sounds down to 21 results
Fuzzy search for loop: a subsequence match, so it also surfaces Pop, Potion and Craft, ranked best‑first.

6Favorites, notes & groups

Favorites are tags, not a single list: a sound can belong to as many groups as you like, and nothing moves on disk.

  • Favorite (F). Adds (or removes) the sound from the active group. The ★ in the first column fills in.
  • Favorite with a note (D). Opens a small dialog; the note rides along next to the filename and exports with the file. Notes are per‑group.
  • Groups. Click the group button to switch the active “Add to” group or make a New group…. There's always a built‑in Favorites group (it can't be deleted). Right‑click a group to set it active, rename, delete or export it.
The SFXPick list: rows with hollow stars, one favorited row with a filled teal star and a note (the note reads 'test'), and a selected row highlighted in blue
The list. The teal ★ row is a favorite with a note (it reads “test”); hollow ☆ rows aren't favorited; the blue row is the current selection.

7Rejecting & the Rejected folder

  • Press X (or Del) to reject a dud. It vanishes from the list and is excluded from group counts, but nothing is deleted. Rejected sounds collect in the virtual ✕ Rejected folder under All sounds.
  • Open Rejected to review them; press X there to restore a sound back into the library.

Think of it as a recycle bin inside the app: a way to clear duds out of sight while you hunt, with nothing lost.

8The player & waveform

The bottom bar plays whatever's selected. The waveform shows the real shape of the clip.

The SFXPick transport: a blue waveform with an orange dashed mark at the left, the time readout, the playing file name, previous/play/next controls and a volume slider at 80%
The player. The blue trace is the real waveform; the orange dashed line is the mark playback restarts from. Click or drag the waveform to scrub; the volume slider shows a live %.
  • Click or drag the waveform to scrub to any point. A click also drops a mark (orange dashed line); when the clip plays to the end, Space resumes from that mark, handy for auditioning one phrase on repeat.
  • The volume slider shows a live percentage. Click anywhere on its track to jump there.

9Find Similar

Heard one that's close but not quite right? Right‑click → Find similar sounds. SFXPick ranks your whole library by how much each file sounds like the one you picked, using an acoustic fingerprint of every clip.

  • The breadcrumb shows “Similar to: <file>” and a Show top N slider appears in the toolbar; slide it to widen or tighten how many of the closest matches you see.
  • Press Esc (or the ✕ by the slider, or any sidebar item) to leave the similar view.
  • The first time, SFXPick analyzes files in the background (a one‑time, cached pass shown in the progress strip). Find Similar works on whatever's been analyzed so far.

10The Loop / Clip / Cut editor

Press C (or the ✦ Editor button, or right‑click → Open in editor…) to open the built‑in editor on the selected sound. It opens in its own window and pauses the main player. Everything you make lands in the ✦ Created folder, ready to play, favorite or export like any other sound. Your source file is never modified.

The SFXPick editor in Loop mode: a Source waveform with an orange-shaded crossfade region, options for equal-power crossfade, snap-to-zero and normalize, a crossfade slider, a Loop Result waveform and an Add to Created button
The editor in Loop mode: drag a region on the source (the orange‑shaded ends are the crossfade), tweak the options, audition the looped result, then “✦ Add to Created”.

The three modes

  • Loop: drag a region and SFXPick crossfades its tail back over its head into a seamless, click‑free loop. Choose equal‑power or smoothstep, snap edges to zero‑crossings, normalize, and set the crossfade length (capped at half the region). Loop points are embedded as a smpl chunk so DAWs see the loop.
  • Clip: extract a region as a clean clip with fade in / fade out sliders.
  • Cut: select regions and remove them, with a crossfade baked at each seam. Undo / Redo step through your cuts; already‑cut spans shade red on the source and green markers show each seam on the preview.

Each mode has its own region and its own looping preview, so switching tabs never disturbs the others. Set where files are saved with the ⚙ settings menu (top‑right → Change output folder…); the default is Documents\SFXPick\Created.

11Exporting your picks

When you're viewing a group, two export buttons appear in the toolbar (also on the group's right‑click menu). Your originals are never touched; export only ever copies.

  • Export to folder: copies every favorite into a folder you choose, in its original format, with a _notes.txt alongside for any notes. Name collisions are handled automatically.
  • ⚖ Export · even loudness: the same copy, but loudness‑matched (EBU R128 / LUFS) so every sound plays at the same volume, with no more riding the fader between clips. Files come out as WAV, lifted as loud as possible without clipping. Picks the quietest file as the target automatically; no settings to fuss with.

12Keyboard reference

The whole workflow, on the keys. Single‑letter shortcuts work whenever you're not typing in the search box.

Previous / next (auto‑plays)↑ / ↓
Play / pauseSpace
Seek ±2 seconds← / →
Favorite (toggle)F · Enter
Favorite with a noteD
Reject / restore (toggle)X · Del
Open in the editorC
Focus the search box/
Leave search / similar viewEsc
Keyboard‑shortcuts helpF1 · ?
Scrub the waveformclick · drag
Per‑sound actions menuright‑click

13Tips & troubleshooting

Supported formats

SFXPick plays the pro formats browser‑based tools choke on, including 24‑bit, 32‑bit and float WAV:

WAVAIFFMP3FLACOGGM4A / AACWMA

Common questions

  • A row says “(Not Found)”. The file was moved or deleted on disk. Rescan the library to clean up, or put the file back.
  • Closing the app. Close it normally with the window's ✕. Avoid force‑killing it from Task Manager while it's busy indexing; that protects the local database.
  • Where are my favorites stored? In a small local database at %APPDATA%\soundpick\soundpick.db. It stays put between updates, so your library and picks carry over.
  • Nothing plays. Check the volume slider isn't at 0%, and that the selected row isn't marked “(Not Found)”.
forum

Stuck or have an idea? Join the Discord and we're happy to help.