Clapping sound effects

One person clapping evenly at about three strikes a second. This is the take most edits are after, because a single pair of hands reads as a specific person approving rather than an audience.

One strike and nothing after it. A lone clap works as punctuation rather than approval, which is why it lands so well on a hard cut or the end of a sentence.

Five strikes with two full seconds of silence between them. The gaps carry the meaning here: the same hands going slowly read as sarcasm, and going fast read as praise.

About ten pairs of hands, none of them in step. Ten is the size that matches a real location, so it fits a classroom, a meeting room or a small stage without implying a hall you never built.

Hundreds of pairs of hands at once, so dense that no individual clap survives. At this scale applause stops being a rhythm and becomes a texture, which is what makes it sit under a voice so easily.

A room clapping in unison on a slow pulse, with silence between the beats. Unison reads as a group acting together rather than reacting, which is a different message entirely from a wash of applause.