Exclusive Insights From A Trailer Sound Design Expert

Hi Bryan, what’s your overall approach to trailer sound?

My approach is really from several angles at once:

First I realize that it is my job to make the film makers happy and to make a trailer that is exciting or captivating for the audience. You only have a short time to tell your story and draw them in so the vision needs to be clear. You can’t leave it up to the mixer to figure out, you have to lay it out so that it sings on its own.

That said I take the music and the story into very strong consideration. I try hard to compliment the music and express the sonic story as much as possible. Working with music is an art in itself that involves both pitch and rhythm but telling the story within that context can be very tricky… especially if you want it to be exciting. Clarity is key.
 

What makes for a great trailer soundscape?

Soundscapes can tell sorts and reveal concepts that music can’t because it is based on sounds that are grounded in life, unlike music. Music is great at expressing feeling and emotion on a subject level. but sound design is rooted in life experience. The sound of a train of in the distance, a jet fighter ripping by or even ring of a gunshot.

We all can relate to those ideas because we all have been collecting those sonic images our whole lives… through life, through cinema and in our dreams.

A great soundscape is one that pushes what is familiar into a new experience

I think what makes a great soundscape is one that pushes what is familiar into a new experience. One that makes you collect all of the sonic images that bring to life all the images.

What are your favorite tools for trailer sound creation?

Having great sound source is key and knowing what will and what will not work is very important. I am all about processing chains.
I have saved templates that specific processing chains I like to use for certain things, I have racks that I have saved in Soundminer and lately I have been doing a lot of that same thing with Patchwork. That is a great plug-in that allows you to stack processes from top to bottom and left to right with an overall dry/wet control. I use Waves TransX quite a lot.

I like the GRM stuff, Soundtoys, Melda and a host off odd ball processors. I am always looking out for different processes and tools for shaping sound. Lately I have been having lots of fun with Reaktor. The Twisted Tools stuff is great and Meltedsounds Whoosh is endless fun.
 

Popular on A Sound Effect right now - article continues below:

 

1

SFX & Atmospheres Bundle

$129.50 $30

2

MOVES

$115 $89

3

Essential Bodyfalls

$24

4

Fairgrounds

$37

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Latest releases:  

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  Motorcycles Vespa 1962 – 125CC Play Track 100+ sounds included $50 $35

  This sound collection covers a wide range of sounds produced by the Vintage 125CC motorcycle Vespa 1962 . All sounds recorded with high end equipment – 24 bit and 96KHz
  All the files are mono. The stereo impression in the demo is created by means of panning.

  In this collection of high quality sound-recordings you’ll find several tandem and multitrack recordings. Please note that phasing issues between the MKH 8070 and the DPA4061’s are perfectly normal because of fluctuating time differences. The 4061’s are always onboard, fixed and in phase in contrast to the MKH8070 which was handheld on the roadside or handheld pointing at the exhaust while driving along as a passenger.

  Besides that also important to note:
  The 5 LOOPED SOUNDS are not unique. They
  are edits from the larger driving sounds. I just put these in for your convenience should you
  quickly need some loops for your project. This is also true for one of the the Revs soundfiles.
  (Heavy revs) I thought I just cut this one too for your convenience to quickly have a list of all
  relevant revs in this library. So those six soundfiles are the only double content.

  Equipment:
  Recorders

  • Sound Devices Mixpre 6
  • Zoom H5

  Microphones

  • Sennheiser MKH8070 (handheld for tracking at roadside and handheld onboard pointing at exhaust for extra perspective in addition to 4061's
  • DPA 4061 (2 x mono: exhaust and engine)

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  Destruction & Impact Urban Explosions Play Track 2417+ sounds included From: $119

  Welcome to the world's biggest explosion sound effects library:

  When you carry the word „BOOM“ in your company name, your first dedicated explosion sound effects library should be a decent one. For the recordings, we teamed up with the sound department of EA DICE (Battlefield, Star Wars Battlefront) and we created the biggest explosion sound FX library ever. DICE uses the recordings heavily to impressively blow up the world in their AAA title Battlefield V and now you can get the recordings and our ready-to-use designed sounds in stereo and 5.1 surround for your very own projects. It’s a highly explosive pack with 13.4GB of explosion sound effects.

  Urban Explosions Construction Kit:

  Recorded in real urban environments
  Why Urban Explosions? Most explosions in movies, games or trailers don’t happen out on a plain field, they happen in urban environments with buildings around them that shape the character of the explosion sound in a very specific way. The special thing about our urban explosions sound FX library is that it has been recorded in a real urban environment, so you get super-realistic reverbs and tails instead of artificially processed post-production reverbs or tails that don’t sound urban at all. For the sake of completeness, we also recorded a non-urban explosion on a plain field, so you’re covered here as well.

  Multi-Channel Recordings with up to 42 Channels
  We had a lot of microphones with us and we placed them in all possible positions around the explosion spot. We have very close mics, close mics, medium distance mics, distant mics, mics in front of buildings, mics behind buildings, mics inside of buildings. Each explosion in the URBAN EXPLOSIONS CONSTRUCTION KIT comes with a minimum of 24 channels, including a 4 channel ambisonic file, so you can simply drag all channels to your DAW and easily mix the sound exactly as you want.

  Sweeteners
  You’re looking for a more supernatural sound or your mix misses a bit of impact, smack, punch, tail, cackling, rumbling or character? No problem, the CONSTRUCTION KIT has a lot of great high-quality sweeteners that will easily enrich your mix in the desired way.
  
  

  Urban Explosions Designed:

  Incredibly versatile
  Our DESIGNED edition comes with a myriad of ready-to-use explosion sound FX in the categories INDOOR, NEUTRAL & URBAN, each of them in SMALL, MEDIUM & LARGE explosion sizes. Beyond that, you have the choice between MEDIUM and FAR distances, FAST or SLOW explosions and a MODERN, SOFT, CRISP or DISTORTED character. With this range of sounds, you’re certainly sure to find the right one for your scene.

  Stereo & 5.1 Surround
  In addition to the stereo version our sound designers created 5.1 surround versions for each sound so you are fully prepared to implement your creative surround vision with ease.

  Designed by 4 Award-Winning Sound Designers
  We consider sound design as a craftsmanship and we’re very happy and proud to rely on the talent of four awesome sound designers that really know their trade.
  
  

  Urban Explosions Bundle:

  THE BUNDLE – The best of both worlds at a discounted price
  The Bundle gives you the full sound design power as it contains both – the DESIGNED and the CONSTRUCTION KIT edition at a discounted price.
  

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  Rock / Stone Falling Rock Play Track 109+ sounds included, 9 mins total $39

  • In Falling Rock, get a impactful collection of resonant rockfalls made from the volcanic rocks of the Davis Mountains. Throw hulking rocks down narrow ravines and hear clattering impacts with intense, extended energy. Hear miniature echoes of small stones pinging and gunshot-like reverberations from boulders thrown from clifftops. Hear the thick weight of boulders smashing and symphonies of rock careening down canyons.
  • This library offers you an extensive collection of rocks, thrown with great effort, from lofty desert clifftops and down bottomless, echo-filled gullies.

  2% FOR THE ENVIRONMENT & CARBON NEUTRAL:
  • 2% for the Environment – two percent of the price of this library is donated to an environmental cause, as an “artist royalty” for the planet!
  • Carbon Neutral Travel – carbon offset credits were purchased to offset my field recording travel starting with AMB10.

  KEY FEATURES:
  • Boulders thrown from clifftops
  • Boulders thrown down narrow rocky canyons
  • Small, mid-size, and large volcanic rocks
  • 109 impacts
  • Most impacts have extended tails (of 4 to 10 seconds) as shattered bits careen down cliff sides and canyons
  • The pitch shifted demo is the normal demo at half speed. 
  • Please note: the “Pitch Shifted Demo” was made to demonstrate the potential of the sounds in this library. However, Falling Rock does NOT include pitch shifted sounds, only mastered field recordings.

  TEXT MARKERS:
  •Named markers are included in each file to help find interesting events in files with multiple variations.
  •Markers are included in the Soundminer and BWAV description fields starting with the prefix “Marker Text”.
  

  FILE LIST & METADATA:
  • View larger version or Download CSV.

  MORE INFO:
  • Read 40+ user reviews for Thomas Rex Beverly Audio
  • Read my Field Recording Mastering Rules and learn more about how these recordings were mastered.
  • Browse the Library Info Master List to compare specs on all my libraries.
  • Browse the Metadata Master List to search my entire catalog.
  • MD5 and SHA 256 Checksums are included for each zip file in my catalog. Use these hashes to check the integrity of your downloaded files. 

  GEAR USED:
  •Sennheiser MKH 8040 Matched Pair in ORTF
  •Sound Devices 702
  •Rycote ORTF Blimp
  
  Add to cart
• 

  
  Rock / Stone Rock Creatures Play Track 900+ sounds included, 39 mins total $79

  • In Rock Creatures, get a visceral collection of guttural and grating vocalizations from the volcanic rocks of the Davis Mountains. Scrape rhyolite with intense pressure and hear guttural screeches with vigorous, physical energy. Hear the thick weight of boulders growling and frenetic stutters of rocks performed to sound like animals. Hear textured squeaks of small stones sliding. Hear rocks rich in titanium clattering to create otherworldly harmonics perfect for creature sound design.
  • This library offers you an extensive collection of rocks painstakingly performed to bring these inanimate objects to life and transform them into intensely vocal creatures.

  2% FOR THE ENVIRONMENT & CARBON NEUTRAL:
  • 2% for the Environment – two percent of the price of this library is donated to an environmental cause, as an “artist royalty” for the planet!
  • Carbon Neutral Travel – carbon offset credits were purchased to offset my field recording travel starting with AMB10.

  KEY FEATURES:
  • Rocks performed to sound like creature vocalizations
  • Resonant scrapes with shifting harmonics
  • Small, mid-sized, and large rocks
  • Thick grating boulders sliding
  • Squeaking scrapes
  • Titanium rocks rattling and clacking
  • Scraping, grinding, and rasping stones
  • Types of rocks/minerals: rhyolite, quartz, and in unidentified rock I marked as “titanium rock” in the metadata due to its high rating on the Moh's Hardness Scale.
  • Combine these rock vocalizations with the massive impacts in SD10 Falling Rock or the resonance of SD02 Ringing Rocks for infinite creative possibilities.
  • The pitch shifted demo was made from excerpts of the normal demo at half speed. 
  • Please note: the “Pitch Shifted Demo” was made to demonstrate the potential of the sounds in this library. However, Rock Creatures does NOT include pitch shifted sounds, only mastered field recordings.
  

  TEXT MARKERS:
  •Named markers are included in each file to help find interesting events in files with multiple variations.
  •Markers are included in the Soundminer and BWAV description fields starting with the prefix “Marker Text”.
  

  FILE LIST & METADATA:
  •View larger version or Download CSV.

  MORE INFO:
  • Read 40+ user reviews for Thomas Rex Beverly Audio
  • Read my Field Recording Mastering Rules and learn more about how these recordings were mastered.
  • Browse the Library Info Master List to compare specs on all my libraries.
  • Browse the Metadata Master List to search my entire catalog.
  • MD5 and SHA 256 Checksums are included for each zip file in my catalog. Use these hashes to check the integrity of your downloaded files. 

  GEAR USED:
  •Sennheiser MKH 50 and 30 in Mid/Side
  •Sound Devices 702
  •Rycote MS Blimp
  
  Add to cart
• 

  
  Foley MOVES Play Track 772+ sounds included $115 $89

  MOVES is a collection of character foley clothing and gear movements that cover a large range of characters such as Special Forces, Medieval Soldier, World War Soldier, Policeman, and High-tech Soldier among many others.

  MOVES will make a great addition to your sonic arsenal and help you achieve that personal character sound that you have in your head. MOVES does not replace a Veteran Foley artist, but will come in handy if you have a restricted budget or if you need a good sound to enhance the movements of your characters.

  You get several walks, runs and stop movements for every type of character.

  Two versions included:

  To speed up your workflow, the library comes with two versions of the same content, tailored for people working either in the Video Game or the Cinema industry:

  • Video Game Workflow: For every variation, you will have a single wav file, making it ideal for people who like to have every sound already cut and ready to be used in their DAW or middleware. It consists of 772 sounds.
  • Cinema Workflow You will find several variations of the sounds in single wav files here. It consists of 151 wav files sounds.

  And as mentioned, both versions are included, so you can pick whatever works best for your way of working.

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  Features props and characters such as:
  Bullet-proof vest, medieval chain mail, dress, leather jacket, old robot, policeman, World War II soldier, Special Forces, Thin Android, Winter Jacket, medieval foot soldier, plastic character, rattle character, shield, sword, weapons, helmets, high tech soldier, winter jacket

  As always, all sounds are embedded with useful Soundminer metadata. I really hope you will find this collection inspiring and useful in your future projects.

  Have a great day designing your new characters with MOVES!

  Best wishes,
  Michel Marchant.

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The past few years have seen a lot of sound designers creating their own libraries and releasing them independently of any publishers. What does this mean for sound designers such as yourself?

I am a big fan of Independent sound libraries because they make it easy to expand your possibilities at what is usually a very reasonable cost. Most of the independent libraries are recorded at a high quality and you know when go for something that for example Frank Bry has recorded that it is going to have all of the character you need it to. But there are a lot of great independent library makers out there and they deserve a lot of credit for making our lives a lot easier.
 

Have you considered making your own indie trailer SFX library?

Here is one I get asked quite a lot. The short answer is no. As I work on a trailer I am essentially coming up with a whole pallet of sounds that fit the style of the whole trailer campaign, from the first teaser until the featurettes. Some trailers campaigns have 15 different trailers to them and for each one there has to be a consistent style to them that makes a connection with the feature film. The reason why I have not considered an indie trailer sound library is because those sounds really belong to the life of the trailer.
Right now I am focused on making the best tracks I can.
 

What are the three most important things to get right when doing sound for trailers?

First you better get the music ironed out correctly. It amazes me sometimes how poorly the music editorial can be on some trailers. Second is the Dialogue.

Clean, understandable dialogue seems like a given but it is one of the hardest challenges in trailer audio.

Having clear, clean, understandable dialogue seems like a given but it is one of the hardest challenges in trailer audio.

Last is the sound design and sound effects editorial and how it relates to the music and dialogue. I think it is obvious but worth mentioning is that having a skilled mixer to make the trailer come together is vital. Their choices on what to play and not play ultimately shape the product into what it will be. My goal is to give them as little to think about as possible.
 

How has sound for trailers evolved during the time you’ve worked with it, and what trends do you see in trailer sound – and trailers in general?

Trailer sound has changed in dramatic ways. Trailers are now big business with composers, vendors, producers, editors and studio creatives all having a deep interest in how the get made. Trailers are all over the internet with websites dedicated to trailer content, websites dedicated to trailer news and trailer music companies being listened to like pop music on the radio.

I think if you went back 15 years or so you would find a very different trailer world. The industry has evolved but so have trailers. The visuals have gotten better, the audio and the audience for them has grown. I like artistically stylized trailers, what I don’t care for are commercials that are trailerized. I understand there is a market out there for that it is just not what I am personally in to.

So yeah I have been a part of it for a long time and I have seen a lot of changes. I hope that the industry continues to change for the better.
 

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