Hey guys! I wanted to do a special blog today, focusing on my favorite libraries for modern hybrid music and trailer sounds. This is arguably the most popular and most lucrative area of the music licensing business today, and with so many options to choose from, I wanted to offer my take on the top 5 libraries that I and my colleagues use constantly to get perfect hybrid trailer sounds quickly.
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TOP 5 (in no particular order)
Trailer Xpressions II (Sample Logic/Boom Library) – This toolkit is (obviously) tailored towards getting amazing sounds and effects for the next blockbuster trailer campaign, mostly focusing on action, thriller, and horror sounds. Huge hits, scary effects, massive risers, metallic scrapes, this library offers all of the above in a sleek and easy to use interface.
Collision FX (SoundYeti) – Another massive toolkit aimed at providing a HUGE variety of sound effects and tonal elements for both modern trailers and hybrid music. This library has so many different sounds it can be overwhelming, so a good place to start are the “Collision FX Themes” which each have tons of sounds mapped all across the MIDI keyboard, each focusing on a unique sound/style. Risers, hits, stingers, transitions, whooshes, braams, percussive loops, scary noises, this library can do it all.
Cinematic Guitars Infinity (Sample Logic) – This library is more tonal and melodic in nature, and has a ridiculous amount of content, combining three previous libraries (Cinematic Guitars 1, 2, and 3) into a brand new and overhauled engine, plus adding a ton of new content. From beautiful pads, dark ambience, action packed loops, glitchy basses, melodic synths and plucked guitars, this library can easily cover all of the melodic needs for our hybrid/trailer track.
Evolution series and/or Vikings series (Keepforest) – This is actually four libraries in one, so I’m cheating a bit, but they’re all just so good and have a similar interface and sonic quality to them. Evolution: Dragon and Evolution: Atlantica are some of the hybrid/trailer libraries I’ve owned the longest, but they also still continue to be some of the absolute best. They are modern, aggressive, cutting edge, and they just sound so GOOD.
Alternatively, you have the Vikings series, which are more generally more organic and historical/ancient sounding (think the TV show Vikings or Game of Thrones), but also contain huge metal guitars and drums, inspired by the soundtrack to the DOOM (2016) video game. These focus on melodic content (pulses, basses, synths, guitars, braams) as well as percussive elements and effects (drums, hits, rolls, subs, etc)
Finally, we have ATOM 2.0 by Audiomodern, which is a smaller and more focused library, but has a very unique and textural sonic quality to it. Evolving pads, aggressive synths, ambient keys and processed percussion, this little library can hold it’s own against the giants and even does what the others can’t, by offering a small, focused and tailor made set of sounds for a bigger variety of projects, not just hybrid and trailer.
This article is mostly written for our friends in the livestreams who ask for my personal recommendations on what to buy with their rewards points and gift certificates, so hope you guys enjoy this and stay tuned for more! (Check the video for how I use these libraries to get amazing results VERY quickly!)
