From the smallest ping to huge orchestral recordings at Abbey Road, I have created the most comprehensive resources on trailer music there are. Whether you want to know how to structure trailer music or want to take your tracks to the next level I have you covered.
⚡️ My Free Trailer Music Toolkit
I created a little toolkit that has all the tools you need to start writing awesome Trailer Music. I even created a tutorial sketching a complete Trailer Cue using only these tools.
📚 Trailer Music Terminology
All the terminology that you will hear all the time when writing and producing trailer music.
📝 How-to Guides
In-depth guides on specific aspects of trailer music that are important. These are essentially blueprints for how to structure your trailer music, and how to write trailer music more easily and quickly.
- How to Make Trailer Music
- How to Structure Trailer Music
- 13 Ways to Make Your Orchestra Sound Real
- How to sketch a track in minutes using one-shots
- How to write trailer music quickly and easily
- 7 Rules of Act 1
- 5 Simple Steps to a Better Act 2
- How to Make Your Act 3 Sound HUGE
- How to end your trailer track with a 4th Act
📺 Trailer Music Courses
I have created 12 in-depth courses on writing trailer music. The aim for me was to impart every single bit of knowledge I have gained over the last 10 years of being a professional trailer music composer.
Foundation courses:
Trailer Music Foundations | Course Bundle
Get three of my popular trailer music courses, including my flagship Trailer Music course, Trailer Music for Beginners, and Trailer Music Essentials course, all for one low price!
These courses are aimed at people who are new to trailer music as they cover all the foundational elements. This stuff is really important, if you have the basics down pat then you have won half the battle.
Intermediate Trailer Music Courses
Trailer Music Intermediate | Bundle
Get four of my popular trailer music courses, including the Hybrid Trailer Music course, Epic Slow Burn, Uplifting Orchestral and Dark Fantasy, all for one low price!
These courses are aimed at people who know a bit about trailer music but want to dive deeper and learn more niche-specific approaches.
Pro Trailer Music Courses
Trailer Music Pro | Bundle
Get four of my popular trailer music courses, including the Neoclassical Strings, Dark Thriller, Building Drones and Action Comedy Drums, all for one low price!
These courses are wildcards. These styles are often not considered "trailer music" however I regularly land placements writing in these styles and I would consider these if you are already in trailer music and want to branch out.
- Building Drones
- Action Comedy Drums
- Neoclassical Strings (currently re-recording)
- Dark Thriller
Go Full-on Trailer Music JEDI!
Trailer Music MASTER | Bundle
Get ALL 11 of my popular trailer music courses, taking you from beginner to complete Trailer music MASTERY, all for one low price!
I have created the ultimate Trailer Music Course Bundle which has ALL 11 of my trailer music courses for one low price. This is the most wide-ranging and detailed trailer music course there is!
🎼 How I Wrote the Music for…
These are breakdowns of how I wrote the music that was used in real-world trailers. Walking you through my Logic sessions so you can see everything I do to produce trailer music that gets licensed.
🎞 Trailers Using My Music
I wanted to include some of the trailers that use my music that I am really proud of and to show the range of placements I have achieved. If you would like you can see all of my placements (well 75% of them).
- Mother! (Won an award)
- Captain America: Civil War (First Marvel trailer)
- Halo: Infinite Winter (Uses a lot of my own samples)
- Diablo II: Resurrected (played the original game all the time)
- L’Amant Double (Uses two of my tracks)
🎙 Interviews With Industry Experts
I have been hosting a podcast called The Trailer Music Composer's Podcast all about trailer music for over 3 years.
In that time I have had the pleasure to interview some amazing people in the industry who tell the origin story of epic music, reveal how the industry works, and share super useful composition tips and tools.
- Jeff Fayman from Immediate Music
- Emma Middleton - Trailer Music Supervisor
- Yoav Goren from Immediate Music
- Ciaran Birch - Trailer Music Composer
- Cody Still - Trailer Music Composer
- Ruben Nava - Trailer Music Supervisor
- John Hanson - Composer and Cofounder of Confidential Music
- Vikram Gudi from Elephant Music
- Si Begg - Trailer Music Composer
- Chris Davey - Trailer Music Composer
Some of the most loved episodes of the show:
- How to start your trailer music career with Sigurd Jøhnk-Jensen
- How to create your 5-Year Plan (goal setting and manifestation alert)
- Dealing with Anxiety as a composer
- What a movie trailer editor wants from trailer music
- An interview with Spitfire Audio & Pianobook founder Christian Henson
🎁 Popular Tips & Tricks
These little ditties have really helped to take my trailer music & my workflow up a notch with very little effort. Don't underestimate the power of the dark side, oops sorry, I meant don't underestimate the power of small changes.
- Save your own Kontakt presets
- Make an entire piece of music using one single sample
- Use track stacks (stems)
🛠 Tools You Need
This is by no means the ultimate list of tools, it is however a list of some tools that I use every single time I write trailer music and cannot do without.
- 21 Best free libraries for making epic music
- String library - I use Spitfire Albion, Jaeger, & Metropolis Ark
- Brass Library - I use Jaeger, Metropolis Ark, & Spitfire Albion
- Trailer Hits - I use Keepforest and my own hits
- Trailer Percussion - I use Damage, Hanz Zimmer Drums, and Ferrum
- Bass - I use Trilian and Keepforest Evolution
- Good synth - I use Omnisphere
- Piano - I use Labs Felt Piano, & Alicia's Keys
- Risers - I use The Riser, my String Risers, and some random one-shots
You might also be interested in the best free tools for writing trailer music.
🙋🏽♀️ FAQs
- Is it too late to get into trailer music
- What’s it like recording at Abbey Road
- When is the right time to start reaching out to publishers?
- What are the timelines like for trailer music releases?
You should check out my Trailer Music Composer’s Podcast for detailed answers to all the most frequently asked questions about trailer music.
You can even ask me a question that I will answer on the podcast!
If you have covered all this stuff and still want more then I do offer one-to-one coaching sessions (limited spaces) to help you hone your craft even more.
Member discussion