Trailer Music
Media Composer Randon Purcell, with placements like Godzilla vs. Kong, Separation, Call of Duty Modern Warfare and World of Warcraft nowadays works exclusively for Brand X Music in Los Angeles, CA.
Trailer music must build excitement and give editors useful sections to cut. For an original epic or hybrid trailer cue, that usually means a clear musical identity, contrasting stages of intensity and deliberate transitions or edit points. This guide covers the structure, writing process, sound palette and mix of publisher-focused trailer cues, drawing on the approaches taught by László Maródi and Randon Purcell.
Trailer music is music used to promote films, games, and series: theatrical trailers, teasers, TV spots, and promos. It can be anything from a licensed song to a cue scored to one specific campaign. This guide focuses on the path our instructors work in: original epic and hybrid cues written for trailer music publishers. On that path, a track is written without being tied to a specific picture edit and submitted to a publisher, who pitches it to trailer houses; an editor then picks the sections that fit the picture, often combining parts of several tracks in one trailer.
That workflow is what makes a publisher track different from a song or a film cue. The music has to offer a dramaturgy the editor can cut to: sections with distinct energy levels, contrasts between them, and places where a cut lands cleanly. László's shorthand for this is that "the trailer track is a sonic toolkit": musical parts, plus functional parts that exist to serve the promotion.
Three broad families cover most of what our instructors write: epic orchestral, hybrid (orchestra plus synths and sound design), and pure sound design. László also sees growing demand for genre fusions, such as trailer energy combined with pop, hip-hop, EDM, or carnival horror; his Modern Styles course is built around three of them.
The template most of our course tracks follow is a build in three or four acts:
Between these, an interlude between build and climax keeps the energy but thins the harmony, and one- or two-bar breakdowns clear the air before a section begins.
The briefs László works through in his courses asked for 1:30 to 2:30 (pop percussion), 90 to 150 seconds (EDM), and two minutes to 2:30 (horror); in his experience, full trailer tracks run from about 90 seconds to three and a half minutes. Randon plans his hybrid orchestral tracks at around 2:30, with roughly 30 to 40 seconds each for intro and build, about a minute for the climax, and a few bars for Act 4. These are the proportions of those tracks, not a standard: an EDM-style trailer can be 70 seconds, and Randon's slow-burn "Black Mirror" runs almost two minutes before its first edit point.
Both instructors think in four-bar units: László adds something new to his hybrid tracks at least every four bars, and his EDM track in Trailer Music: Modern Styles is built from four-bar blocks with one- and two-bar breakdowns added later.
Editors read waveforms. A track whose structure is visible there (hits on the downbeats, gaps between acts, at least one clear edit point, better two or three) is easier to use. Randon: "Make our music as easy to work with as possible so that more editors will want to use it." The arrangement problem László sees most often is the opposite: too few stops and breaks.
Energy in these tracks rises over the whole form, but not in a straight line. Breakdowns, dropped layers, and bars of near-silence are what make the next entry feel big. Within that, both instructors avoid literal repetition. László's rule for his own tracks is that "repeating the same thing twice never really makes sense in trailers"; Randon warns against building Act 3 by copying Act 2 and piling more on top: "The way I like to think of trailers is like books in a trilogy," each act with its own story, together one arc.
László also adds a teaser intro (a short mid-energy opener for 5- to 15-second spots) and a percussion-only encore for editors who work with percussion stems.
László often writes a compact build idea first: a cell that already contains the hook or signature sound, the groove, the driving energy, hits as edit points, and a few whooshes and risers. Stripped down it becomes the intro; filled up, the climax. In his hybrid sketch he instead places hits and whooshes on the grid first, because they will be in the finished track in some form, then adds a sparse theme.
Randon's approach is chords, then acts: block out the progression, decide what the back end needs, and work backwards, giving Act 1 only a hint of what Act 3 will deliver. Both leave the second climax and the outros for last, because they are mostly rearranging what exists.
The tempos in our course tracks are examples, not targets: László's epic hybrid sketch sits at 95–96 BPM in C minor, his EDM track at 130 BPM, his pop-percussion track at 100 BPM with a triplet feel (too slow, he notes, for a straight beat), and his horror track at a quick walking pace with a half-time feel. His own ballpark for trailer tempos is 80 to 180 BPM depending on style.
All of these tracks are in minor keys; Randon picks E minor over C minor because it leaves his string parts room to move below the root, and László's pop-percussion track sounds uplifting through a pentatonic flavor rather than a major key.
A method both instructors use: withhold harmonic movement early so it has something to deliver later. How much you withhold is a choice. In László's EDM track the bass stays on a C pedal through the intro and the whole build. The upper voices do not wait that long: the arpeggios start as a plain C minor outline and, from the second half of the intro on, begin to move away from it, with the changes growing through the build. Only at the first climax does the bass line itself follow the full four-chord progression, and the outro returns to the pedal. A pedal note, in other words, does not mean the harmony stands still; it means the bass withholds its movement while the voices above it can already change. His pop-percussion track withholds less: the intro moves only between 1 and 5, build and climax use a deliberately simple four-chord pop progression, and the second climax drops back to the root. Randon's variant is to start Act 1 on the final chord of the climax progression and resolve to the root when the build begins, so the intro hints at the harmony without giving it away.
Thin does not mean empty, and the bass and its reinforcements are not the whole harmony. The reinforcing layers do stay simple: in the climax of László's hybrid sketch, the cinematic pads play the notes of the bass line in octaves, and a low pad just holds its lowest note. The color sits elsewhere. In his EDM track he avoids chord pads because they would slow the track down, and instead writes additional voices against the bass line and the hook, chosen by ear for how they lead from one to the next. Richness comes from voice leading and layering, not from stacking dense chords.
László's test for a trailer theme comes from pop: "if you can sing the theme, then probably it will work well." Too high, too low, too many leaps, too fast, hard to memorize: discard it. Density matters for a second reason: if the brief wants the wide, anthemic character most epic trailers have, a lead that is too busy gets in its way, because that character needs space to unfold. Fast music is not the problem in itself; a crowded lead is.
Trailer themes are short: an 8- or 16-bar hook that can be used whole, halved, or quartered is the norm in László's tracks. Repeat it so it registers (he repeats his signature idea three to four times) but change something each time, and consider hiding it early: in his hybrid sketch the trailer drums imitate the theme's rhythm in the build before the theme itself arrives. For motifs that survive repetition, see our guides to leitmotifs and the sentence form.
Short-string ostinatos are, in László's words, something of a signature of epic, hybrid, and symphonic trailer tracks. He introduces his in the second half of the build, writes them on chord tones so they support rather than fight the theme, and in hybrid cues lets supporting layers follow the melody's accents and dynamic curves.
Watch a hybrid track grow from chords to acts. If you want to watch a hybrid trailer track grow from chords to a finished act structure, the "Ground Up Composition" chapter in Hybrid Orchestral Composition and Sound does exactly that: Randon blocks out the progression, builds Act 1 to Act 4 live in the DAW, and explains the structural decisions (what the intro withholds, where the progression moves, where the risers and hits go) as he makes them. Lay out your own track alongside his, act by act. Explore the course
Sound design is not exclusive to trailers; film cues use it too. In a trailer track, though, it carries a structural job: it builds toward the acts, marks the accents editors cut to, and bridges the transitions between sections. What each element does in our instructors' tracks:
Hits and impacts. Hits carry the energy of the downbeats and mark the edit points. A full-range hit usually has a long, diffuse layer (whoosh, boom, or cymbal swell) and a short transient with a sub component. Randon combines hits from several libraries when one isn't big enough for the moment; László varies the length and attack of the same hit to frame the structure. Short hits without a whoosh are usually called impacts. A good library hit is production-ready; whether it needs another layer depends on what is missing in context.
Booms. The low accent under a hit. In his horror track László uses shorter booms in the intro, which leaves more room in time for dialogue, and longer booms with shorter gaps in the build.
Risers. A long sustained sound with rising pitch, an opening filter, or both, tonal or noise-based. Simon Haglund, who teaches sound design at Master The Score, describes their first job as tension and release: "risers build up tension over time and when it reaches its pinnacle then it releases it." Their second job is leading one section into the next. In László's tracks that typically means risers toward the end of sections, with short risers (often the same riser cut shorter with a fade-in) accenting individual downbeats; in his horror track he uses fewer long risers, because a long riser makes the hit predictable.
Downers. Falling FX before a breakdown or the climax. László picks the sound and places it; too many become predictable and comic.
Whooshes. Short rise-and-fall sweeps attached to hits. Randon treats a whoosh as an extension of the hit, placing them on the major downbeats and on every bar when the hits intensify.
Braams. The huge, sustained, brass-like sound-design note that usually carries the low end. In Randon's tracks they start acts and mark the big downbeats between four- or eight-bar sections; a filtered braam hints at tension to come, a fully open one says now. Long low notes can slow a groove or bury a melody, and a track that doesn't need one is better off without it.
Pulses, ticks, clocks. A synth pulse bass signals that something is coming before the drums do. Ticking high percussion is a staple of László's tracks, introduced gradually, its density marking the energy level.
Signature sounds. The one unique sound that identifies your track: a ping, a bent brass note, a mangled field recording. Randon introduces his early if it fits musically, repeats it, and calls it back in the ending.
Simon builds risers three ways in his course, and the principles transfer to any tool:
Choose tonal risers when the mix is dense and the riser needs to cut through, noise risers when the mix is sparse or you want to fill the spectrum. Whether a riser keeps its low end depends on who else delivers low end at that moment: László high-passes his because bass and hit already own the downbeat, but a riser can just as deliberately be the element that brings the rumble in.
Braams are, in Simon's description, powerful, sustained, tonal sounds with a dense frequency response, a clear tonal center, simple harmony of root, octave, and fifth, and usually a big reverb. Sources are pitched-down brass recordings, strings, woodwinds, or synths. In his example Simon combines a synth layer with an organic one: he builds the synth half around a mono sine oscillator tuned one octave down, adds richer oscillators above, and layers a deliberately rough one-shot brass recording on top. Dense frequency response first, distortion second, reverb in parallel.
What you do with the mids is a decision, not a recipe. In his mix walkthrough László lifts the braams around 200–250 Hz, dips a band around 1 kHz that he hears as a radio-like coloration, and trims the highs of the softer braams so several don't stack up brightness; what he is after is the tone of each braam and its balance against the rest of the low end. As a general measure, a mid dip like that is worth trying when braams and brass compete for the same range, and in a sparser track a braam may get its bite from exactly those mids. If a sampled braam lacks sub weight, a synth sub layer is usually a cleaner fix than boosting the sample.
Hybrid trailer music mixes orchestra with synths and sound design, and most tracks in our trailer courses live somewhere on that spectrum. Randon's guiding idea: "the whole point of this is to enhance what is there, not replace, not anything else." His standard synth layers (a sine sub bass doubling the low brass, a wide pad behind the orchestra, a distorted pad doubling the horns, a pluck under the string ostinato) are set so quietly that you notice them mainly when they are gone, and they recede further in the back end, where orchestra and percussion take over.
You can also hybridize organic material directly. Simon turns an ordinary string ostinato into a cinematic pulse in seven steps: high-pass the source, reshape its envelope with triggered and modulated filters, add a delay for stereo interest and subdivisions, reshape with compression, EQ, and a little distortion, add a controlled reverb, replace the removed low end with a separate sub layer, and glue the result on a bus. He crosses the two layers over around 100–120 Hz, which reduces their overlap; whether they sit together is still decided by ear. The hybrid version is layered on top of the original, not instead of it, and the same chain works on guitars and other live recordings.
Hybrid percussion follows the same logic: hits on the downbeats, a bed of toms and mallets filling the gaps. Our guide to sound design for composers covers the synthesis basics behind these techniques.
Epic orchestral, hybrid, and sound-design tracks remain the core of what our instructors write. László's reason for teaching other styles is that those categories are crowded and the briefs he receives increasingly ask for fusions. Trailer Music: Modern Styles builds one full track in each of three:
Fun percussion / pop. Uplifting, swaggering tracks for comedies, family films, and feel-good campaigns: kicks, snares, claps, snaps, and stomps from pop sample packs, vocal chops and chants, a singable hook, a simple pop progression. László's example runs at 100 BPM with a triplet feel. "Fun" describes the mood, not funny instruments.
EDM-inspired. Four-on-the-floor energy (László's track sits at 130 BPM), a pedal bass that only moves into a progression at the climax while the arpeggios above it already shift during the build, supersaw and pluck hooks that still support the downbeats and the hits, percussion risers and snare rolls into the drops. The brief allowed 90 to 150 seconds, and László notes that EDM trailers of 70 to 80 seconds are not rare.
Spooky and carnival horror. Chromaticism as the language of unease, flat-second and tritone twists, music boxes, accordion, cimbalom, screeching strings. Shorter risers, deliberate rhythmic sloppiness, and the one place where László breaks the even-bar rule on purpose. For the harmonic vocabulary, see our articles on the tritone and diminished chords.
Whatever the style, the trailer requirements stay: distinct sections, clear cut points, contrast, and FX that mark the transitions.
Hear the three styles built from brief to mix. The three full productions in Trailer Music: Modern Styles are the fastest way to hear these styles in context: László builds the pop-percussion track, the EDM-inspired track, and the carnival-horror track from the publisher's brief to the finished mix, and explains the hits, risers, braams, and signature sounds as he places them. Pick the style closest to the brief you want to write for and rebuild its FX layer in your own template. Explore the course
Trailer mixes are dense and built for impact, and much of the mix happens while you write: László estimates that 80 to 90 percent of his mix is done during production. The decisions that matter most in our instructors' mixes:
Trailer tracks reach the screen through publishers: a composer writes to a brief, the publisher pitches and licenses suitable tracks to trailer houses, and editors choose what fits the cut.
Know your target. Randon researches films due in six to nine months in his genre, watches current trailers to hear how editors use music, and listens to the publisher catalogs those editors search.
Write for the editor. Editors look for a part that instantly fits, use percussion stems, and chop off endings. Clear edit points, stems-friendly structure, and alternative outros raise the chance of a placement. Randon's rule: "give the editor options. That's kind of the rule of the game."
Read the brief. The briefs László works through specify style, length, a peak level for the mix, and reference trailers, and the ones in his courses were exclusive agreements. Deliver to spec, including stems and alternative endings, and don't forget the ending itself: there has to be somewhere for the title card.
What tends not to work, in both instructors' experience: no breaks or edit points, repetition instead of development, and a structure that no longer reads as sections.
Our Music Composition & Orchestration Courses
Our Music Production Courses
Our Music Trailer Courses
See All Courses
Write a short motif and arrange three versions: a sparse opening, a rhythmically active build and a full climax. Keep the motif recognisable while changing register, rhythm or instrumentation. Add a clear edit point between sections, then listen to each section on its own. Does it have a clear identity and usable beginning? Let the brief determine the final timing rather than forcing a fixed duration.
For a complete worked example, Hybrid Orchestral Composition and Sound follows Randon Purcell from the first sketch through the acts of a trailer cue, orchestral and synthetic layering, and the mix.
What is trailer music? Music used to promote films, games, and series, from licensed songs to cues scored for a specific campaign. This guide covers original tracks placed through trailer music publishers. The tracks our instructors write for them are structured in acts with clear edit points and rely on a sound design layer of hits, risers, downers, whooshes, and braams. Editors usually use sections rather than whole tracks.
How long should a trailer track be? It depends on the brief. The briefs in our courses asked for between 90 seconds and two and a half minutes; László's experience spans roughly 90 seconds to three and a half minutes, and shorter EDM-style tracks are common.
What is the structure of trailer music? The common template in our courses is three or four acts: a sparse intro, a build, a long climax, optionally a short second climax, and an outro with one or two ending hits, separated by audible gaps so editors can cut. Other dramaturgies, such as slow burns, exist.
What tempo is trailer music? There is no standard. László names 80 to 180 BPM as the range he encounters; the course tracks sit at 95–96 (epic hybrid), 100 (pop percussion, triplet feel), and 130 BPM (EDM).
What is a braam? A powerful, sustained, tonal sound-design note with a brass-like character, a dense low end, and simple harmony (root, fifth, octave), used to start acts and mark big downbeats. Braams are built from pitched-down brass recordings, synths, or both.
How do you make a trailer riser? Combine a rising pitch, an opening filter, or a volume curve that peaks on the next hit, shaped by a few deliberate changes over time. Build it in a synth, resample an instrument with its tuning automated upward, or start from a riser library and redraw the volume curve. Decide whether the low end belongs to the riser or to the hit it leads into.
How do you get into trailer music? Study publisher catalogs and current trailers, write tracks with a clear act structure, edit points, and alternative endings, and submit to publishers, who pitch and license tracks to trailer houses. Briefs specify length, style, and peak level.
Learn with Master The Score
Courses on composition, orchestration, music production, trailer music and sound design, from composers writing for film, games and media. Students also get exclusive discounts on leading sample libraries and plugins.
Discover all courses →
Online education for media composers — orchestral writing, trailer music, mixing and more, taught by working professionals.
