Echelon: Drum Hits /// A Deep Dive

Today we’re doing a deep dive into our brand-new Kontakt instrument, Echelon: Drum Hits, built specifically for film trailers, film composers, video game composers, and all things cinematic.

I’ve personally been composing for film trailers for over a decade now, and over the years I’ve created hundreds of different drum hits that have been licensed individually for film trailers. I use tons of different libraries, sound sources, and my own custom hits and percussion in my compositions.

Eventually, I figured it was time for me and my team to make our own Kontakt instrument with our own hits, specifically designed for trailers. Something we could use in our own music and also share with other composers.

Here’s a look at what’s inside.

Organic Drum Hits

First up are the Organic Drum Hits.

Just to warn you, these are not chill, natural, calm film-score percussion. These are specifically for trailers. We layered them beyond belief and processed them to be bombastic, beefy, and absolutely over the top, which is exactly how we like them for trailer music.

The instrument includes the individual hits themselves, round robins, and whoosh-hit variations with a whoosh leading into the impact.

Alloy Drum Hits

Next are the Alloy Drum Hits, which have a more metallic tone and use less organic impact material.

One of the things I really like about the Alloy hits is how well they cut through a track because of that metallic character, while still maintaining a cleanness and sleekness. They don’t get messy, which makes them extremely effective for trailer hit fills.

Shout out to Darby Phillips on the team who made these ones.

Trailer Toms

Next up is probably my absolute favorite part of the entire library: Trailer Toms.

These have a balance I’ve wanted for a long time. They’re hard-hitting and punchy without sounding overly distorted, while still maintaining an organic tone.

Rather than just hitting one tom at a time, you can layer multiple hits together to create these massive, almost crowd-like, tribal textures. Whether you’re layering two or stacking a bunch of them together, they can get absolutely huge.

Stomps & Claps

This was a fun one to make because it’s something I’ve always wanted in a playable Kontakt instrument.

I love using stomp-and-clap-style elements in my tracks, and I wanted something that could sit directly in my template, ready to go, while still sounding big.

There are all sorts of different stomps, ranging from more Western, cowboy-style sounds to marching-style stomps.

Stop Down Hits

If you’re not familiar with the term "stop down", these are those moments in trailers when everything suddenly cuts out and leaves space for a joke, a piece of dialogue, or another important moment.

I’ll often have a series of hit fills leading directly into a stop-down hit, so we created dedicated sounds specifically for those moments.

There are two sets of Stop Down Hits in Echelon. We’ll leave some of those as a surprise for when you get into the instrument.

Aggressive Impacts

Next are the Aggressive Impacts.

These have that huge low-end punch that hits you right in the chest, with both straight hits and whoosh-hit versions included.

Metallic Impacts

Of course, Metallic Impacts are always a must for trailer music, so we have a dedicated collection of those as well.

Hybrid Impacts

The Hybrid Impacts have interesting artifacts baked into the initial whoosh of each hit, giving them a more unique texture and tone than a traditional cinematic impact.

Submerged Impacts

The concept behind the Submerged Impacts was almost like an underwater depth charge.

We didn’t want these to simply be another collection of deep hits. We wanted them to have more character, with a sense of depth and pressure that makes them actually feel submerged.

Deep Impacts

Last but not least, we have the classic must-have in trailer music: Deep Impacts.

These give you those massive low-end cinematic hits, along with whoosh-hit versions for leading directly into an impact.

Check Out Echelon Drum Hits

That wraps up our run-through of Echelon: Drum Hits.

You can grab Echelon Drum Hits at The Foundry today. And if you make anything cool with the sounds, tag us on social media. We’d love to see what you’re creating.