Review: AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit by Keepforest

The AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit is an excellent “back to basics” set of incredibly useful trailer elements.

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Review: AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit by Keepforest

As the third entry in Keepforest’s AizerX line, Classic Trailer Toolkit very much feels like a “back to basics” product – in a good way! With more streamlined categories and simpler sounds that are very easy to implement or even use as starting points for sound design, CTT is very satisfying to use. More playable patches and less dependence on the AizerX sound design engine/tool is definitely beneficial to this library’s overall usefulness. While the interface is clunky and bloated feeling, it’s safe to say you could easily write many trailer tracks without using anything other than Classic Trailers Toolkit.

AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit by Keepforest  sells for $199 from

Thoughts

The AizerX interface is big, powerful, and loaded with detail – however, I find that it is the biggest weakness of this series. The 6-layer sound design engine works well and is loaded with cool features, but it can be a bit much to look at, and there are some design issues with buttons being hard to see (I only found out about some of them by reading the manual), as well as a tendency to induce choice paralysis. I’m a big believer in a more streamlined and simple approach, but I recognize that as a personal taste.

Opening up the main “generator” patch presents you with this. I’ll avoid going over every detail of this interface, as I’ve gone into depth on the previous AizerX reviews, and I don’t want to turn this into a technical manual. The main idea is that there 6 layers that can load different sounds. The bottom left module is always a “woosh” or lead-in. The bottom right is always a hit. The other 4 up top can be whatever you want them to be. The blue keys on the keyboard play the full sound. The orange keys play the sound without the “woosh” module, starting directly on the hit. Each module has controls including LFO, ADSR envelope, tune, pan, width, etc.

The timeline below shows the waveform of your woosh and hit modules, and allows you to move the starting point of each of the other (A, B, C, or D) modules by dragging the colored flags back and forth. The center area serves as an XY pad that can be automated to emphasize each of the modules closest to the corners.

Pressing the button on the very top and center of the main panel brings up the sound selection, which includes a ton of really cool presets that demonstrate the power of the engine.

The simpler playable patches still use this huge interface, but all of the features of the 6-layer engine are gone, so you are left with a lot of awkward empty space. A more streamlined interface would have been welcomed for those, though not necessary.

This is where Classic Trailer Toolkit shines. As always, Keepforest knocked it out of the park with the sound design. The entire collection feels a bit simpler than the last batch – which is a good thing in my opinion. There seems to be overall less obvious “character” to many of the sounds, which makes them easier to use in a track, rather than having to build a track around them. You have all of the tried and true elements of modern trailer music here, and more than enough to write entire tracks using nothing else.

I prefer to use the .wav files in projects rather than using the Kontakt patches (except for the playable hits). I find that the 6-module system can be limiting due to outputting everything as one sound. If you’re bouncing stems, you don’t want to have your hits combined with your braams, or signals combined with downers, etc. But if you stick to crafting a really cool downer or other simpler elements using the AizerX engine carefully, you’ll have better results.

My personal favorite sounds are the braaams, signals, and hits. The playable hits patches are great little mini-menus of percussion sounds that include round robins, so they feel more like playing a processed drum patch rather than huge singular hits. There’s really not much else to say about the sounds in here. If you like the modern trailer sound, you probably won’t be disappointed with the contents of AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit.

Facts

Keepforest’s AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit contains hundreds of cinematic trailer style sound effects and playable instruments, all powered by the AizerX engine. These sounds cover categories including Braams, Risers, Hits, Downers, Pianos, Synths, Sub Booms, Suckbacks, Signals, and more. All samples are 48KHZ / 24bit .WAV files, using a total of 13.5  GB of disk space installed.

AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit by Keepforest  sells for $199 from

Demos of AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit by Keepforest

Videos of AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit by Keepforest

Contributor Steven McDonald reviews AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit by Keepforest
“The AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit is an excellent “back to basics” set of incredibly useful trailer elements.”