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AVA – Eminence Trailer Sound Effects (Review)

Eminence Trailer Sound Effects by AVA is a virtual instrument for the modern movie composer and the sequel to the immensely popular AVA Instinct Trailer Sound Effects. It offers its users massive trailer sound effects they can use to instantly boost the impact of their productions.

We were kindly provided with a review copy of Eminence for this review.

OVERVIEW

AVA Eminence allows you to create your own aggressive and powerful audio productions quickly with unique sound effects and signature sounds. Through its clever design, it becomes a helpful toolkit, especially for fast turnaround trailer productions.
Focusing on quality vs. quantity, the instrument includes over 250 carefully curated modern trailer sounds designed by one of the industry’s most prolific sound designers, Karél Psota.

The included sounds feature sound categories such as Hits, Booms, Whooshes, Drones, Rolls, Pings, Downers, Drones, Riffs, Pulses Drum Loops, and a collection of unique Signature Sounds.

WHAT’S INSIDE?

Eminence Trailer Sound Effects requires the full version of Kontakt version 5.8.1 or higher (the patches will not run in the free Kontakt Player). Alternatively, you can also access all samples as downloadable .WAV files organized by key and BPM.

The Kontakt instrument comes with 7 NKIs featuring over 250 royalty-free sounds in total:

  • Braams
  • Drones
  • Drum Loops
  • Hits, Whooshes, Risers, Downers, etc.
  • Pulses
  • Riffs 
  • Signature Sounds

THE EMINENCE INTERFACE

The Eminence user interface is very elegant and intuitive. It simply consists of two pages – a main page and an effects page.

AVA – Eminence Trailer Sound Effects Interface

Main Page

Moving clockwise from right to left, you can set low-pass, high-pass, or level filters on any sound by using the mod wheel. The center “Big Knob” should be familiar to anyone using Heavyocity or Audio Imperia products. But unlike those interfaces, this control offers a rather subtle combination of EQ and compression, thus providing minor adjustments or extra beef depending on what you need in your mix.

Moving to the right side of the main page,  the Instrument tab houses a variety of presets within each patch. These are great starting points you can use as-is or tweak to your heart’s content. Endless customization options continue on the lower left side of the interface. These controls include pitch shifting and the ability to change the start time anywhere within a given sample. Last but not least, the far-right controls allow you to change the attack and release parameters, truly making any sound your own. And of course, you can save your custom sounds as user presets.

FX Page

The second page houses a collection of built-in Kontakt effects. All of them can be automated from within the instrument, so there’s a lot of options to shape and sculpt any given sound. The reverb effect also includes several custom impulse responses.

While the effects are global and apply to every preset of a patch, Eminence’s NKI patches come with slightly different default effects settings.

AVA – Eminence Trailer Sound Effects FX Page

DOWNLOADABLE .WAV FILES

While the Kontakt interface is super-convenient and playable, having the option of downloading the samples as individual WAV files gives you additional flexibility. This makes it easy to just drag and drop them into any sound design project.

HOW DOES IT SOUND?

If you’re a fan of AVA Instinct, AVA Eminence kicks it up several notches. Over two years in the making, this virtual instrument offers all-new sounds and concepts that are clear, punchy, and as aggressive as you want. You can really hear the care, quality and precision used to craft these samples.
For example, the whoosh hits are very heavy and punchy but they don’t all sound the same. Since there’s a good mix of tight and punchy vs. noisy, you can use them in very different contexts.
You’ll find this is the case in all the patches. The developers are working sound designers so they know the importance of flexibility and variety.

In today’s rapid-turnaround trailer production environment, Eminence makes it easy to quickly and painlessly build custom, modern-sounding tension, build-ups, and any kind of transitions needed.

CONCLUSION

Packed with just the essentials for high-quality trailer productions, AVA Eminence Trailer Effects has everything you need to create your own signature sounds and sets a new standard for virtual sound design.

Pros

  • An amazing collection of carefully curated, beautifully recorded, and highly customizable sound design patches perfect for trailers
  • All patches are also available as high-quality .WAV files organized by key and BPM for easy drag-and-drop into any DAW
  • Includes an excellent pack of drum loops, including fills

Cons

  • Besides a few custom impulse responses, the instrument only uses Kontakt’s standard effects (this isn’t really a con, just wondering if the developers can expand on available effects in future releases)

RECOMMENDED: 9/10


Until July 15th, 2021, Eminence Trailer Sound Effects is on an intro pricing of $88.61/€73.

EMINENCE TRAILER SOUND EFFECTS – WALKTHROUGH

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