SoundXtract vs Sound Keys
Sound Keys asks you which part of the spectrum should drive the animation, then writes the keyframes. SoundXtract works out where each instrument is playing and drives Premiere Pro from that. One is a precise manual instrument, the other is a detector. We make SoundXtract, so judge us on the concessions below rather than on our say-so.
Sound Keys as shipped in Red Giant Complete, checked September 2026. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
Side by side
| Capability | Sound Keys | SoundXtract |
|---|---|---|
| Host app | After Effects | Premiere Pro (After Effects is in the works) |
| What drives the animation | A frequency and amplitude range you draw on a visual spectrum | Musical events detected per instrument: kicks, snares, bass notes, melody |
| Choosing the sound | Manual, and exact: you see the spectrum and pick the range | Automatic, from separated stems: pick the instrument by name |
| What it hands back | Keyframes on a parameter you pick-whip onto anything, Red Giant plugins included. Composing that into a look is still your job. | A finished effect rather than a moved property: bounce, flash, camera shake, colour switch. A closed set of well-known looks, extended as users ask for more. |
| Beat and downbeat detection | No | Two classical estimators cross-checked, with a neural network as tie-breaker |
| Stem separation | No | Vocals, bass, melody and drums split out, usable as audio |
| Markers on the timeline | No | Sequence and clip markers on any detected sound |
| Editing the sequence | No | Align, cut, reshuffle and re-trim clips; place project items on the beat |
| Where the analysis runs | On your machine, offline | Our GPU servers, over the internet |
| Tracks you can analyse | Unlimited | Metered: 1 free per month, 10 or 30 on a plan, more as extra credits |
| How it is sold | No standalone or perpetual licence; only inside Red Giant Complete | On its own |
| Price | About $599 / year for the whole Red Giant collection | Free tier, or from $9.99 / month |
| Try before paying | 14-day Maxon trial | Free tier, no card |
Buy Sound Keys if
These are real advantages and we are not going to argue them away.
It lives in After Effects, next to Trapcode
Its keyframes pick-whip straight into Particular, Form, Mir and the rest of the collection. That is the workflow it was built for and we have no equivalent. SoundXtract is a Premiere Pro panel today; After Effects is on our list, but a plan is not a feature.
You choose the sound yourself, so it cannot be wrong about it
Draw a box on the spectrum, set the amplitude window, done. No detector deciding what a snare is. When the mix is unusual, or the thing you want to react to is not an instrument at all, a manual range beats a clever guess.
Any property, by pick-whip
Its output is a parameter you link to anything in the comp. We hand back finished effects from a closed set, extended on request rather than on the spot. Outside that set, Sound Keys reaches what we cannot.
It runs on your machine, unmetered
Analysis is local and unlimited: no upload, no account, no monthly count, and nothing leaves the building. SoundXtract needs a connection and meters by track.
The price is not the price of one plugin
About $599 a year buys Red Giant Complete: Trapcode, Magic Bullet, VFX Suite, Universe and PluralEyes, with Sound Keys among them. Set against our plans that is a lot of money, but nobody buys it for Sound Keys alone and the comparison should say so.
Buy SoundXtract if
You should not have to find the snare on a spectrogram.
The instrument is found for you
Sound Keys is only as good as the range you draw, and a kick and a bass note both live under 100 Hz. SoundXtract separates the music into stems first, then finds the strike on the isolated instrument, so asking for the snare gets you the snare even while the bass is playing under it.
It knows where the bar starts
Beats, downbeats, tempo. A frequency reader can tell you the low end got loud. It cannot tell you that was beat one, and a hit that has to land on the grid needs the grid.
It is in Premiere, where the cut already is
No export, no comp, no round trip to find out whether the idea works against the edit you actually have. Pick an instrument, watch it run on the sequence, change your mind.
It edits, it does not only animate
Markers on any detected sound, clips aligned to the beat as you drop them, clips already on the sequence cut and re-trimmed, project items placed for you. An audio-reactive plugin animates properties. It does not assemble a timeline.
The keyframes are Premiere's own
Bounce, flash, camera shake and colour are written onto Motion, Transform, Levels and VR Color Gradients, all of which Premiere already ships. Whoever opens the project next renders it without installing anything.
The stems are audio, not just a trigger
Pull the vocal up under dialogue, drop an instrument, build a bed. The separation that drives the effects is the same separation you mix with.
A free tier, not a countdown
One track a month, forever, without a card. Enough to run it on real footage before deciding. Every new account also gets an offer for 5 more credits just for a few honest words about the first session.
What both of them do
The premise is the same: stop keyframing to a waveform by eye. If this list is all you need, either tool will do it in its own app.
- Animation that follows the music instead of being keyframed by hand
- Your own audio file, with no music library to buy into
- Control over how sharply each reaction rises and falls
- macOS and Windows
The short version
If you work in After Effects, and especially if Red Giant is already on the invoice, Sound Keys settles it and we will not pretend otherwise. For an editor in Premiere, SoundXtract is the better tool: it finds the instrument for you instead of asking you to find it on a spectrogram, and it hands back a finished effect rather than a parameter to wire up. The free tier costs nothing to check.
Try SoundXtract freeOne track a month, no card.