Krotos Studio

Krotos Studio’s category‑based presets make it easy to find the sound elements required for a specific task.

Krotos Studio makes custom sound design accessible to almost anyone.

Sounds created with Krotos Audio’s products have found their way into major films and AAA video games so, when they release a sound‑design tool that claims to be easy to use and is accessibly priced, it’s likely to get budding sound designers paying attention. Whether you are new to sound design and need a simple‑to‑use creation process, a solo video or game creator doing their own sound design (as well as everything else), or an experienced sound designer needing a tool to get the job done fast when the deadlines are stacking up, is Krotos Studio a potential solution? Let’s explore...

In The Studio

From a technical perspective, Krotos Studio can run as a standalone application or as a VST, AU or AAX plug‑in. For the purposes of this review, I mostly used the VST plug‑in within Cubase Pro 12 but both it and the standalone version ran smoothly on my test system. The product installs in two parts; the base application/plug‑in and the sound content (currently around 17GB; this can be located on any drive). As well as the core Factory Content that gets you started, subscribers also receive access to new sound content each month.

The package is available on a subscription‑only basis, with either annual or monthly plans. Yes, for those just starting out, or working on a hobby basis, perhaps subscription‑based tools are not always their first choice, but for start‑up businesses, being able to set a fixed monthly budget for things like stock video footage, stock music, plug‑in suites — and now sound‑design tools — is an attractive and sensible way to keep budgets under control. Krotos Audio do also offer a free version with a limited amount of content so you can try the software before making a commitment. As made very clear on the website and in the documentation, an active Internet connection is required, presumably to confirm the status of your subscription when in use.

An active Krotos Studio subscription includes access to new content on a monthly basis.

Perhaps the other obvious technical feature to note is that the sound creation is in stereo and, currently at least, does not provide support for surround‑sound formats. However, in suitable hosts, you can use multiple stereo output channels (different sound elements are automatically routed to different output channels) so you could certainly generate audio that might then be used in a surround context.

Welcome To My Pad

Krotos Studio can be loaded into your host/DAW project like any other virtual instrument. You are then presented with a very intuitive UI. On the left, you get a list of sound‑design categories — Ambiences, Cinematic, Footsteps, Foley, Whoosh, etc — and, if you click on one of these, a set of sound presets appears for that category, each with a visual icon and a label. Some of the categories contain lots of presets. For example, at the time of the review, the Ambiences category contained over 40 different presets such as city environments, forest, suburbs, building sites, the seaside, parks, offices, bathrooms, restaurants, airports, deserts and, just for good measure, a zombie apocalypse. Other categories currently have fewer options so, for example, the Vehicle category has just three entries. However, it’s additional presets that form the basis of the new content added every month. For example, the September 2023 download (which became available as I was working on this review) added 13 new presets, spread across a number of the core categories, with a total of 1.7GB of new content, all at 48kHz/24‑bit.

Once you have picked a preset, the right‑hand side of the UI then displays a combination of X/Y pads, trigger keys and circular volume sliders that allow you to ‘play’ the preset’s underlying sounds. This can be done via the mouse or, if you have a suitable MIDI controller connected, via a combination of rotary controllers (for the X/Y pads) or MIDI notes (for the trigger keys). These mean you can also record and/or automate your sound‑design performance but, by default, and rather neatly, Krotos Studio records audio in the background as you tweak the controls to design how you want the sounds to evolve or the timing of spot sounds to occur. When done, you simply click on the Stop button and a ‘Drag Recording’ prompt appears. You can then drag and drop the performance you just created as an audio file onto a suitable audio track to be positioned on the timeline and, if required, subjected to any further editing/processing. It really is a very simple — and very speedy — process.

The nature of the control combinations varies depending upon the preset type. For example, for many of the ambience presets you get a combination of two or three X/Y pads, each of which offers different sonic elements on their axes; you simply blend the various elements as required. Taking the Forest preset as an example, the two X/Y pads provide birds/wind and stream/animals; you can simply dial in, and change, the combination of these sounds to suit your needs. In the Whoosh category presets, one X/Y pad provides what is termed a ‘peak pad’, where moving across the X axis allows you to build the intensity of the sound, peak in the centre, and then provide a drop in intensity. You can therefore control the overall speed of your ‘whoosh’ effect to sync with your visuals. And, in the Weapon category, the Y axis in many of the presets lets you vary the distance of the sound (for example, a gunshot or explosion) relative to the listener’s position (near to far).

Each preset offers a specific control set, as seen here for the ‘9mm Pistol’ preset within the Weapon category.

Inspiring Sound

With the ‘ease of use’ box firmly ticked, what about the sounds themselves? Based upon the current content, the quality of the sounds is very good. For example, the ambiences (real or imagined) or the weather‑based presets are very effective and, with suitable use of the X/Y pads, you could easily create extended beds from these sources without a sense of repetition creeping in. The range of Foley sounds is also good, with presets for various types of doors, switches, tools, keyboards, paper, lockers, water and a few ‘horror’ options... in case you need to transition between ‘bone snap’ and ‘brain crush’, for example! I suspect the recording process for some of the underlying sound sources will have been fun.

The vehicle category perhaps felt a little underpopulated at this stage, with just three presets. Yes, they could be used in a wide range of contexts, and easily mixed with presets from other categories for additional variety. Hopefully, the monthly additions will add to the existing content in this particular category. However, the sound designer’s favourite — the Footsteps category — is very well populated, while the Weapon category has a good combination of small arms and large explosions, all with plenty of control to add variability. There is also a neat Interface category with various computer bleeps, bloops and notification sounds.

Conclusions

So, the quality of the existing sounds is good, and the UI makes the design process — customising the supplied sound content to suit your visuals — accessible to even the most novice of users. You can, of course, add additional variety to the sounds by further processing them within your host (via EQ or reverb/delay, for example), but to keep users coming back, and to allow them to see Krotos Studio as a primary sound‑design platform for larger projects, I suspect that fresh monthly content is likely to be critical.

Whether it’s the sound of gentle rain, an urban soundscape, a sci‑fi transition, or brains being crushed(!), sound design really doesn’t get much easier than Krotos Studio.

OK, so maybe you wouldn’t expect to fully‑furnish a Hollywood action blockbuster with sound effects based solely on Krotos Studio, but it could certainly do good service for lots of routine sound elements or in projects of a more modest scale. What’s here is certainly a very encouraging starting point and, for media creators looking for an accessible source of sound‑design elements, a single‑month subscription would easily let you evaluate it for yourself. Whether it’s the sound of gentle rain, an urban soundscape, a sci‑fi transition, or brains being crushed(!), sound design really doesn’t get much easier than Krotos Studio.