The Sound Design Bundle by Krotos Audio is a collection of audio tools suited for advanced sound design manipulation. It includes Dehumaniser 2, Reformer Pro, and Weaponiser Fully Loaded. Dehumaniser 2 is a unique sound design tool that produces studio-quality monster and creature sounds in real-time using your voice (read my review of that here). Weaponiser Fully Loaded is kind of like a giant sample pack of weapon sounds combined with a powerful sound design plugin to morph the sounds into your own brand new weapon sound - the main collection is guns but they also offer expansions for swords and more. Reformer Pro is a tool that allows you to perform libraries of sound effects essentially using envelope following methods, either using the large included sound library or your own samples.
In this article i'm going to give you my review of each product included in the bundle, along with some videos demonstrating what sounds you can get from each product. If you want detailed specs of each product head on over to the Krotos Audio website!
Dehumaniser 2 by Krotos
My personal favorite from this collection is Dehumaniser 2. I won't go super deep in this one because I already published a dedicated review for it. In summary its probably the best vocal sound design tool on the market that i'm aware of, and its perfect for someone like me who makes a lot of niche vocal sounds. Check out this video I made having an absolute BLAST playing with Dehumaniser 2.
Reformer Pro by Krotos
Reformer Pro is a kind of sample performance tool, allowing you to plug in a microphone to trigger your sounds with your voice. One cool aspect of this is that if you have a particular sound source you want to overlay with another sound, you can use Reformer Pro to have the sound source mesh more organically. In the video below I use a synthesizer VST to trigger Reformer Pro, and by changing the ADSR settings on the synth I can change how Reformer triggers the sounds.
Reformer Pro offers a lot of good sound manipulation tools such as speed control, pitch, and the ability to blend 4 sound sources. The raw sounds included with the bundle are very good, albeit more suited towards sound designers - in other words the samples are typically foley based. For the musicians out there you might benefit from throwing Reformer Pro onto a guitar track in an ambient section to have it trigger sounds, or use a microphone to perform a never repeating sequence of foley sounds - the tools provided are very powerful and offer unlimited creative freedom.
The sound library included with Reformer Pro is 3.8GB of very high quality sounds from their Krotos Bundle 1 Library, valued at $449 by itself. So if you don't want to take advantage of the ability to import your own sounds into Reformer Pro you're going to start with a giant library of great foley sounds - plus they have a lot of expansion packs available in various niche categories.
Reformer Pro is a truly innovative tool with no real competitor on the market.
Weaponiser Fully Loaded by Krotos
If you find yourself needing gun sounds for your audio projects often, look no further than Weaponiser Fully Loaded. This tool is one of the most powerful sound design engines i've seen anywhere, and its focus is entirely on weapons. The stock library comes with 2,734 weapon samples, and 186 presets sorted by weapon type. While you can certainly use this as a tool to trigger realistic weapon sounds using the presets, the real power of this product is the ability to create brand new weapon sounds. Listen to this video where I play around with it and explore the presets.
This product is likely the most niche out of the bundle, and has minimal application for people who's main focus is on music - the target audience is really the film crowd here. However if you already are intrigued by Dehumaniser 2 and Reformer Pro then it may be worth it to just get the whole Sound Design Bundle. Potential music applications include using weapon sounds for transitions, or making drum kits out of weapon and foley sounds from weapons. They have actually included a selection of presets focused around drum sounds to get you started.
For you film and video game people out there I think this is the best option on the market for easily creating incredible weapon sounds.
Conclusion
The package is available from Krotos for $999, and I think everyone should at least check it out to see if its for them. The bundle is suited towards sound designers and film audio professionals, but there are plenty of musical applications depending on what genre you work in. Dehumaniser 2 is my personal favorite being someone who creates a lot of unique vocal sounds, and isn't involved in the film world at the moment, but i've managed to use all of these tools in my own music!