KROTOS Plugins - how are they? Dehumaniser / Weaponizer especially

[Caine123]

hi guys, i see those on sale again, i find them pretty tempting somehow for some sound design but i see these are pretty old vsts and the sale items are the basic/simple versions. are those more gimmick plugins or how is your experience overall?

[whyterabbyt]

They're aimed at the film, TV and games industry, so 'new' isnt relevant, usefulness is, and they're far from gimmicks in that context. Taken into music production on an individual basis would potentially be making the usage gimmicky, though, because they're not really oriented towards that at all. They're decent enough, though you could probably build your own plugin toolchain and DAW template to do a lot of the same work; their specific value is in the very specific and focussed tailoring of these based on industry knowledge/experience (plus the relevant sample libraries.)

I dont see that the sale items are only basic/simple versions, though. Where there's more than one 'variant' of a plugin, both seem to be on sale, and there's no difference in the actual functionality, just in the amount of sample content provided.

[Caine123]

They're aimed at the film, TV and games industry, so 'new' isnt relevant, usefulness is, and they're far from gimmicks in that context. Taken into music production on an individual basis would potentially be making the usage gimmicky, though, because they're not really oriented towards that at all. They're decent enough, though you could probably build your own plugin toolchain and DAW template to do a lot of the same work; their specific value is in the very specific and focussed tailoring of these based on industry knowledge/experience (plus the relevant sample libraries.)

I dont see that the sale items are only basic/simple versions, though. Where there's more than one 'variant' of a plugin, both seem to be on sale, and there's no difference in the actual functionality, just in the amount of sample content provided.

thanks alot mate! i got you, good to know, yes i wanted to add some demonic/monster vocals to some cues and try out some stuff. also do my own gunshot sounds or layer them so i found these on sale

https://vstbuzz.com/deals/65-off-dehuma ... tos-audio/

https://vstbuzz.com/deals/58-off-weapon ... tos-audio/

the prices seem pretty good but i need to check if this is a good offer or not.

[whyterabbyt]

Ah right, I was looking at the main Krotos site.
Weaponiser Basic is the full-function version of Weaponiser, there's a 'Pro' version with a bigger library. I couldnt personally justify at £70 at the moment though.
Dehumaniser Simple Monsters is a fairly cutdown version of Dehumaniser 2, I think, and mostly preset based. Sorry for not realising that was the one you meant. Considerably cheaper than DH2 currently is. I'd say that at £32 Simply Monsters might be the more useable/VFM of the two depending on what you want to do.

These prices are very similar to Krotos' own BF offers, and there are free trial versions at the Krotos site.

[Caine123]

Ah right, I was looking at the main Krotos site.
Weaponiser Basic is the full-function version of Weaponiser, there's a 'Pro' version with a bigger library. I couldnt personally justify at £70 at the moment though.
Dehumaniser Simple Monsters is a fairly cutdown version of Dehumaniser 2, I think, and mostly preset based. Sorry for not realising that was the one you meant. Considerably cheaper than DH2 currently is. I'd say that at £32 Simply Monsters might be the more useable/VFM of the two depending on what you want to do.

These prices are very similar to Krotos' own BF offers, and there are free trial versions at the Krotos site.

no way, i didnt provide the links so thanks to you .
i see, Dehumaniser 2 seems to be of course much more flexible. i need to investigate this further, maybe there is an upgrade path from the simple monsters version.

i just saw the Sound Design Bundle on their page includes
Dehumaniser 2 + Weaponiser Fully Loaded + Reformer Pro (this plugin seems like MORPH from zynaptiq, kinda interesting do replace your drums or something maybe i dunno) and it costs around 300 bucks. pretty neat but yeah from 40 bucks to 300 bucks is a steep step hahaha , weaponiser seems you could save a lot of gun libraries. i wanted to buy from boom library a gun sound library and it was around 100 bucks or so i thin, this could be well invested into weaponiser it seems.

[martiu]

Weaponiser can be used with all kinds of samples to create layered sounds that are interesting and unique, also there is some basic synths and FX build in for further customization, it is similar to Twisted Tools S-Layer if you are familiar with that Reaktor ensemble.

[whyterabbyt]

Reformer's an interesting one. I guess its sort of in the territory of Morph, but rather than trying to combine two sounds, its about driving the 'articulation' of a sound with something else ) primarily a voice). So its actually getting into the territory of foley sounds (ie human and human-caused sounds for film, TV etc which are 'acted out' in realtime to the original film footage) in that they're basically 'performed'.
So, (as an example that I cant guarantee is in Performer) rather than have a static sample of a creaky door, you could be driving that creak 'live' by vocalising the changes in it, driving what Reformer does to the sample as a result, drawing it out or making it faster, slower, higher or lower pitched etc.

[Caine123]

Weaponiser can be used with all kinds of samples to create layered sounds that are interesting and unique, also there is some basic synths and FX build in for further customization, it is similar to Twisted Tools S-Layer if you are familiar with that Reaktor ensemble.

thx a lot! yeah i actually got it, i always forget my Reaktor ensembles... thx for reminding me.
actually i thought BOOM Soundweaver might be the best for layering cause you can also randomize things and get random results off your selected folders.
https://www.boomlibrary.com/sound-effects/soundweaver/

but 150 euros i dunno i hope for 100 bucks but not sure yet.

sadly this deal expired long ago
https://audioplugin.deals/product/sound ... m-library/

[martiu]

I am not familiar with Soundweaver but it looks interesting and i love randomization function.
You said you have S-Layer, i suggest you to make a bunch of custom ensembles with it using different samples for each version, it is real powerful and i was able to render amazing soundscapes with it, not even program it a lot, the randomization works surprisingly good.

[morphex]

^ I’ve always loved the incredibly powerful and flexible ensembles from Twisted Tools!! S-Layer, UltraLoop, Scapes and Buffeater, etc are all still getting regular use.

I sincerely hope that one day I open my email and find out that they’ve updated their current catalog or released a new ensemble. Better yet, their “tools” would get even more use if they released them as VST’s. That would rock!!

[Caine123]

the sound designer bundle is really tempting especially you get some sound packs included too.

does someone know if you can easily import in dehumaniser and weaponiser your own samples?

[Caine123]

wow i got a reply from Krotos, you cannot import your own samples into Weaponiser? wtf, so you are stuck with the samples it comes.... i dont get the usage then of this plugin... this is so not understandable, guess then Krotos just kicked themselves out for me. they said they plan it for a future update, yeah sure, afaik this plugin is already long on the market and if they would have implemented it it would be already in.

[runagate]

wow i got a reply from Krotos, you cannot import your own samples into Weaponiser? wtf, so you are stuck with the samples it comes.... i dont get the usage then of this plugin... this is so not understandable, guess then Krotos just kicked themselves out for me. they said they plan it for a future update, yeah sure, afaik this plugin is already long on the market and if they would have implemented it it would be already in.

Film sound designers want Foley effects, and Weaponizer allows you to 1) shape the sounds in a way we musicians would find very familiar and 2) click button on screen to trigger, thus allowing one to quickly put sounds into a score rather than faffing around with MIDI and a timeline. If you do not want the sounds that Weaponizer comes with it is of no use to you as a sound designer as most of us will already have much more advanced tools. I do own it, and I do not use it in music, notably.

Dehumanizer is absurdly ubiquitous in films. I like it but mostly because the signal chain has weird stuff and allows you to reorder the effects. I can make a hell of a lot scarier sounds with my own throat than anything possible with Dehumanizer. If you do not already own similar sound design tools this is certainly a good one. Again, most people around here would already have many similar things. It's for film folks who don't want to learn what a Linear Predictive Coding is or how to sidechain signals. It is very cool, though.

Reformer is a brilliant idea. Audio input causes a choice from a pile of samples to play, thus if you've loaded up cloth swishing you can use a mic to time the sounds with what's on the screen and it'll play something closest to your sound input and probably fit perfectly, rather than say digging through all the cloth samples and putting them on a timeline. That sounds horrific to me.

As a sound designer this is absolutely NOT what I use it for. I use it for crazy things like set up a morphing vocoder where 1) mic input triggers a sample set of glass breaking or lasers or whatever which is then sent as the carrier to the vocoder or moprhing 2) mic input goes into the modulator side and then they combine in a dynamic way to make a vocoded dynamic glass-smashing voice. This needn't be used with voice, obviously, could combine Reformer explosions and drums, or use an expression medal to morph guitar with insect swarms or whatever. I am consciously not using examples I myself actually use, because I do not want you to use them too so my off the dome ideas might sound a little unusable but you get the idea.

If you design sound for film these plugins are a no-brainer. If you are a musician you might not be into weird enough things for this to appeal to you, but that being said everything I've gotten from them was from via some insane sale or another and I didn't pay much for all of their products at all.

They also made the Concept VST synth. I don't really understand why they did, it doesn't much fit in their catalog, but it is nice, too.

[Caine123]

wow i got a reply from Krotos, you cannot import your own samples into Weaponiser? wtf, so you are stuck with the samples it comes.... i dont get the usage then of this plugin... this is so not understandable, guess then Krotos just kicked themselves out for me. they said they plan it for a future update, yeah sure, afaik this plugin is already long on the market and if they would have implemented it it would be already in.

Film sound designers want Foley effects, and Weaponizer allows you to 1) shape the sounds in a way we musicians would find very familiar and 2) click button on screen to trigger, thus allowing one to quickly put sounds into a score rather than faffing around with MIDI and a timeline. If you do not want the sounds that Weaponizer comes with it is of no use to you as a sound designer as most of us will already have much more advanced tools. I do own it, and I do not use it in music, notably.

Dehumanizer is absurdly ubiquitous in films. I like it but mostly because the signal chain has weird stuff and allows you to reorder the effects. I can make a hell of a lot scarier sounds with my own throat than anything possible with Dehumanizer. If you do not already own similar sound design tools this is certainly a good one. Again, most people around here would already have many similar things. It's for film folks who don't want to learn what a Linear Predictive Coding is or how to sidechain signals. It is very cool, though.

Reformer is a brilliant idea. Audio input causes a choice from a pile of samples to play, thus if you've loaded up cloth swishing you can use a mic to time the sounds with what's on the screen and it'll play something closest to your sound input and probably fit perfectly, rather than say digging through all the cloth samples and putting them on a timeline. That sounds horrific to me.

As a sound designer this is absolutely NOT what I use it for. I use it for crazy things like set up a morphing vocoder where 1) mic input triggers a sample set of glass breaking or lasers or whatever which is then sent as the carrier to the vocoder or moprhing 2) mic input goes into the modulator side and then they combine in a dynamic way to make a vocoded dynamic glass-smashing voice. This needn't be used with voice, obviously, could combine Reformer explosions and drums, or use an expression medal to morph guitar with insect swarms or whatever. I am consciously not using examples I myself actually use, because I do not want you to use them too so my off the dome ideas might sound a little unusable but you get the idea.

If you design sound for film these plugins are a no-brainer. If you are a musician you might not be into weird enough things for this to appeal to you, but that being said everything I've gotten from them was from via some insane sale or another and I didn't pay much for all of their products at all.

They also made the Concept VST synth. I don't really understand why they did, it doesn't much fit in their catalog, but it is nice, too.

thanks so much for your reply!

Weaponiser:
well even for Films etc. i expected it to let you import your own samples, this is quite a bummer, i dunno how much content it is and if you feel the need to import your own samples but yeah, it seems to be a detailed sampler and a body synth, seems im better stuck with a classic sampler maybe where i can use my own samples then.

Dehumaniser:
do you think i can achieve the same results/nearly samey with my own effects chain in a DAW? like pitchshifters + EQ + Reverb + Chorus etc.? Or is dehumaniser kinda unique to offer?

Reformer:
Seems to be the only unique one so far.

again thanks a lot!

[runagate]

Your question about Dehumaiser is excellent as it sort of depends on your obsession and knowledge of DSP and signal chains. It has it's own internal little multi-path signal chain interface which is nice, and I would say most folks probably don't have spectral pitch-shift or maybe even ringmod, and most of the fx are normal stuff you'd have many versions of like granular and vocoder.

There are two things that are a bit different. "Delay Pitch Shift" which certainly isn't particularly unique to me given I've been using DtBlkFx since I found it in darrel's university paper way back when, but the "scrubbing convolution" is pretty nice, even to someone who has quite a few "morph two audio sources together" plugins.

They explain it here, scroll down to the scrubbing convolution part. This effect is basically why I bought what is now called RipX DAW (though quickly realized it does all sorts of invaluable and unique things).

https://www.krotosaudio.com/scrubbing-c ... eal%2Dtime.

example