Sound Design with Krotos Sci-Fi Sound Effects Libraries Collection

Hi, I’m Alessandro Mastroianni, and I’m a Composer and Sound Designer. Today I’m here to tell you a little bit about Krotos Audio Sci-fi Sound Effects Libraries Collection. The collection includes an absolutely massive amount of sounds, over 17,000 which brings the overall size of the library to over 46gb. And it also includes extra content such as over 300 Weaponiser presets and 410 Reformer Pro sound packs. But you also get the sounds as standalone, which is mostly what we’ll be using today. The Sound Effects Libraries Collections offer massive savings, it’s about 30% cheaper purchasing the Collection versus buying the single libraries individually.I was responsible for designing the trailer that the Krotos Audio team put together to promote the library. And today we’re going to go a little bit of a behind the scene on how I used these fantastic sounds to do just that. Let’s get started. Here we go. Let’s watch the finished result and then we’ll move from there.Lots of fun. This is kind of the typical dream sequence to design for a Sound Designer. Let’s have a look at the session very quickly and the way you organise it, as you can tell from here… really a lot of stuff. I kind of colour coded them so that we can have a look at what I’ve done for every clip. I’ve used pretty much all audio, but I’ve also added a couple of Weaponiser presets so they could use the Midi.You’ll see where. And I’ve also kept the external processing to a minimum. There is a Reverb and a delay that has sound effects that used to give some space. And in the insert there is also a couple of compressors and EQS, but nothing much, really. It’s mostly what’s available in the collection, which is a lot. Starting right at the beginning.You see, this kind of guess is a tape machine and then this vinyl spinning. So we start with kind of early technology. There is a little bit of a timeline here, a little bit of a history of technology, past, present and future, I guess so for this, I use these kind of mechanical sounds, a layer four sounds together, moving to the next one. This is a much more complex scene. There is this kind of a matrix like green screen that moves into this chip explosion.This is a CPU, I guess. And then we got this laptop, with this whoosh sound. So this is probably one of the most complex to design, and I’ve layered a lot of sounds together. And again, this is all audio, a lot of stuff from the Energy library that is included in the collection from Robotic Lifeforms 1 and Robotic Lifeforms 2 that are included in the Collection. One of my favourites, I must say, moving on.We got the military over here. We got these lasers. The lasers were quite tricky. I’ve used these sounds here, which not real at all, but they kind of contribute to the cinematic nature like these beeps. And then layered in these mechanical source sounds from Robotic Lifeforms.And again, stuff that is not happening on the scene. But we’re not going for realism. We’re going for cinematic and this kind of ticking sound in my mind added a bit of tension. It tells us that there’s something kind of wrong going on there, and there is tension going on without the need for music, which we don’t have here. And then I’ve added a couple of electric rings.And there is also this engine power shut down and the comet riser that really works as a cinematic transition to the next scene.For the next scene, we have a working environment, a working robot, I guess so for this one, I first of all, use the room tone from the Energy Sound Effects Library industrial Power Zone to convey the idea of an industrial working space. And then I’ve designed the main robot Footstep with this great Weaponiser prize, which is called Mac Footstep. Robotic footstep 1 generic. Weaponiser is obviously great at this sort of thing. And the great cool thing about using Midi is that you can really fine tune it to where you need it with the scene.I absolutely love using Midi for footsteps. And I’ve also layered some audio files, though, which is just some movement again to layer it all together. It sounds like this and then still moving on. We got some military drones.I’ve layered again some particles passby from the Energy Sound Effects Library and some Air pneumatic. But I’ve also added this kind of whoosh at the end it looks like these drones are about to attack. So this again generates some tension for the scene, which will work pretty well. This is the dance scene that’s a lot of fun.And here again, I’ve used Weaponiser. You see a lot of Midi to match all the robot dancing movements. And for this one, there is a really cool Weaponiser preset, which is called Comms 3 Shutting Up The Chatter Bot, which I really like because it has some layers that are kind of chatty, which contributes to giving the idea of this friendly Robot rather than something menacing. And it also has the body movement. So it sounds like this… isolated.And again gives the idea that it’s something playful and light rather than something dark. And then we get to the UFO shot. And for this one, I’ve layered a lot of stuff from Robotic Lifeform and Energy.Laser beam is just just perfect for the scene from the Energy Library that is included. And I just layered some other stuff on top of that. And following we got this shot in space like all the shots in space, there is obviously no sound in space, but you want to add something cinematic to it and it looks like there is something happening over here. The spaceship, there was an explosion of some sort. So I layered in some debris sounds together with other cinematic sounds for the aftermath of the explosion.Then we move into this very fast tunnel. I’ve actually had a few troubles trying to understand what this is exactly. I’ll be honest, but it’s a spinning object. It looks like it’s a very fast scene. So this one, you’ll see, I layered a lot of different sounds.There are some spinning sounds. There is even a CD drive spinning. It looks like it’s been miced very close. There’s a really cool sound, and together with even some guns sounds and other airy sounding mechanic sounds, here’s what it sounds all together. Layered.There’s also a little bit of a cinematic transition at the end. With this whoosh from Robotic Life forms 2. Robotic Lifeforms 2 contains lots of cinematic transitions that are really great. It’s obviously primarily a library that covers anything robots, but it also has some more abstract cinematic sounds, which I find myself using all the time really cool.Moving on to the next scene. We have these planets with a satellite, I guess, and this is the sound that I made for it. This is a mix of a synth bass, which is included as an audio file, though in the library and some other stuff from the Energy and Robotic Lifeform Library, it has a little bit of a musical brand feel to it again. Seeing shot in space, it’s supposed to be no sound, really, but we’re going for cinematic. We’re going for a big impact.That’s our job as Sound Designers, after all, in most context. And then we moved to this galaxy with the final reveal with this kind of colourful green explosion. And for the big finish over here, I’ve layered a few things again from Robotic Lifeforms 2, there are some really cool impacts.I’ve done some low passing on the first two to give the sense of this distant object, and then a whoosh and some steam gas explosion from Mechanical Sound Effects Library Vol. 1, which is another one of the libraries that is included, which is really cool. And this is how it sounds altogether.And again, the last impact. Comet riser hit again from Robotic Lifeform, which, as I said, is great for these cinematic transition effects, and they manage to have the it happened exactly where the big reveal happens, and that’s it. I really hope this was useful. I had loads of fun designing the scene, and you can learn more about the Krotos Audio Sci-fi Sound Effects Libraries Collection on krotosaudio.com.Thank you so much for watching. And I’ll see you next time.