Composer and sound designer John Valasis has spent the past two decades working across film, television, and audio post-production. He recently partnered with audio software developer Krotos to create a Water Foley preset pack for Krotos Studio, a sound design platform used by post-production professionals and content creators.
The collection includes 17 performable presets, covering everything from delicate splashes to rushing streams and bursts of steam. The pack is currently available to all Krotos Studio users.
Tasked with building a versatile toolkit of water sounds for Krotos Studio, Valasis approached the project differently than he would a typical Foley session. Instead of designing to picture, he set out to create a responsive, expressive set of presets that could adapt to a wide range of scenes and styles.
“I’ve recorded water sound effects for films before, and I’ve used water as source material for heavily processed sample packs,” he explains. “But I’d never created something with so much detail and demand. Here, water became more than a sound source. It turned into an instrument, a means of expression, a storytelling tool in the hands of the user.”
Valasis recorded the Water Foley pack at Athens Film Sound, the Foley and sound design studio he co-founded in Greece. Using a custom-built 500-litre water tank, he captured everything from controlled drips to chaotic splashes. He recorded in stereo using a matched pair of high-sensitivity microphones and a Zoom F6 recorder — a setup designed to preserve subtle details like bubbling, fizzing, and flowing water. The compact size of the mics also allowed for creative placement, including inside sink drains and other tight enclosures.
“Close miking was essential to bring out the detail and avoid room coloration,” Valasis notes. “I also used off-axis positioning and shock mounts to control handling noise and proximity distortion.”
Back in the studio, Valasis cleaned, layered, and refined the recordings before loading them into Krotos Studio for testing. Sounds were adjusted and reworked until they performed naturally and expressively. “Elements like attack and release can completely change how natural or responsive a sound feels,” he explains. To keep each preset intuitive and dynamic, Valasis used XY pads to control movement and texture, and layered sounds at different pitches and intensities to create smooth transitions between soft and aggressive performances.
In some cases — like Water Motion — he rebuilt the entire structure around Reformer AI, which better supported long, fluid behaviors. For presets like Water Drips, he added a third granular layer triggered across different regions of the XY pad, allowing for continuous variation and added depth. “That shift unlocked the full potential of the preset,” he says, “and gave it the sense of motion and realism it was missing.”
For Valasis, the goal was never just to build a collection of presets, but to create something that inspires creative play. “Don’t hesitate to experiment. Play, test, edit, and then do it all over again,” he says. “It’s not about getting it ‘right.’ It’s about creating something you’d be excited to use yourself.” He encourages users to treat the presets like instruments — performative tools that adapt to the emotional tone and rhythm of a scene.
To learn more about Krotos Studio and explore the Water Foley preset pack, visit the Krotos website.
