EROSIA BY NATIVE INSTRUMENTS
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
Many readers who have joined the Komplete Kontrol party in the past decade will already be familiar with Kinetic Metals, Kinetic Toys, & Kinetic Treats, these popular libraries have been a mainstay across various iterations of the bi-annual Komplete software suites.
The creator of all three, sound designer Jeremiah SAVAGE, has continued to stay productive within the industry, with his own company Cymatic Form releasing Acousmatic Engine back in 2020, which KK-Access reviewed in November of that year.
Jeremiah is now back under the Native Instruments umbrella with his latest library Erosia, and looks all set to continue the cinematic sound design theme with fresh new sounds and concepts.
TECH SPECS
Erosia requires Kontakt version 8.6.0 or higher, either full or free Kontakt Player editions.
It is compatible with all versions of Komplete Kontrol that host the above Kontakt specifications.
The library requires 6.56GB of disk space for installation, and uses the NCW lossless compression format.
There is 1 Erosia Kontakt master NKI preset, with a further 250 Kontakt snapshot NKSN preset files, divided into 4 bank categories.
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
Being a Native Instruments product, the entire download & installation process is handled via Native Access 2.
You do not even need to paste in a serial number, following purchase Erosia will be linked to your NI account, so you will find it waiting for you inside Native Access, and just simply hitting the install now button will take care of things for you.
Following completion, run Komplete kontrol to have the library scanned into your factory browser, and you are ready to go.
FULL KOMPLETE KONTROL PLUG-IN EDIT NKS PARAMETER MAPPINGS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE END OF THIS REVIEW FOLLOWING THE MEDIA SECTION
ACCESSIBILITY
Erosia is billed as being a cinematic textures library, and while this is certainly the case, when it comes to the accessible sound design controls assigned via NKS, it falls some way short of the mark for users who want to create their own sounds.
Many of the features described within the walkthrough video do not find their way into the NKS template, most notably is the ability to select and load sounds from the core sample pool, this being a GUI based browser.
This immediately reduces the poss abilities of what could have been a vast sound design playground down into something more like a small creche with far less toys to play with!
Don’t get me wrong, we can certainly make some adjustments to the otherwise decent collection of factory presets, but the NKS choices that have been made are quite limiting if you were hoping for more of a ground up creative experience.
Even a simple saving grace might have been to add the ability to assign the randomise function to NKS, which would have at least presented us with some form of an option of generating new preset material from the source samples.
EROSIA – THE ENGINE
At it’s heart, Erosia has a four layer sound engine which consists of a fixed granular first layer, and three more layers which are switchable between wavetable and samples.
The core samples have been captured using a combination of traditional microphone techniques, but rather more unusually with erosia, the use of contact microphones is a specific feature.
This choice of using ultra close up microphones as a technique makes it possible to effectively amplify to macro level it’s eclectic collection of recordings that belie their more humble origins.
EROSIA AT PLAY
We have parity between the four layers within the NKS mapping,with an On/Off switch per layer, volume, pitch (in semitones), Detune (fine tune in cents), and pan.
We do not really get to deep dive any further though, for example layer 1 being granular, does not present any uniform controls for changing specifically related parameters.
There are macros pre-assigned on the performance page, and certainly in some presets these appear to adjust granularity, I use the word appear advisably, as the macros are not labelled so as to offer a clue to their purpose, trial & error is the key.
The same is true for the other three layers, with no further access to wavetables or samples depending on how they have been predefined on a per preset basis.
The final few pages of NKS mapping cover effects busses of which there are two, A & B. These consist of On/Off toggles for Dynamics, Shape, and Colour, plus a volume and send level.
I was able to remove reverb from a preset by dialling the send level back to minus zero, but there is no individual controls for common effects such as delay or reverb, and it is unclear what combination of the built in Kontakt FX have been used as overall constituent components of an FX chaine.
THE SOUND OF erosia
For those who are fascinated and intrigued by sound, then Erosia does contain an eclectic collection of interesting content.
The library has been divided into four main categories, which will show up as banks for MK2 & MK3 owners.
These are: Atmospheres, Drones, Pads, & Textures.
There are certainly plenty of presets here that could find a home in experimental and soundscape projects, and more general media work such as smartphone apps, or in game sound design.
It can be a bit of a mixed bag though, as some presets sound great but you then find yourself asking yourself the question ‘where could I possibly make use of this’?
Although there is a clear lack of NKS sound design control, you can still for example mute individual layers in order to isolate a sample that stands out within the four layers, and do some tweaking of the macros in order to stray a little from the original factory presets.
Do take a look at the walkthrough for Erosia in order to hear it in action.
CONCLUSION
Erosia is a valid and welcome release, and fans of the Kinetic series will certainly hear the consistancy of style in the overall sound. There library does contain some genuinely interesting and unique sounds, offering a different perspective to a more typical release of this kind from other developers.
Unfortunately for those of us who rely heavily on a well thought out NKS implementation in order to maximise the creative value they can extract from a product, then Erosia fails to deliver in this respect, and as such for blind users it scores mostly as a preset rompler with only seemingly obligatory NKS parameter control.
Erosia is available directly from Native Instruments for the price of £129.00
Erosia Product Page:
Erosia Product Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hjlB3wo4
Erosia – User Manual:
https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downloads/manuals/Erosia_manual_English_280825.pdf
KOMPLETE KONTROL PLUG-IN EDIT NKS PARAMETER MAPPINGS (CLASSIC VIEW MK2)
Page One – Performance
Knob 1 – Transform
Knob 2 – Macro 1
Knob 3 – Macro 2
Knob 4 – Macro 3
Knob 5 – Macro 4
Knob 6 – Main Volume
Knob 7 – Unallocated
Knob 8 – Unallocated
Page Two – Layer 1
Knob 1 – State On/Off
Knob 2 – Volume
Knob 3 – Pan
Knob 4 – Pitch ( plus or minus 36semitones)
Knob 5 – Detune
Knob 6 to 8 – Unallocated
Page Three to Page Five – (As per page two)
Page Six – FX Bus A
Knob 1 – Dynamics 1 On/Off
Knob 2 – Dynamics 2 On/Off
Knob 3 – Shape 1 On/Off
Knob 4 – Shape 2 On/Off
Knob 5 – Colour 1 On/Off
Knob 6 – Colour 2 On/Off
Knob 7 – Volume
Knob 8 – Send Level
Page Seven – FX Bus B (As per Page Six)
Page Eight – Limiter
Knob 1 – State On/Off
Knob 2 – Threshold
Knob 3 to 8 – Unallocated
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
1st September 2025
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About the Author
Based in Buckinghamshire, England, Chris Ankin has worked as a freelance review writer and contributor with articles published in Sound On Sound, Home & Studio Recording and ST Format Magazines.
He has also successfully worked extensively in and around the music, recording, film Soundtrack scoring, Game & media composition, the creative arts, Charitable trusts,publishing, music streaming and property investments since 1982 whilst continuously and deliberately managing to evade any mainstream recognition under his own name by the use of various pseudonyms.
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