Cloud Waves competes most directly with the KHORDS Future Bass and LoFi Keys expansion packs, and this review lands here: it’s the better choice for atmospheric work, but it’s a narrower buy than the marketing suggests.
At $19, it drops 100 presets and 50 new waveforms into your KHORDS instance. The split is 42 Pads, 22 Atmospheric presets, 20 Stabs, and 16 SFX. Those numbers sound balanced on paper. In practice, the pads and atmospherics do the heavy lifting. The stabs and SFX feel like padding to hit a round number.
If you’re building lo-fi beats, dreamy R&B intros, or film-adjacent ambient beds, this earns its keep. If you want something to energize a drop or add forward momentum to a track, look elsewhere.
How Cloud Waves Compares to Other KHORDS Expansions Out of the Box
The KHORDS Future Bass expansion leans brighter. You get sharper attacks, more pronounced high-mid presence, and chord voicings built for energy and movement. Cloud Waves deliberately goes the other direction: slower attacks, longer release tails, and waveforms that sit in the 200Hz-2kHz range without much top-end sizzle.
Compared to LoFi Keys, Cloud Waves sounds cleaner. LoFi Keys applies tape saturation and vinyl artifacts as part of its identity. Cloud Waves keeps things drier, which actually gives you more mix flexibility. You can add your own dirt in the signal chain rather than fighting processing that’s already baked in.
First impression out of the box: the pad section sounds like it was built by someone who actually makes this kind of music. The atmospheric section is almost as good. The stabs and SFX feel like afterthoughts.
Performance Deep Dive
The 50 waveforms break down into three groups: 20 Major Feel Chords, 20 Minor Feel Chords, and 10 Root/Open Note Chords. That last category is the underrated one.
We loaded a Root/Open Note chord waveform under a vocal chop in an 85 BPM lo-fi session. The open voicing sat in the low-mids without competing with the vocal harmonics. Pulled back the filter cutoff by about 30% and it disappeared into the track like it was always supposed to be there. No surgical EQ needed. That’s the best-case scenario for a preset pack at this price.
The Mod Wheel performance assignments deserve a mention. Several pad presets use the Mod Wheel to sweep filter cutoff or modulation depth. On a 73-key controller, riding the wheel through the “Distant Shore” pad preset (one of the atmospheric presets in the pack) opens up a genuine performance feel. It’s not just a static texture.
CPU impact is light. KHORDS itself is already efficient, and Cloud Waves doesn’t change that. We saw no difference in CPU load between the factory bank and Cloud Waves presets running in Logic Pro 11 on an M2 MacBook Pro.
Compatibility requires KHORDS v1.0.4 or higher. If you’re on an older version, update before purchasing. That’s a compatibility floor, not a ceiling.
Where Cloud Waves Wins
The major and minor chord waveform splits are genuinely useful for fast session work. When you’re building a lo-fi playlist track at 1am and you need a pad that already implies the right emotional key center, starting from a chord-based waveform saves real time over building from a sine or saw.
We dropped the “Grey Clouds” pad preset under a 16-bar ambient section with no other harmonic content. It filled the space without needing EQ, compression, or reverb beyond what was already on the bus. That’s satisfying. Not every preset in any pack does that.
The $19 price is also genuinely low for what you get. One usable pad texture that saves you 45 minutes of sound design pays for the pack.
The minor feel waveforms skew toward the melancholic without being maudlin. That’s a harder balance to hit than it sounds. Loopmasters got it right here.
Where the Competition Wins
Future Bass beats Cloud Waves on versatility. If you produce across multiple genres, Future Bass gives you more range per dollar. Cloud Waves is a specialist tool. Buy it knowing that.
The stab section is a real disappointment. 20 Stab presets sounds useful until you load them. They’re thin. The attack transients don’t punch, the decay is too soft for percussive chord hits, and we couldn’t find a use case where we’d pick a Cloud Waves stab over a sample or a quickly built patch. That’s 20% of the preset count that we’d mostly ignore.
The SFX presets are the weakest section. 16 presets that mostly feel like textural filler. Nothing wrong with them. Nothing memorable either.
No demo audio is available before purchase. At $19 that’s a low-stakes gamble, but it’s still annoying.
Who Should Buy Cloud Waves
- ✅ Buy if you produce lo-fi, ambient, or chill-hop and already own KHORDS. This pack was built
for that workflow.
- ✅ Buy if you want chord-based waveforms that cut session prep time. The voicings do the harmonic work for you.
- ✅ Buy if you need atmospheric textures that sit under vocals without fighting them. The minor feel pads are built for that.
- ❌ Skip if you don't already own KHORDS. Buy the host plugin first and see if you like the workflow before spending anything on expansions.
- ❌ Skip if you need stabs or SFX as your primary use case. The weak sections mean you'd be paying $19 for 64 presets you'd actually use.
- ❌ Skip if you produce primarily in high-energy genres. Future Bass or a synthesis-based approach will serve you better.
Score Breakdown
| Category | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sound Quality | 4.0/5 | Pad and atmospheric sections are genuinely well-crafted; stabs and SFX drag the average down |
| Value for Money | 4.0/5 | $19 for 100 presets and 50 waveforms is fair, even if 36 of those presets are mostly skippable |
| Ease of Use | 4.5/5 | Loads straight into KHORDS with zero setup friction |
| Features | 3.0/5 | Mod Wheel performance mapping is a genuine plus; no layering or advanced routing beyond what KHORDS already offers |
| CPU Efficiency | 4.5/5 | Light as KHORDS itself; no measurable overhead on M2 or comparable hardware |
| Overall | 3.8/5 | Specialist pack that's brilliant in its lane and thin outside it |
Alternatives to Consider
If Cloud Waves doesn’t quite fit your workflow, here are three directions worth looking at.
KHORDS LoFi Keys Expansion: If you want the lo-fi aesthetic baked in rather than added at the mix stage, LoFi Keys applies tape and vinyl character at the waveform level. Less mix flexibility, more immediate vibe. Check the manufacturer’s site for current pricing. KHORDS full review
Native Instruments Noire: A full Kontakt instrument built around felt piano and granular processing. Costs more, but the pad and texture sounds live in the same emotional register as Cloud Waves. Works as a standalone instrument rather than an expansion, so no host dependency. Check the manufacturer’s site for current pricing. best piano plugins for producers
Spitfire LABS (Soft Piano, Frozen Strings): Free, which changes the value calculation entirely. The textural instruments in the LABS library cover a lot of the same atmospheric territory. If your budget is tight, start there before spending anything on expansion packs. best free plugins for producers
Cloud Waves earns its $19 the moment you find a pad that lands in one load. And you will find one, probably in the first 10 minutes of browsing the preset list. The frustrating part is that the stab and SFX sections drag the overall score down for no good reason. A tighter, 64-preset pack focused purely on pads and atmospherics would have been a cleaner product.
Buy it if you make ambient or lo-fi music and already own KHORDS. Don’t buy it expecting a generalist expansion. It’s not that.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to own KHORDS to use Cloud Waves?
Yes. Cloud Waves is an expansion pack that runs inside KHORDS. It's not a standalone plugin. You'll need KHORDS v1.0.4 or higher installed before the expansion will load. If you don't own KHORDS yet, buy and test the base plugin first before committing to any expansion packs.
How many usable presets does Cloud Waves actually contain?
That depends on your genre. The 42 Pad presets and 22 Atmospheric presets are the strongest sections. The 20 Stab and 16 SFX presets are weaker. For lo-fi and ambient producers, we'd estimate 60-65 presets with genuine session utility. For everyone else, that number drops.
What genres work best with Cloud Waves?
Lo-fi hip-hop, chill-hop, ambient, dark R&B, and film/sync work are the obvious fits. The minor feel waveforms lean melancholic. The major feel waveforms are warm but not bright, so they suit downtempo more than uptempo pop. This is not a Future Bass or EDM expansion pack.
Is Cloud Waves worth it if I already have the KHORDS factory bank?
If you regularly produce in the atmospheric or lo-fi space, yes. The 50 new waveforms give you chord-based starting points you won't find in the factory bank, and the chord voicings themselves are a real time-saver when you're building harmonic beds quickly. If you only produce in those genres occasionally, the factory bank will probably cover you. KHORDS review and factory bank breakdown