Checking Out: Damage Guitars & Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity
Heavyocity live up to their name with a weighty pair of libraries focused on explosive guitar, bass and drums. Damage Guitars tears it up with blistering riffs, cinematic clean guitars, transitions and FX. Keeping it all locked down is the sister library, Damage Rock Grooves, featuring hundreds of energetic and hard-hitting drum loops.
Jump to the Videos of Damage Guitars and Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity
Jump to the Demos of Damage Guitars and Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity
Checking Out: Damage Guitars and Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity
If there is one company that is renowned for the most aggressive sounds in the sampling world it is Heavyocity. Sure, they do light and beautiful superbly, but since Damage wrote the rule book on modern heavy percussion they have been the go-to developer for sheer power. Whilst they have tackled guitars before using the Gravity engine for more cinematic scoring, Damage Guitars is their only foray to date into heavy riffage for both guitar and bass. It also features some inspiring clean patches, both looped and playable. Released at the same time is Damage Rock Grooves, a ferocious percussive complement to the searing guitars and basses and available for free with Damage Guitars as an intro promotion.
Damage Guitars by Heavyocity normally sells for $249 from Plugin Boutique
Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity normally sells for $49 from Plugin Boutique
Thoughts
Damage Guitars Main Interface
The more I explored both libraries the more I discovered and it is far more than just a heavy riff machine. There are some immaculate performances, superb tone and first class recordings of both metal, hard rock and clean guitars and bass, plus a clean and heavy drumkit, all wrapped up in well thought out and creative Kontakt engines. Both libraries are predominantly focussed on loops, which might not suit everyone due to obvious limitations with the actual notes played and how far they can be transposed, but it is a double-edged sword as loops will always sound more realistic than single notes. In Damage Guitars clever use of the sample start and bank programming does mean you can piece together your own riffs, albeit with the tone baked in as there is no DI option. Such is the inventive layout of the engine I think users will get the most original sounds from it by viewing it as a phrase library and going to town on chopping up and combining the riffs and shorter phrases on offer, as it can sound very seamless.
Playable multi-sampled instrument
Although only a relatively small part of the library, the playable clean samples are real hidden gems. With plenty of round robins, ppp option, and reverses there is so much scope, even if the amount of source audio may at first seem rather small. The Textures snapshots excellently showcase what can be achieved by programming the engine. All these playables combine especially well with the ambient clean guitar FX in the looped content as a backdrop.
Rock Grooves
The accompanying Damage Rock Grooves is a fine collection of loops. You only get two drum kits (clean and heavy) and no control over individual drums or mic, but for the low price I would not expect that. It is a simple and flexible method of getting a groove down and the inclusion of patches that pair so tightly with the guitar and bass riffs is a neat concept. The tone is heavy on the transients and less so on body, but at least that means it cuts well through a mix without lots of extra processing.
Like all Heavyocity products the quality throughout is of a very high calibre and is exciting to work with. Especially for composers who do not play guitar, tasked with creating some heavy riffing mayhem or cinematic guitar ambience, it should definitely be on the shortlist.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UEOacYSWyc-OmKgIZ720rl2nNVmEGYRe/view?usp=share_link
Facts
Both libraries work in Kontakt 6 Player and are NKS ready
Damage Guitars
9.57GB on Disk (with NI lossless compression)
Over 3,690 samples
1,200+ sources (riffs, transitions and FX for guitar and bass)
117 presets
Playable Cinematic Guitars & Textures
Presets come in 3 keys (D, A and F#)
Damage Rock Grooves
4.64GB on Disk (with NI lossless compression)
Over 760 grooves
43 presets
Customisable Groove Playback Engine
Matched grooves with Damage Guitars
Damage Guitars by Heavyocity normally sells for $249 from Plugin Boutique
Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity normally sells for $49 from Plugin Boutique
Demos of Damage Guitars and Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity
Videos of Damage Guitars and Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity
Contributor Sam Burt reviews Damage Guitars and Damage Rock Grooves by Heavyocity
“Heavyocity live up to their name with a weighty pair of libraries focused on explosive guitar, bass and drums. Damage Guitars tears it up with blistering riffs, cinematic clean guitars, transitions and FX. Keeping it all locked down is the sister library, Damage Rock Grooves, featuring hundreds of energetic and hard-hitting drum loops.
