Heavyocity just released Gravity 2, a follow-up to one of the company’s most successful products ever. Gravity, released back in 2015, quickly became a classic for film and media composers with its powerful and genre-defining hybrid cinematic sounds. Gravity 2 aims to reproduce this success with a fresh set of expertly crafted sound sources a brand-new audio engine and the trademark Heavyocity sound processing.
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Gravity 2 features 1,000 distinct sounds divided into five main categories: rhythmic pedals, textures, stings, transitions, and impacts. All these sounds have been sampled from very a diverse spectrum of instruments and objects ranging from analog synths over various string instruments to all sorts of junkyard metals. On top of that, the library ships with 600 ready-to-use presets, divided into several Snapshot categories. This represents an extremely generous selection of sounds for modern scoring and cinematic music.
The variety of sounds available in Gravity 2 covers a wide range of musical applications and the samples can be mixed, processed, and combined to create truly unique tracks. The sound processing part – a staple of Heavyocity’s sample libraries – is made remarkably easy thanks to the two included sound engines: the “Designer” and the “Menu” (and its “XL” version).
Gravity 2 is a NKS-compatible library made for the Native Instruments Kontakt 7 sampler. The library also runs in the free Kontakt 7 Player, making it widely and easily accessible to media composers of any level. Once downloaded and installed, Gravity 2 requires 10 GB of hard drive space.
INTERFACE
The sounds and patches of Gravity 2 are split among two sound engines, each one designed to support different workflows.
The first one, the “Designer” has a sleek-looking interface. It is based on the popular “central knob” approach and looks similar to Heavyocity’s other recent releases such as Damage 2. At the heart of the Designer is its three-channel layout, which allows users to combine three distinct sample sources in order to create complex, layered sounds. This is also very similar to what Heavyocity implemented in their orchestral Novo/Forzo/Vento series.
Gravity 2 – Designer
The Designer’s main interface has a clean and modern appearance. It primarily consists of the central knob and the three source slots. Underneath, you can find sliders for the envelope, tone, drive (saturation/distortion), motion, and space (delay/reverb) controls. The bottom of the interface contains buttons leading to the mixer, sequencer, performance, browser, and effect pages. Everything seems really well thought-out to fit on one page and be easily accessible, while still maintaining an extremely modern and high-definition look.
Gravity 2 – FX Page
The second sound engine is the “Menu”. The Menu is the easiest way to access the 600 presets designed by the Heavyocity team. In the Menu engine, individual presets are directly mapped to MIDI keys: 36 for the Menu and 72 for the Menu XL version. Here again, all the sound-shaping controls found in the Designer are easily accessible. A dedicated sound browser can be used to change sounds and freely assign them to different keys on the keyboard.
Gravity 2 – Menu
THE SOUND OF GRAVITY 2
As expected from Heavyocity, Gravity 2 sound is outstanding. The sound sources were meticulously recorded to cover a wide variety of musical needs. Just like its predecessor, the sounds in Gravity 2 are massive and powerful, perfectly suited for scoring movies, trailers, and video games. From exciting transitions and massive impacts to ominous pads and suspenseful risers, Gravity 2 fully embodies the Heavyocity philosophy of sound design.
The following is a selection of some of our personal preset highlights and combinations. Apart from the effects available in the Gravity 2 engine, these sounds contain no out-of-the-box processing.
Let’s start with some pads!
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
In the first example, I am using a combination of different pads, showcasing the motion and alterations these sounds provide.
The second pad sound is lighter and nicely showcases the more ethereal side of the library. Here again, a combination of pads was used to add a subtle high-register texture.
Gravity 2 also contains some rhythmic beds that can be easily customized and combined:
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
The first example showcases a more organic rhythmic bed in the mid-high frequency range.
The second example represents the wide range of analog synth sounds Gravity 2 provides. As you can probably hear, creating suspenseful underscores and filling the low-end spectrum of your mix with these rumbling undercurrents is as easy as can be.
Gravity 2 contains dozens of exciting transitions and riser sound effects. The following two short examples contain a few of my favorite ones:
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
The tonal range of Gravity 2’s transitions goes from suspenseful to downright unsettling. Adjusting the length of transitions and risers is easy since they are perfectly tempo-synced to your host tempo. By default, most transitions play over a duration of two bars. By using the “Tempo-Sync” slider, however, you can halve or double the playback speed of your chosen sound.
Some of the risers have a cool, stuttery effect applied to them, which adds a nice sense of drive and excitement when layered with other sounds.
Just like the original Gravity, Gravity 2 packs a punch when it comes to massive and impactful hits! In this example, I combined Gravity 2’s powerful impacts with some rhythmic beds.
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
With a combination of just a few sounds, you can create compelling action cues in literally no time. Thanks to the high quality of the sound sources and the easy workflow provided by the instrument’s smart sound engine, customizing pre-designed sounds is great fun.
The selection of hits and impact sounds in Gravity 2 is very generous and covers a nice tonal spectrum ranging from organic to synthetic. Each impact sound consists of three layers: a sub layer, mid layer, and tail layer. In addition to playing back pre-mixed, three-layer impacts, you can also select any of the three layers of an impact sound on its own. This allows users to create their very own impacts from different combinations of sub, mid, and tail layers. By the way, the sub-layers on their own make for huge sounding boom sounds, and the tail layers can be used on their own to create interesting accents.
This great selection of sounds is made even better by the wealth of sound-shaping options offered in the user interface. Although all the functions are easy to grasp, there are so many options available that would recommend any new user to check out Heavyocity’s to-the-point Gravity 2 Quickstart guide.
CONCLUSION
With Gravity 2, Heavyocity is back with another hugely ambitious library. The sounds on offer are relevant for today’s landscape of film scoring and will make a perfect fit for any trailer and hard-hitting action cue. The presets that are included serve as great cue starters and help to quickly spark inspiration when creativity is letting you down.
Besides presenting one of the most appealing GUIs of recent years, Gravity 2’s sound engine is CPU-efficient and allows for highly detailed sound-shaping and -processing. With an introductory price of $349 (regular $449), Gravity 2 stands towards the high end of the price spectrum. This is, however, in part compensated by the $50 crossgrade bonus given to the original Gravity owners.
In conclusion, while the Gravity 2 may present a higher-end price point, the investment is justified by the extensive collection of high-quality sounds, deep sound-shaping options, and the abundance of pre-designed patches. The product’s regular price of $449, although comparatively higher, reflects the value of the versatile and professionally crafted features it offers. For media composers seeking a comprehensive and top-tier sound design toolkit, Gravity 2 proves to be a worthy investment, providing a wealth of creative possibilities that can accelerate and enhance any musical composition.
Pros
Powerful sounds
Wide variety of sounds
Excellent sound shaping capabilities
NKS compatible with the free Kontakt player
Cons
The price point may deter some music producers just starting out
Gravity 2 is available as a download for an introductory price of $349 through the Heavyocity online shop (regular price: $499).
RECOMMENDED: 9/10
VIDEO WALKTHROUGH
By loading the video, you agree to YouTube's privacy policy. Learn more
Heavyocity just released Gravity 2, a follow-up to one of the company’s most successful products ever. Gravity, released back in 2015, quickly became a classic for film and media composers with its powerful and genre-defining hybrid cinematic sounds. Gravity 2 aims to reproduce this success with a fresh set of expertly crafted sound sources a brand-new audio engine and the trademark Heavyocity sound processing.
By loading the video, you agree to YouTube's privacy policy.
Learn more
Load video
OVERVIEW
Gravity 2 features 1,000 distinct sounds divided into five main categories: rhythmic pedals, textures, stings, transitions, and impacts. All these sounds have been sampled from very a diverse spectrum of instruments and objects ranging from analog synths over various string instruments to all sorts of junkyard metals. On top of that, the library ships with 600 ready-to-use presets, divided into several Snapshot categories. This represents an extremely generous selection of sounds for modern scoring and cinematic music.
The variety of sounds available in Gravity 2 covers a wide range of musical applications and the samples can be mixed, processed, and combined to create truly unique tracks. The sound processing part – a staple of Heavyocity’s sample libraries – is made remarkably easy thanks to the two included sound engines: the “Designer” and the “Menu” (and its “XL” version).
Gravity 2 is a NKS-compatible library made for the Native Instruments Kontakt 7 sampler. The library also runs in the free Kontakt 7 Player, making it widely and easily accessible to media composers of any level. Once downloaded and installed, Gravity 2 requires 10 GB of hard drive space.
INTERFACE
The sounds and patches of Gravity 2 are split among two sound engines, each one designed to support different workflows.
The first one, the “Designer” has a sleek-looking interface. It is based on the popular “central knob” approach and looks similar to Heavyocity’s other recent releases such as Damage 2. At the heart of the Designer is its three-channel layout, which allows users to combine three distinct sample sources in order to create complex, layered sounds. This is also very similar to what Heavyocity implemented in their orchestral Novo/Forzo/Vento series.
The Designer’s main interface has a clean and modern appearance. It primarily consists of the central knob and the three source slots. Underneath, you can find sliders for the envelope, tone, drive (saturation/distortion), motion, and space (delay/reverb) controls. The bottom of the interface contains buttons leading to the mixer, sequencer, performance, browser, and effect pages. Everything seems really well thought-out to fit on one page and be easily accessible, while still maintaining an extremely modern and high-definition look.
The second sound engine is the “Menu”. The Menu is the easiest way to access the 600 presets designed by the Heavyocity team. In the Menu engine, individual presets are directly mapped to MIDI keys: 36 for the Menu and 72 for the Menu XL version. Here again, all the sound-shaping controls found in the Designer are easily accessible. A dedicated sound browser can be used to change sounds and freely assign them to different keys on the keyboard.
THE SOUND OF GRAVITY 2
As expected from Heavyocity, Gravity 2 sound is outstanding. The sound sources were meticulously recorded to cover a wide variety of musical needs. Just like its predecessor, the sounds in Gravity 2 are massive and powerful, perfectly suited for scoring movies, trailers, and video games. From exciting transitions and massive impacts to ominous pads and suspenseful risers, Gravity 2 fully embodies the Heavyocity philosophy of sound design.
The following is a selection of some of our personal preset highlights and combinations. Apart from the effects available in the Gravity 2 engine, these sounds contain no out-of-the-box processing.
Let’s start with some pads!
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
Load content
In the first example, I am using a combination of different pads, showcasing the motion and alterations these sounds provide.
The second pad sound is lighter and nicely showcases the more ethereal side of the library. Here again, a combination of pads was used to add a subtle high-register texture.
Gravity 2 also contains some rhythmic beds that can be easily customized and combined:
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
Load content
The first example showcases a more organic rhythmic bed in the mid-high frequency range.
The second example represents the wide range of analog synth sounds Gravity 2 provides. As you can probably hear, creating suspenseful underscores and filling the low-end spectrum of your mix with these rumbling undercurrents is as easy as can be.
Gravity 2 contains dozens of exciting transitions and riser sound effects. The following two short examples contain a few of my favorite ones:
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
Load content
The tonal range of Gravity 2’s transitions goes from suspenseful to downright unsettling. Adjusting the length of transitions and risers is easy since they are perfectly tempo-synced to your host tempo. By default, most transitions play over a duration of two bars. By using the “Tempo-Sync” slider, however, you can halve or double the playback speed of your chosen sound.
Some of the risers have a cool, stuttery effect applied to them, which adds a nice sense of drive and excitement when layered with other sounds.
Just like the original Gravity, Gravity 2 packs a punch when it comes to massive and impactful hits! In this example, I combined Gravity 2’s powerful impacts with some rhythmic beds.
Click on the button to load the content from soundcloud.com.
Load content
With a combination of just a few sounds, you can create compelling action cues in literally no time. Thanks to the high quality of the sound sources and the easy workflow provided by the instrument’s smart sound engine, customizing pre-designed sounds is great fun.
The selection of hits and impact sounds in Gravity 2 is very generous and covers a nice tonal spectrum ranging from organic to synthetic. Each impact sound consists of three layers: a sub layer, mid layer, and tail layer. In addition to playing back pre-mixed, three-layer impacts, you can also select any of the three layers of an impact sound on its own. This allows users to create their very own impacts from different combinations of sub, mid, and tail layers. By the way, the sub-layers on their own make for huge sounding boom sounds, and the tail layers can be used on their own to create interesting accents.
This great selection of sounds is made even better by the wealth of sound-shaping options offered in the user interface. Although all the functions are easy to grasp, there are so many options available that would recommend any new user to check out Heavyocity’s to-the-point Gravity 2 Quickstart guide.
CONCLUSION
With Gravity 2, Heavyocity is back with another hugely ambitious library. The sounds on offer are relevant for today’s landscape of film scoring and will make a perfect fit for any trailer and hard-hitting action cue. The presets that are included serve as great cue starters and help to quickly spark inspiration when creativity is letting you down.
Besides presenting one of the most appealing GUIs of recent years, Gravity 2’s sound engine is CPU-efficient and allows for highly detailed sound-shaping and -processing. With an introductory price of $349 (regular $449), Gravity 2 stands towards the high end of the price spectrum. This is, however, in part compensated by the $50 crossgrade bonus given to the original Gravity owners.
In conclusion, while the Gravity 2 may present a higher-end price point, the investment is justified by the extensive collection of high-quality sounds, deep sound-shaping options, and the abundance of pre-designed patches. The product’s regular price of $449, although comparatively higher, reflects the value of the versatile and professionally crafted features it offers. For media composers seeking a comprehensive and top-tier sound design toolkit, Gravity 2 proves to be a worthy investment, providing a wealth of creative possibilities that can accelerate and enhance any musical composition.
Pros
Cons
Gravity 2 is available as a download for an introductory price of $349 through the Heavyocity online shop (regular price: $499).
RECOMMENDED: 9/10
VIDEO WALKTHROUGH
By loading the video, you agree to YouTube's privacy policy.
Learn more
Load video
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