Heavyocity Aeon Collection Review

With moody cinematic libraries in abundance, Liam O’Mullane tests Heavyocity’s latest release, listening for something unique in this AEON review Details Price $399 Contact info@heavyocity.com Web www.heavyocity.com Amazon.co.uk Widgets Running in Kontakt 5 or the free Kontakt 5 Player, this collection combines Heavyocity’s AEON Melodic and AEON Rhythmic libraries at a lower overall price. Aimed at the cinematic […]

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With moody cinematic libraries in abundance, Liam O’Mullane tests Heavyocity’s latest release, listening for something unique in this AEON review

Details
Price $399
Contact info@heavyocity.com
Web www.heavyocity.com

Running in Kontakt 5 or the free Kontakt 5 Player, this collection combines Heavyocity’s AEON Melodic and AEON Rhythmic libraries at a lower overall price. Aimed at the cinematic and soundscape worlds, both libraries offer a good range of deep, rich and hard-to-describe sonic textures. They are said to stem from organic, unique and analogue sound sources, but are mixed and layered in such a way that you’ll sometimes struggle to identify what they are. But that isn’t the point: it’s more that the best of many worlds is mixed together to create presets that are sonically rich and interesting.

Rhythm King
Although the Rhythmic library is loop-based, the loops carry a lot of musical and melodic information, so don’t expect a drum machine here. There’s a huge selection to work with and you can manipulate them after choosing from three types of preset. A Suite preset lays out many loops across the keyboard, one key per loop. The loops’ playback pitch can be globally controlled by keys in the lower octaves, and their running order goes from dark timbres to the left, through to brighter tones to the right.

The next type of preset is a Three Loop Combo, which spreads three loops across the bulk of the keys, giving each loop just under two octaves of pitch control. Finally, Single Loop presets offer the most variety by focusing on one loop with normal playback plus individual slices. These can be reprogrammed or you can use just snippets of the sounds.

Across the presets, a few of the highest keys are reserved for punching-in instrument FX, comprising distortion, lo-fi, filter, panner, pitch mod and a gated effect, giving you more options to tailor the sounds to your needs.

Common Ground
When it comes to further editing, both libraries take a similar approach, but there are a few unique differences. Both feature ADSR amp controls for sound-shaping and the Melodic presets come with up to three layers, so there’s three of these to explore.

Alongside the punch-in effects already mentioned, Twist and Punish dials offer further processing opportunities. These are a modulatable tone control and compression/saturation knob respectively – good for either fine-tuning the sound in the mix or pushing hard for completely new tones. Master effects include reverb, delay, distortion and modulation, which is a mix of chorus and phaser – again, handy for mix work.

Verdict

+ Rich, deep and varied sounds
+ Easy key-mapping
+ Useful punch-in effects
+ Well laid-out interface
– AEON Rhythmic’s vast range of sounds can be hard to navigate

A large and diverse range of deep sounds that would complement a range of production styles.

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