UNCHARTED 88 By Heavyocity
KK-Access Review
In this their first major release of 2023, Heavyocity rewind back to their grass roots for an in depth dissection of their Damage Piano, here we join them in lifting the lid to discover those classic 88 keys as you have never heard them before.
Damage Untold
In the original Damage library, Heavyocity quite literally threw almost everything but the kitchen sink into creating a unique and undoubtedly genre forging hard hitting drum and percussion library.
In fact the kitchen sink may well have been buried in there somewhere alongside the exploding cars, pounding on dumpsters, clashing metals and other assorted general dystopian carnage & mayhem.
Also present, was a piano, but not by any means an ordinary piano, whose delicate melodies can invoke romance, relaxation and the other pleasantries of human emotion.
In stark contrast this particular piano was smashed, bashed, abused and mistreated all in the name of delivering atonal discord, something that works tremendously well when it comes to scoring trailers and delivering those vital onscreen jump scares to the masses.
Uncharted Territory
The Heavyocity team have now painstakingly exhumed the shattered remains of this distant departed piano and carried out a retrospective and highly detailed post mortem on those original samples, finally reassembling them and once again breathing new life into this long dead and one time melodic beast.
Tech Specs
UNCHARTED 88 runs in either the full version of Kontakt 6.7 and above, or the equivalent free Kontakt player, and is NKS & Komplete Kontrol compatible.
The library will require 11 GB of installation space in it’s compressed NCW sample format.
There are three master Kontakt NKI files which reflect the Uncharted 88’s main categories, with a further 92 NKSN snapshot presets.
Download & Installation
Download is delivered via the Heavyocity portal or directly via Native Access (TBC), in either case Uncharted 88 will need your provided license key to be registered in Native Access prior to use, after which a speedy re scan of Komplete Kontrol will have you ready to indulge yourself in some rhythmic mayhem.
<pre class="wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code"><br /><br /><strong> Komplete Kontrol NKS Parameter Mapping</strong></pre>
UNCHARTED 88 has three separate sections for it’s presets, so we have included descriptions for each of these, with abbreviations where controls have otherwise been duplicated within the mapping template.
Ensemble Designer
Page One – Mixer
Knob 1 – Close
Knob 2 – Overhead
Knob 3 – Room
Knob 4 – Hall
Knob 5 – LFE
Knob 6 to 8 – Unallocated
Page Two – Punish & Filter
Knob 1 – Punish On/Off
Knob 2 – Amount
Knob 3 – Response
Knob 4 – Tone
Knob 5 – Filter On/Off
Knob 6 – Cut-off
Knob 7 – Resonance
Knob 8 – Unallocated
Page Three – EQ
Knob 1 – EQ On/Off
Knob 2 – Low Gain
Knob 3 – Low Frequency
Knob 4 – Mid Gain
Knob 5 – Mid Gain
Knob 6 – Mid Frequency
Knob 7 – High Frequency
Knob 8 – Amount
Page Four – Compressor
Knob 1 – Compressor On/Off
Knob 2 – Threshold
Knob 3 – Ratio
Knob 4 – Attack
Knob 5 – Release
Knob 6 – Make up
Knob 7 – Mix
Knob 8 – Unallocated
Page Five – Saturator
Knob 1 – Saturator On/Off
Knob 2 – Drive
Knob 3 – Warmth
Knob 4 – Roll Off
Knob 5 – Output
Knob 6 to 8 – Unallocated
Page Six – Delay
Knob 1 – Delay On/Off
Knob 2 – Time
Knob 3 – Feedback
Knob 4 – Tone
Knob 5 – Quality
Knob 6 – Level
Knob 7 & 8 – Unallocated
Page Seven – Reverb
Knob 1 – Reverb On/Off
Knob 2 – Pre-Delay
Knob 3 – Size
Knob 4 – Low
Knob 5 – High
Knob 6 – Mix
Knob 7 & 8 – Unallocated
Kit Designer
Page One – Mixer
Knob 1 to 8- Channel 1to 8 Volume
Page Two – Mixer Page 2
Knob 1 to 8 – Channel 9 to 16 Volume
Page Three to Eight (As per Ensemble Designer)
Loop Designer
Page One – Send FX & Send FX Modulation
Knob 1 – Send FX On/Off
Knob 2 – Level
Knob 3 & 4 – Unallocated
Knob 5 – Send Modulation On/Off
Knob 6 – Amount
Knob 7 – Smooth
Knob 8 – Unallocated
Page Two to Seven (As per Ensemble Designer)
Accessibility
UNCHARTED 88 essentially uses the same Kontakt engine design as Damage 2, so owners of this library will immediately find themselves on familiar territory.
This also reflects on the NKS parameter mapping, which as we mentioned in our Damage 2 review does have some shortfalls for blind & visually impaired customers reliant on the NKS mapping for access.
As an example, The panning of each of the 16 available sound channels found in the kit designer presets remain unmapped for the NKS template, yet is available to automation in Kontakt outside of the KK environment.
The mapping of close, overhead, room & hall microphones is welcome on the mixer page, however, ADSR, sample offset, sample selection, reverse, sync rate and other such goodies unfortunately continue to remain out of reach for us via the NKS system.
Deconstruction, Reconstruction
With UNCHARTED 88, Heavyocity have concentrated on sampling the inner components of the grand piano, namely the Strings, Iron & Wood, meticulously crafting the results into a powerful percussion rather than melodic instrument.
The core piano components were struck using hammers, rocket rods, coins & picks, to coax out a wide range of dynamically contrasting sounds, from the delicate string plucks and picks, to violently bashed wood and metalwork.
As we previously mentioned, UNCHARTED 88 is divided into three sections, The Ensemble Designer, The Kit Designer & The Loop Designer.
The names pretty much speak for themselves, and each offers a selection of associated presets that serve to demonstrate the sonic potential of the library.
The Ensemble Designer
The Ensemble Designer has 4 sub sections for it’s presets.
Allstars combine the 3 main available sample elements into some useful combination patches.
Wood Strikes, isolate and use the wood based sounds, whilst Iron Strikes & Steel Strikes will naturally concentrate themselves with those separate elements.
Here there are such notables as Mod Wheel Jammer , which has a constant 16th note being triggered at various points across the keyboard, with shorter note interventions assigned in between using a variety of the sample elements. As the preset title suggests volume is assigned to the Mod Wheel which enables you to ramp up the tension as required, this would work well for those chase sequences.
A preset called ‘The Last of Us ‘ dials up the destruction considerably with some impressively long reverb tails, where all of the main components unite in a multisound patch which features individual sample combos assigned to their own keys.
This preset invokes the sound of a piano falling down a mineshaft’ (cue the old A flat minor joke!), to perhaps the sound of a distant crashing jetliner, I am sure there will be a suitably justifiable use case out there!
Finally among the collection of presets in this section, there are a couple of reverse and transition presets, which offer 4, 2, and 1 beat tempo synced timings which are always great utility patches to have included in a library like this.
The Kit Designer
The kit presets offer up a selection of reconfigured kits using UNCHARTED 88 samples from the available categories into what you could deem as a more traditional drum kit layout.
Here, there are 16 individual sounds assigned across an octave or so, and kits are appropriately placed in such a way that reflects their natural pitch and timbre, low woods as a kick drum, metallic hits as a snare, string plucks & scrapes as hi-hats, you get the idea.
The Loop Designer
As always with a Heavyocity product, the loops are often the pièce de résistance of the library, and UNCHARTED 88 is no exception.
There are a reasonable number of loops and associated breakouts offered in straight & triple time meters, as well as low, medium & high pitched rhythms which can be mixed and matched.
Although key switches are absent elsewhere within the library, here they are present and put to good and practical use offering the user an instant glitchy stutter effect in a variety of timings up to 64 notes, a handy inclusion that avoids the need to add an outside effect, or worse still, manual editing.
<pre class="wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code"><br /><br /><strong>UNCHARTED Sounds</strong></pre>
Heavyocity have done a fine job in resurrecting and redefining the dark magic of that original Damage ‘Broken Piano’ kit in this highly focused library.
Having been missing in Damage 2, it’s nice to see this old friend being treated to a party in it’s own personal honour.
The sounds are pristine, punchy and attention grabbing, with the availability of the mixable microphones meaning that you can pull the tone back from being solely a horror jumpscare trope, to something a little more subtle and distance related, which can be useful when scoring to picture.
The presets are as always well polished and pretty much mix ready, in as much as you would be unlikely to want to change, or make them sound better than they already do right out of the box.
It would have been nice to perhaps have had another 50 presets included in the library to extend the value for us blind users who are not able to create our own using the traditional mouse driven G|UI.
Conclusion
UNCHARTED 88 will be a welcome addition for Damage and Damage 2 owners seeking to extend and add some fresh perspectives to their compositional toolkit.
The overall vibe and sound might not be entirely original or unique within the realms of the Heavyocity universe, however, UNCHARTED 88 certainly does offer users yet another enticing slice of darkness from their bold and striking hallmark sound design style that continually keep creative media composers coming back for more.
UNCHARTED 88 by Heavyocity is available from their website for $149 USD
Limited-Time UNCHARTED 88 Offer – $119 USD
Offer Ends: March 3, 2023
UNCHARTED 88 Product Page:
http://www.Heavyocity.com/UNCHARTED-88
UNCHARTED 88 Preset Play Through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By51rgo1X1M
UNCHARTED 88 In Action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqCLmM5F2yg
UNCHARTED 88 User Manual:
https://heavyocity.com/Downloads/Uncharted88_Manual.pdf
c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
21st February 2023
Disclaimer
The author can not accept any responsibility for subsequent purchase decisions made as a result of this review,or Any inaccuracies found therein. All opinions and product functions stated are based solely on information perceived as a blind user whilst using the product and/or gathered from official factual sources such as the developer, web or supplied product manual.
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 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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