PSYCHOSIS BY HEAVYOCITY
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
Dead on cue as always, Heavyocity return with their latest library that is unashamedly targeted toward the horror scoring market, which is perfect timing for this Halloween season!
Psychosis successfully encapsulates into one library the kind of darker sounds that Heavyocity have always excelled at. Having set the bar for this genre higher than the competition long ago, and they still I think arguably lead the way in this genre.
Psychosis is quite literally packed from the cellar to the attic with creepy atmospheric instruments, stings, jump scares, instant cues, rhythmic oddities, and spooky textures, that are sure to embellish any projects that demand any sort of unearthly, eerie, or other such unsettling material!
TECH SPECS
Psychosis runs in Kontakt 7.10.9 or higher, either the full version or the free Kontakt Player edition.
It is compatible with all versions of Komplete Kontrol that host the above Kontakt specifications.
For installation the library requires 6.74GB of disk space, and uses the NI lossless compression format for the 720 sources in its sample pool.
There are two master Kontakt NKI preset files, one for the Psychosis Designer, the other for the Psychosis Menu sounds.
These two master NKI presets then boast a further 332 Kontakt NKSN snapshot preset derivatives, comprised of 160 Designer snapshots, and 172 Menu snapshots.
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
Psychosis requires its initial downloading via the Heavyocity Portal, which in terms of accessibility does have some unlabelled buttons, however once familiar it is certainly possible to download your library without the need for any sighted assistance.
After downloading, you can move the entire un archived Psychosis library folder to your preferred location, and then use the same serial number within Native access to authorise it into the NI eco system.
Lastly, adding the product by browsing to it’s path in Native Access on your system will finalise the process.
This all done, you can then load up either Kontakt or Komplete Kontrol where Psychosis will be added to your browser. Now it’s all ready for you to go trick or treating, and I would suggest that you are certainly in for a treat!
FULL KOMPLETE KONTROL NKS PARAMETER MAPPINGS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE END OF THIS REVIEW FOLLOWING THE MEDIA SECTION
ACCESSIBILITY
In previous reviews We have long established that there are some advanced elements of Heavyocity products that are not fully accessible either directly via NKS, or screen readers in general.
Here we refer mostly to the user interface sample browser, macro sequencer, ADSR, dropdown menues and buttons.
However, despite this, there is still an acceptable level of consistent access that can be achieved by blind & visually impaired Komplete Kontrol users, helped along in this case with a generous collection of included presets.
For example, Presets have macros pre-assigned, the mixer channels have volume and pan and even tune controls if using the Kontrol MK3 with extended NKS mapping. Punish & Filter, Delay, Compressor, Equalisation, & Reverb, can all be commonly found across the NKS template.
THE PSYCHOSIS ENGINE
The library is divided into two distinct sections which are reflected in the naming of the two master Kontakt NKI presets.
The Psychosis Designer is where you would typically go to create your own ground up patches, or (more likely for us), alternatively tweak and edit existing presets.
In contrast, the master Menu preset serves as the driver for the many multi faceted sound design content, such as cues, rhythms, and other such dark delights.
PSYCHOSIS DESIGNER
The Psychosis Designer NKS controls will give you the pre-defined macros, mixer controls for the 3 available sound channels, Punish & Filter, Equalisation for Low, Mid, & High, Compressor, Modulation, Delay, & Reverb.
For the purposes of my reviews, I am using a Kontrol MK3 keyboard here, which gives me the option with NKS 2 libraries, to switch to the ‘Classic View’, which is what you will find on older hardware such as the MK2, A-Series, & M32 Komplete Kontrol keyboards.
I can also change to an NKS extended parameter view, which in theory at least should auto map all of the available host automation parameters found in the NKI or NKSN preset to knobs and pages on the hardware.
Where this extended view did give me extra controls such as the per channel tuning and Pan control found in the mixer section, it did strangely omit the random, Drift, Scatter, & X. Y controls I had seen in the same section in the Classic Mode.
This I would theorise is more a quirk of Komplete Kontrol software, rather than anything directly attributable to Heavyocity KSP scripting, and as an alternate solution most DAW’s will also offer the ability to see a list of all host automation parameters, and instead allow the user to adjust them manually using a standard computer keyboard.
PSYCHOSIS MENU
The Psychosis Menu presets do have comparable NKS mappings, with the exception of the 3 channel mixer, so directly via NKS at least it will not be possible to adjust the individual sample channel elements that have been used to construct a sample or preset.
We will explore the various categories and presets in the next section, but in summary the Psychosis Designer provides the most flexibility in terms of user sound design, allowing you to mute or solo individual channels, add to this the Pan and Tuning together with the included effects and we have a reasonable degree of personalisation at our fingertips.
The Psychosis Menu presets will offer the biggest amount of variety with Rhythmic Pedals, and lots of presets that are packed with individual sounds assigned across your keyboard, and also some fantastic textures and instant atmospheric scene environments.
I did also manage to gain access to a useful feature that is not mapped through NKS, which can greatly expand the sound options for those singular palette type presets, more of which a little later.
PSYCHOSIS – LIFTING THE LID
Beyond the product name, we have the available banks that are attributable to the various Psychosis presets,some of which also have further sub banks which I will list below underneath each main bank with a * to denote them:
Cue Creators
Creative Combos
Menus
Rhythmic Pedals
*Atonal, Tonal
Sustains & Textures
*Eerie, Festering, Frantic, Unnerving
Keys & Plucks
Single Sources
*Keys, Plucks, Tonal Instruments, Eclectic Instruments, Atonal Sustains, Textures, Straight Tonal Pedals, Triplet Tonal Pedals
This detailed tagging does prove very useful within the Komplete Kontrol browser for filtering down the vast Psychosis content when you are searching for something more specific.
As we mentioned in the specifications section, there are some 720 sample sources within the library. Combinations of up to 3 are typically used in the sound design process, and there are also single instruments such as Piano, toy Piano, Music Box, Koto, sarangi, rubab, Jawbone Harp, and a plethora of effect and percussive sources such as Gong and Thunder Sheet, although for such a library, there was no obvious sign of any bells of doom!
There are a couple of ways of approaching a review such as this, either to look at the individual bank categories, or simply start with all of the filters off and work my way through them.
I decided upon the latter, adding different presets as favourites during the course of the journey, needless to say there ended up being quite a few of these!
Let’s take a little trip through a few of those favourited choices…
Cello Whales
This is a randomly scraped & bowed Cello pitched across the keyboard, at the higher end of the pitch range it has it’s uses for those post jump scare aftershocks, but I really like the low end where it could be used as an eerie tension builder.
Chamber Eights
Psychosis is not all about instant jumps and scares, this preset from the Straight Tonal Pedals section gives you a 2 bar rhythmic staccato string section with a plucked overtone, this is great for tension building or chase sequences, it has an accent on the fifth and eighth notes on alternate bars, and there are also a couple of preset variants and triplet versions.
Contagion Breakout
I chose this preset as a triplet version from the tonal rhythmic pedals section as a good example of how a single preset can be modified to become something much different from it’s original.
By default it consists of 3 layers, the first 2 are a Cello and Cello Pluck pattern, the third channel has a Woody Tonal drum on beat 1, with a lo-fi noise burst and a background haunting drone sound, by muting channels 1 & 2, the persona of the preset takes a different direction, and you can then go on to adjust Tuning, Punish, Reverb or Delay etc to develop things even further.
Did You Hear That?
Long sustained bending notes, cool in isolation with a touch of additional reverb!
Psychosis Symphonica
This patch was among one of my favourite playable presets, it is a beautiful yet somewhat maudlin strings type pad, with just the right amount of pitch drift and detune, constructed from 3 different sample sources, (which can be mixed and tweaked), it can be sad, tense, foreboding, and suspenseful all at once, you can’t often say that about too many presets!
MENU PRESETS
The Menu category presets have individual samples spread across a 72 note range on your keyboard.
These are really helpful if you happen to be working to picture, and can be used during a spotting session to tryout different sounds and hit your cues quickly
Here by the way is that little trick I discovered, imagine the situation, you come across that wonderful sound that you want to use, but discover that it does not quite have the right pitch.
There is a control in the GUI that enables a single sound to get assigned across your whole keyboard,in what is otherwise a generally inaccessible interface.
I brought up the plug-in window, and dropped down into the interface, performed an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) scan, and arrowed down through the parameters that it announced.
I found the ‘Expand to Keys’ setting and hit enter, and Voila! it took an individual sound from the palette, and spread it right across my keyboard.
Hitting enter on my computer keyboard again returned me to the full set of sounds, enabling me to make another choice if necessary, provided I retained that original computer keyboard focus within the interface.
This feature is well documented in the manual, and no big deal of course for sighted users who can simply mouse click on the button. This option does extend the possibilities of the library, allowing us to both transpose & transform any of the single sounds from these fantastic menu presets.
It would certainly be helpful if this button could ultimately be mapped to a knob or keyswitch in the future though.
Using this technique on the ‘Instrument Stings’ preset really breathed extra life into what was already a great collection of sounds including tortured celli, creepy breaths, de tuned pianos, creaks, metals & plucks!
There is also a couple of octaves of keyswitches which will also allow you to tune these sounds, but for a greater pitch extension, try the method above.
There are some other wonderful Menu presets in this section such as Apparitions & Jump scares,Scoring Palette 1& 2, Cymbals & Metals, Strings & Piano Stings (including some very Psycho inspired stabs), & Transitions, to name just a few.
HITTING THE BEAT!
While Psychosis does not possess a dedicated adaptive sync feature, there are a number of presets included which have been specifically designed to fit into a selection of beat lengths, so it is possible to sync a sound to start and end within a desired time span.
This technique is of course invaluable for hitting cues, either within a musical composition, or as a tonal or atonal sound effect in a film soundtrack.
I am digressing slightly here, but In the latter scenario where you would not ordinarily be using bars & beats but times & frames instead, one option can be to freeze the track to audio, then trim the start and finish of your sound, and then manually place it accordingly as an audio clip onto your timeline in order to achieve the desired outcome, commonly these might be a sting, riser or fall.
PSYCHOSIS – PEDAL POWER
I always feel that One of the strenths of any Heavyocity library has long since been the pre-constructed Patterns, Pedals, & Loops, finding them to be really useful inspiration for creating motion within a track.
here the sound design proves to be both innovative and contemporary, they can be melodic, rhythmic, or a combination of them both, and it is often worthwhile experimenting with them to personalise them to taste.
When applied judiciously they can form the driving force of a composition, or simply provide an animated bed or which to hang your other tracks.
THE SOUND OF PSYCHOSIS
Psychosis as you would expect possesses the long established Heavyocity signature sound throughout the darkness of its many corridors. You can clearly hear the pedigree of its ancestors baked into the DNA, with the influential footprints of such Heavyocity classics as Damage, Gravity, and even Aeon & Evolve providing those distinguished trace elements that will not disappoint any seasoned Heavyocity composer.
The sample quality, sound design, and product interaction remain as consummate and trustworthy as ever.
Do ensure you checkout the Heavyocity links in the media section to hear the preset and walkthroughs for Psychosis. For further endorsement there are also plenty of credible reviewers and film composers talking about this one!
CONCLUSION
Psychosis is a library that shows Heavyocity at its best, highly polished, contemporary, and mix ready.
Naturally the subject matter will not be for every composer, but if you score any form of media in the horror, supernatural, psychological thriller, and dark drama style, or just happen to love the sounds of this particular genre, then Psychosis is likely to be your new go to in this field.
The accessibility remains static yet reliable, so in this respect existing Heavyocity product owners will already know the limitations and be aware of how to coax the best usage from this and other libraries in their portfolio.
Psychosis can be purchased directly from the Heavyocity website, For a limited time, Heavyocity is offering Psychosis for $329 (reg. $399). In addition, registered owners of Damage 2, Symphonic Destruction, Gravity, or Gravity 2 will get an additional $50 off. Offers end November 4, 2026.
Psychosis – Product Page:
Psychosis – Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI9OWjUWCw
Psychosis – Preset Playthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6214sy5qFw
Psychosis – behind the Scenes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_NcGxV3r6g
Psychosis – User Manual:
https://tinyurl.com/bdhjzek9
KOMPLETE KONTROL NKS PARAMETER MAPPINGS
PSYCHOSIS DESIGNER – CLASSIC VIEW
Page One – Macro Controls
Knob 1 – Macro Amount
Knob 2 – Modulation On/Off
Knob 3 – Modulation Amount
Knob 4 – Envelope
Knob 5 – Tone
Knob 6 – Drive
Knob 7 – Motion
Knob 8 – Space
Page Two – Macros Continued
Knob 1 – LFO On/Off
Knob 2 – LFO Rate (Beat Values)
Knob 3 – LFO Spread
Knob 4 – LFO Envelope
Knob 5 – LFO Tone
Knob 6 – LFO Drive
Knob 7 – LFO Motion
Knob 8 – LFO Space
Page Three – Mixer
Knob 1 – Random On/Off
Knob 2 – Drift
Knob 3 – Scatter
Knob 4 – Channel 1 Volume
Knob 5 – Channel 2 Volume
Knob 6 – Channel 3 Volume
Knob 7 – X Control
Knob 8 – Y Control
Page Four – Punish & Filter
Knob 1 – Punish On/Off
Knob 2 – Punish Amount
Knob 3 – Punish Bass
Knob 4 – Punish Response
Knob 5 – Punish Tone
Knob 6 – Filter On/Off
Knob 7 – Filter Cut-Off
Knob 8 – Filter Resonance
Page Five – EQ
Knob 1 – EQ On/Off
Knob 2 – EQ Amount
Knob 3 – EQ Low Gain
Knob 4 – EQ Low Frequency
Knob 5 – EQ Mid Gain
Knob 6 – EQ Mid Frequency
Knob 7 – EQ High Gain
Knob 8 – EQ High Frequency
Page Six – Compressor
Knob 1 – Compressor On/Off
Knob 2 – Compressor Threshold
Knob 3 – Compressor Ratio
Knob 4 – Compressor Attack
Knob 5 – Compressor Release
Knob 6 – Compressor Make Up
Knob 7 – Compressor Mix
Knob 8 – Unassigned
Page Seven – Modulation
Knob 1 – Modulation On/Off
Knob 2 – Modulation Rate
Knob 3 – Modulation Amount
Knob 4 – Modulation Feedback
Knob 5 – Modulation Width
Knob 6 – Modulation Mix
Knob 7 & 8 – Unassigned
Page Eight – Delay
Knob 1 – Delay On/Off
Knob 2 – Delay Time (In Beat Values)
Knob 3 – Delay Feedback
Knob 4 – Delay Detune
Knob 5 – Delay Width
Knob 6 – Delay Level
Knob 7 & 8 – Unassigned
Page Nine – Reverb
Knob 1 – Reverb On/Off
Knob 2 – Reverb Pre-Delay
Knob 3 – Reverb Size
Knob 4 – Reverb Damp
Knob 5 – Reverb Modulation
Knob 6 – Reverb Mix
Knob 7 & 8 – Unassigned
PSYCHOSIS – MENUS NKS
As per Psychosis Designer mappings excluding the mixer page
Kontrol MK3 NKS Extended View
Psychosis Designer: Mixer page adds Pan & Tune controls per Channel (however omits Randomise, Drift, Scatter, & the X, Y Controls)
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
28th October 2026
NO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAS BEEN USED IN THE WRITING OF THIS REVIEW, ASIDE FROM POSSIBLE INTERNET RESEARCH, OUR WORDS WILL ALWAYS REMAIN 100% HUMAN!
KK-ACCESS – Our NON PEER PROFIT POLICY
KK-Access believe in integrity, and out of mutual respect for our blind & visually impaired readers we feel that we should not make profit from our peers.
Our product reviews always strive to be honest and unbiased, this is achieved because none of our opinions are influenced by financial gain or other incentives from a plug-in or sample library developer for which a review of their wares may be a subject matter.
Whilst such offers are appreciated, we do not publish or use affiliation links for any products under review on this website.
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 the 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.
E&OE
