Heavyocity Damage Guitars 2 & Damage Rock Grooves 2

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars

I suspect many heavy rock and metal fans will have enjoyed Heavyocity’s Damage Guitars library (reviewed in SOS December 2023). Happy to say there’s a sequel: Damage Guitars 2 continues the metal mayhem with a collection of leads, riffs, grooves, motifs, shredding licks and a host of extras, enabling you to (cough) “channel your inner metal god”. The library is 7.95GB installed and runs on full Kontakt and Kontakt Player 7.10.5 or later.

Heavyocity’s Neil Goldberg returns to perform the samples on a tasty collection of era‑spanning six‑string guitars. The library features three distinct tone flavours: ‘Metal’ and ‘Damaged’ are aggressively modern, while the classic ‘Hard Rock’ was created with Marshall and Victory Amps Duchess tube amps. A variety of overdrive and effects pedals were also employed.

The cornerstone of the library is a total of 432 tempo‑sync’ed guitar riffs with matching bass lines, all played in the keys of D, F# and A in the 85‑115 bpm range. Each tone flavour provides 24 guitar and bass riffs in all three keys, with keyswitches available to change their central pitch. In addition, 36 motif loops in each key function as melodic ostinato phrases.

Immaculately played and brimming with aggression, the riffs encompass chugging eighth‑note grooves, furious 16th‑note repetitions, syncopated staccato rhythms, doom‑laden bass lines, low‑lying melodic patterns and simple chord movements. The motifs are generally more tuneful, with occasional forays into Black Sabbath‑style heaviness. Taken together, these performances show great musical imagination while remaining essentially supportive, an admirable achievement.

The perfect modern lead guitarist resident on your hard drive, available 24/7 with no outlandish rider demands.

For hot melodic action you can choose from 648 tempo‑sync’ed guitar leads and licks (216 in each key, 72 per tone type). Mr Goldberg dispatches these with enormous flair and commitment, employing bends, heavy vibrato, Van Halen‑esque squealing pinch harmonics and exciting flashes of virtuosity — the perfect modern lead guitarist resident on your hard drive, available 24/7 with no outlandish rider demands.

You can construct convincing guitar solos simply by stringing the licks together, or create your own rocktastic performances with guitar and bass sustains, distorted EBow long notes, bends (three types), feedback, major, minor and bar chords, single‑note and fifths chugs and trills (which sound amazing when played chordally!) 16th‑note runs, divebombs, scrapes and dead strokes. Guitar and bass slides are also supplied in all three keys.

As in the original library, the Designer instrument transforms the raw samples into lush, layered cinematic textures, viciously syncopated rhythmic sequences and epic end‑of the‑world soundscapes. I particularly enjoyed the wonderful floating ‘Six String Cloudscapes’ pad.

In another welcome return, the affordable Damage Rock Grooves 2 contains a collection of beats written specifically for Damage Guitars 2. Based on the Damage drum kit, it mirrors the guitar riff bank names, making it easy to pair grooves with corresponding riffs. Let’s rock!