Heavyocity · Review

Heavyocity NOVO Modern Strings Review

A full review of NOVO: what the String Designer engine does that a traditional library cannot, how good the acoustic samples actually are, and who should skip it.

Verdict

Buy it for hybrid, tension and horror work where strings need to sound processed rather than beautiful. Skip it if you want a lush Hollywood string sound, because NOVO is deliberately not that and never will be.

NOVO Modern Strings by Heavyocity

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An independent first look that plays through the traditional string patches, the String Designer and the Loop Designer. “First Look: Novo Modern Strings by Heavyocity” by Sample Library Review, on YouTube. Playing it loads the video from Google.

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01 Heavyocity

NOVO Modern Strings

Best for Hybrid Scoring

Tested in our studio

Buy it for the sound design engine, not for the strings, and it will save you hours of synth programming on a tension cue.

Tested score
6.5
out of 10

How it scored

  • Realism 6.8

    Aggressive and dry. The traditional sections are competent but limited.

  • Legato & Playability 6.5

    The interface takes real time before it plays back what you intended.

  • CPU & RAM Footprint 6.2

    38 GB, and the loop engine is not cheap once layered.

Why we picked it

Hybrid tension and horror scores. The sound design engine allows you to create terrifying swarms and drones that standard orchestras cannot match.

Who should skip it

You require a traditional, lush Hollywood string sound. The acoustic samples are aggressive and sharp, lacking the warmth needed for romance.

The good

  • Deep sound design engine
  • Massive loop library
  • Aggressive tone

The bad

  • Complex interface
  • Traditional strings are limited
  • Expensive
Size
38 GB
Engine
Kontakt Player 5.8+
Type
Hybrid String Engine
Price
$199
Why it scored that way

Strictly for the composers who want to sound like Hans Zimmer on a bad acid trip.

Heavyocity does not care about your Mozart mockups. NOVO is an instrument built for punishment and modern sound design. The traditional string sections are surprisingly competent-aggressive, biting, and dry-but the real value lies in the loop engine. You can mangle, filter, and gate these orchestral samples until they sound like a swarm of bees or a dying engine. I used the "String Designer" on a recent sci-fi thriller to create a bed of tension that sat under dialogue for three minutes, saving me hours of synth programming. It gives the orchestra a mechanical, industrial quality that suits modern, dystopian storytelling where beauty is secondary to impact.

It is undeniably heavy on the CPU, and the interface, which looks like a spaceship, can be a bit distracting when you just want to find a sound. However, for horror, suspense, or trailer music where "impact" is more important than "realism," it is a cheat code. I often layer the "Loop Designer" pulses under a real string section to give the orchestra a rhythmic, synthetic backbone that drives the track forward. It adds a momentum that static string samples often lack, pushing the cue with relentless energy.

Heard on
Horror Trailers Sci-Fi Games Industrial Scores
Check price $199 (was $549)

NOVO gets filed under strings, which sets the wrong expectation. Judged as a traditional orchestral library it looks flawed. Judged as what it is, a sound design instrument built on string recordings, it does things nothing else does.

The String Designer engine is the product

The loop engine lets you mangle, filter and gate orchestral samples until they read as a swarm, a dying engine, or something with no acoustic referent at all. Blending organic violin samples with internal granular synthesis produces textures that are genuinely specific to a project rather than recognisable from a preset library.

For a tension bed running under dialogue, that engine replaces hours of synth programming. That is the practical case for owning it.

Macro control is the underrated part

Mapping grit and distortion across the whole section to a single control changes how you write with it. You stop treating processing as a post-hoc decision and start performing it, which is a different relationship with the instrument.

The acoustic samples

Better than the marketing suggests. Aggressive, biting and dry, and perfectly usable when that is the character you want.

They are not warm. There is no romance in them. If your cue needs strings that swell and breathe, NOVO will fight you the entire way, and no amount of processing turns dry and aggressive into lush.

Who it is actually for

Trailer composers, hybrid scorers, and anyone writing modern dystopian material where the orchestra should sound mechanical and industrial. It fills a stereo field instantly, which matters when a cue needs weight fast.

It is not a first string library. It works best as the aggressive counterpart to something traditional, which is how most people who own it use it.

If you want a classic Hollywood sound, buy Cinematic Studio Strings instead and come back to NOVO later.

See how it compares

The Best Cinematic String Libraries for 2026
Louis Raveton
Written By

Louis Raveton

Louis works across immersive scores (Venice Biennale, LVMH) and animation (Canal+), while producing Downtempo and Electro-Dub as Monsieur Shwill and Flagada. He treats his sample drive like a record collection, constantly hunting for the perfect 'imperfect' texture

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