The Crow Hill Company Introduces POCKET STRING no-barrier-to-entry-styled string library plug-in

video upload by CROW HILL XTRAS

Press release follows:

"The Crow Hill Company creates POCKET STRINGS as no-barrier-to-entry-styled string library plug-in produced without compromise… with added ‘synthy spice’

EDINBURGH, UK: having recently rebranded itself with an aesthetic that truly realises company co-founder and composer Christian Henson’s heartfelt dream of encouraging people to make music and help them on their journey, regardless of whatever point they were at and wherever their journey began, The Crow Hill Company continues its journeying into ‘Season Two’ as a producer of resources and tools to protect, inspire, support, and provide opportunities for music-makers the world over, believing that music is, and should remain, a wholly human experience, one that is by far one of the most powerful forms of expression, escape, comfort, and remembrance, of which its newly-created POCKET STRINGS — styled as a definitive string library plug-in that opens the doors to collaboration between anyone anywhere, creatively combining live cinematic orchestral recordings with some rarefied vintage synth classics made to measure for added body, depth, and character — readily represents the cornerstone of this ethos, as of July 10…

“A string library that’s accessible to all without compromise — a distillation of the last 25, nearly 30, years that I’ve been working as a media composer, which means that I write music for film, TV, and computer games, giving you the very basic necessities to write pro-end string arrangements. Whether that be adding to productions, songs, collaborating with others, or, indeed, creating professional film scores — whether that be to demo for an orchestra to play, or, indeed, to go to broadcast, there’s been no compromises here. But accessibility is the key — not just with the price point, but with usability.” So says Christian Henson himself, perfectly positioned — as The Crow Hill Company’s original founder, forging forward by building upon his extensive experience gained from founding Spitfire Audio to originally offer a palette of sounds he had created for his own use as a professional composer to his film world colleagues by invitation only, though the rest, as they say, is history — to proudly introduce POCKET STRINGS as a never-tried-before strings library plug-in that aims to bring broadcast-grade string possibilities to everyone.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, deep pockets are not needed when it comes to owning POCKET STRINGS since it weighs in at only £10.00 GBP. And any concerns potential purchasers might be harbouring about compromises consequently being made to achieve such an accessible price point can quickly be cast aside as The Crow Hill Company’s commitment to the ethos driving the creation of its tools really rings true with POCKET STRINGS. Ultimately, usability — as well as price — wins, with POCKET STRINGS’ creator claiming anyone can conceivably get comfortable within a couple of minutes of firing it up for the first time. The three refined articulations performed by a 17-piece classical string section recorded in Glasgow — labelled, LONG, where the string gradually comes to life and is sustained; SHORT, where the strings are struck with a bow and muted with the left hand to produce short rhythmic shapes; and PLUCK, providing a different-sounding instrument altogether — need not necessarily have their modulation of dynamic and timbral forms of expression controlled via a fader system of some sort whilst playing, something that The Crow Hill Company collectively feel is one of the greatest blockers to using orchestral samples and plug-ins. Ingeniously, it has addressed that issue by designing an all-new auto-expression system that takes care of this, in realtime, according to playing styles observed while watching countless different string bands in action over the years.

As an example, it had been noted that if a violinist was given, say, a single long note to play without any directions on loudness or how to express the note then most players would start playing quietly and build into the note before returning to the quieter level prior to moving on to the next note. Thankfully, The Crow Hill Company took those shapes and developed automatic controllers that move the dials for the user according to some simple settings — three such shapes are provided, in fact, subdivided by halves and triplets, which, when combined with the BARS PER SHAPE function, provide a whole host of expression forms without POCKET STRINGS users having to worry about fader devices, pedals, or wheels. “Ostensibly, there are some oscillators moving underneath, but what I love about it, as a veteran, is that it enables me to be able to write stuff using both my hands without having to worry about controllers, whilst keeping things expressive and moving along,” affirms Christian Henson, his heartfelt dream of encouraging people to make music and help them on their journey being made more real than ever before as POCKET STRINGS really represents a perfect tool to protect, inspire, support, and provide opportunities for music-makers the world over.

On the face of it, The Crow Hill Company has not stopped there, though. Those easily controllable ORCHESTRAL players can quickly be supplemented by two more, as indicated by the EPIC ANALOGUE and VINTAGE SYNTH wording also adorning POCKET STRINGS’ gorgeous GUI (Graphical User Interface). Indeed, this journey to bring professional-grade string possibilities to everyone encompassed taking a road trip to Pisa in Italy to acquire a couple of the most rarefied and sought-after analogue instruments in a perfectly restored vintage Yamaha® CS-80 — ultimately acting as a virtual Vangelis soundalike homage to an iconic Seventies-vintage synth classic that the Academy Award-winning Greek musician, composer, and producer of electronic, progressive, ambient, and classical orchestral music made into his signature sound, thanks to its exceptionally complete performer expression features — and ARP® Solina String Ensemble — effectively defining the late-Seventies disco era with its silky-smooth, shimmering sounds ending up on countless hit records recognisable by the ensemble/chorus effect to which it lends its name. Needless to say, those iconic instruments can be seamlessly added to POCKET STRINGS’ acoustic signal either by selecting their respective names or by manually moving the ‘puck’ around the signal grid. GLASS, meanwhile, attenuates how the ‘fundamentals’ and ‘harmonic series’ behaves for each and every note played — something of a life-saver if dealing with four-part harmony and adding the bass in for good measure, which would be drawing upon the sound of 68 musicians, 60 microphones, and five halls!

It is clear, then, that no corners have been cut in ensuring that the POCKET STRINGS library will be right for everyone, regardless of age, success, background, or, indeed, where and how people will be hearing the music created with it. Concludes Christian Henson: “I hope you agree that — at the price point we’ve made it — POCKET STRINGS just opens up the world of possibilities of sharing in our musical journeys. All of these different components — the amount of REVERB, GLISS, GLASS, everything — will be controllable by MIDI, so we can simply exchange bytes-sized MIDI files, which are DAW agnostic, meaning that there’s a real breaking down of barriers here to enable us to share, to collaborate, and to learn from one another. And I just think that in this day and age — where music and the future of music is concerned — it’s all about humanity. So this is our effort to create something that totally breaks down the barriers to entry, because — while not compromising on the quality — anyone at this stage of technological development should be able to create film scores in their edit suites or bedrooms and not rely on some horrific algorithm that has scraped some other people’s music. There’s no excuse when you’ve got tools like this, which is just the beginning. This really is going to be my go-to string library — the thing I start on when writing, also confident that — if I write and kind of sketch up string parts — I can collaborate and share with whomever I want, because there is no barrier to entry with this project.”


Featuring three refined techniques performed by a classical string section with independent double bass player control, fully blend-able and matched synth layers (featuring a perfectly restored Yamaha® CS-80 and ARP® Solina String Ensemble), tonal control over fundamental frequencies, curated algorithmic and granular reverbs, and composer modulation tools, POCKET STRINGS is available at an inclusive purchase price of only £10.00 GBP — as an AAX-, AU-, VST-, and VST3-format-compatible plug-in comprising over 130 GB of meticulously crafted recording sessions (refined into a single 850 MB losslessly compressed instrument) that loads directly into a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) — from The Crow Hill Company here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/tools/pocket-strings/

For more in-depth information, including some superb-sounding audio demos, please visit the dedicated POCKET STRINGS webpage here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/explore/pocket-strings/

POCKET STRINGS installation and activation requires installation of The Crow Hill App — an easy-to-use app designed by the best in the business to provide seamless download, installation, integration, calibration, and organisation of The Crow Hill Company tools — available for free from here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/crow-hill-app/"