Harmonium VST FREE With Crow Hill VAULTS

video upload by CROW HILL

"With Theo off on hols this week Christian opens the lid on one of his favourite instruments, The Harmonium. Think Penguin Cafe Orchestra, think Jon Brion, think a leading (albeit inanimate) character in Punch Drunk Love."

Press release follows:

The Crow Hill Company announces availability of VAULTS - HARMONIUM, bringing bellows to DAWs as latest free VI abiding by its Make Music, Your Music motto

EDINBURGH, UK: The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of VAULTS - HARMONIUM — bringing bellows to DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) as its latest free VI (Virtual Instrument) monthly drop, allowing anyone to experience the timbral complexities and harmonic layers of its gorgeous and, some might say, quaint instrument namesake for the rest of their lives, abiding, as always, by the Edinburgh-based enterprise creators’ collective Make Music, Your Music motto — as of October 24…

Its iconic appearance in Director/Writer Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2002-released dark romantic comedy Punch: Drunk Love — look it up! — may make many think of the harmonium in a certain way. What is certain, though, is that the small free-reed organ was patented way before, back in 1842 by Frenchman Alexandre Debain. By being smaller and less expensive than traditional pipe organs, it quickly became popular through Europe, India, Africa, and the southern United States. Travelling through the north of the UK, harmoniums can still be found tucked away in the corners of many recording studios. Saying that, those that are there are not just set dressing; after all, the harmonium captured the hearts of artists such as The Beatles, Supertramp, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and Tori Amos, all of whom featured it in their music.

Making music with a harmonium is easier said than done, however, since the instrument in question generates sound by pumping air — using two foot-operated pedals joined to a mechanism that operates a bellows or by pushing and pulling a handle joined to the bellows back and forth with one hand — past a thin piece of metal in a frame and making it vibrate. Vibrations then resonate through the harmonium’s wooden body, thereby producing the distinctive, church-like sound. Thankfully, The Crow Hill Company has succeeded in capturing this sound to produce VAULTS - HARMONIUM, making it much easier for many more appreciative sound-seekers to experience its musical magic.

Composer Christian Henson — original founder of The Crow Hill Company — freely admits to being a big fan: “It’s got to be one of my favourite instruments. It can bring a simplicity to music — dare I say it, a quaintness, but because of its timbral complexities, it’s also massively expressive.”

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Crow Hill & Bleeding Fingers Proudly Present PREHISTORIC STRINGS Library

video upload by CROW HILL

Press release follows:

The Crow Hill Company works with Bleeding Fingers to proudly present PREHISTORIC STRINGS as unique string library built from bespoke instruments

EDINBURGH, UK: working with award-winning composers collective Bleeding Fingers, Edinburgh-based enterprise The Crow Hill Company is proud to present PREHISTORIC STRINGS as a truly unique string library — literally built from one-of-a-kind bespoke instruments incorporating horns and teeth with a few ancient bones thrown in for good measure, making for hybrid monstrosities to create tones that are haunting, primordial, and staggeringly beautiful in their truly primitive nature — as of September 25…

Putting PREHISTORIC STRINGS into its rightful perspective involves delving deep into the past in more ways than one — not least The Crow Hill Company’s ongoing relationship with its collective friends at Bleeding Fingers. For it all started when the latter’s talented Anže Rozman and Kara Talve worked with Hollywood hotshot Hans Zimmer — arguably one of the greatest, certainly one of the most prolific film composers of our time, noted for his innovative integration of electronic sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements — on the primetime television series Prehistoric Planet (2022-2025). As always with both Bleeding Fingers’ and Hans Zimmer’s approach to composition, the creation of truly unique sound-worlds played a fundamental role in the development of said score. An audacious project, indeed, it involved the construction of a selection of string instruments built with bones, horns, skulls, and cannibalised classical instruments, including a cello, frame drum, resonating dulcimer, and many more besides. But credit where credit’s due to the killer composing team involved in instinctively understanding that the resulting score’s success merely represented the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential of their unique inventions and agreeing to share them with the rest of the composing community.

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The Crow Hill Company Adds Roland CR-78 Based RHYTHM MACHINE to VAULTS

video upload by CROW HILL

"Step back to 1978 and discover the iconic Roland CR-78, the first programmable drum machine that changed the way artists approached rhythm. Before the 808 and modern drum machines, the CR-78 gave musicians the power to create and store their own drum patterns. In the hands of artists like Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Blondie, it became iconic. For this Vault, we’ve preserved the much-loved character of the CR-78 and expanded its sonic potential with some tasteful effects."

https://thecrowhillcompany.com/free/

Press release follows:

The Crow Hill Company creates …RHYTHM MACHINE as latest free VAULTS… VI, preserving vintage classic’s character while expanding its sonic potential

EDINBURGH, UK: The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of VAULTS - RHYTHM MACHINE as its latest VI (Virtual Instrument) release ready for all to download and make music with for free for the rest of their lives — literally preserving Roland’s 1978-vintage CR-78 CompuRhythm’s classic character as the Japanese giant of electronic musical instrument manufacturing’s first programmable drum machine (that changed the way artists approached rhythm and, in doing so, stamped its musical mark on a number of notable hit records that subsequently secured its iconic status in the annals of music technology history for all eternity), effectively expanding its sonic potential with some tasteful effects as a result — as of October 1…

Far from stretching the boundaries of truth, it is fair to say that the introduction of Roland’s CR-78 CompuRhythm changed the course of history as the first computer-controlled programmable drum machine. Most rhythm machines before its late-1978 introduction were preset-only affairs, forcing their users to pick from the likes of ‘Bossa Nova’, ‘Rock’, and ‘Waltz’ — more in keeping with the home organ-orientated terminology of the time. The CR-78, however, offered something new — namely, an ability to program rhythm patterns and store them in memory using the external WS-1 programmer optionally offered by Roland. Indeed, its 14 onboard instruments include bass drum, cymbals, hi-hats, rimshot, snare drum, and tambourine alongside several Latin-type sounds, such as bongos, claves, and cowbell — all generated using analogue circuits, giving it a distinctly warm, punchy character. Thanks to the CR-78’s analogue nature, though, the tempo control is not exactly surgical, but this foible only adds to its charm. And, as history has borne out, when placed in the creative musical hands of Blondie, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and others, it became an iconic instrument in its own right.

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FREE VST – Lo-Fi Strings Walkthrough – Cassette Warble Meets Orchestral Beauty

video upload by CROW HILL

"Explore LoFi Strings, the latest free addition to the Vaults collection from The Crow Hill Company. We ran lush orchestral string recordings through a vintage cassette deck to capture authentic tape compression, saturation, wow & flutter, hiss, and drop-outs - bringing nostalgic warmth to the orchestral world."

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The Crow Hill Company lets loose …LO-FI STRINGS as latest VAULTS… virtual instrument release, free for all to download with no strings attached

EDINBURGH, UK: readily representing a quite literal realisation of 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, as the latest addition to the free-for-all-to-download-and-make-music-with-for-the-rest-of-their-lives-styled collection curated with the same care and attention to detail as the Make Music, Your Music motto-abiding Edinburgh-based enterprise’s paid-for releases, The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of its VAULTS - LO-FI STRINGS virtual instrument — introduced with no strings attached, albeit actually, in this case, there are, but only of the lo-fi musical kind that are central to the tool in question seriously satisfying those who like the sound of their recorded strings to be unrefined by being fully adulterated through a knackered cassette tape with just a pinch of wobble in the process of doing what it easily does so well — as of August 14…

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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.

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ACID SYNTH - Our Homage To A Classic That Launched A Genre

video upload by The Crow Hill Company

Press release follows:

The Crow Hill Company creates VAULTS - ACID SYNTH as an homage to the revered Roland TB-303 Bass Line synth and associated Acid House genre

EDINBURGH, UK: music-making community tools-maker The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of VAULTS - ACID SYNTH as the latest entry into its lengthening line of free and accessible virtual instruments arising from company co-founder and composer Christian Henson effectively opening his ‘vaults’ for everyone to enjoy — this time creating an homage to the revered Roland TB-303 Bass Line, launched with high hopes in 1981 as a so-called Computer Controlled bass synth by the Japanese giant of electronic musical instrument manufacturing responsible for its creation before being deemed a commercial failure and discontinued quite quickly thereafter, though it was later instrumental in driving Acid House into the musical mainstream as a whole new EDM (Electronic Dance Music) genre and associated cultural movement, the popularity of which triggered a dramatic rise in the price of used units — as of March 19…

It is fair to say that when Roland released its TB-303 Bass Line in 1981 as a so-called Computer Controlled bass synth with the intention of mimicking the characteristics of an electric bass guitar, there were far fewer tools to create electronic music available. But buyers of the TB-303 Bass Line were possibly swayed by the fact that it could be time-synced — using Roland’s proprietary five-pin DIN sync interface (later superseded by MIDI) — to its contemporarily-released Computer Controlled sibling, the TR-606 Drumatix drum machine, making for an affordable rhythm section that could conceivably fit into a small briefcase as a beautiful backing combination for the solo gigging musician, further helped by both devices being battery operated as an attractive alternative to their (included) AC adapters… or so Roland had hoped.

Though the engineers involved tried their best to imitate the sound of an electric bass guitar with the technology of the time, the TB-303 Bass Line fell short in capturing its subtleties as an instrument, sadly, so it was discontinued within a couple of years, with Roland cheaply selling off the last of the 10,000 units manufactured. Now, normally this would be the end of the story, yet something incredible happened…

Helpfully, for the benefit of anyone not already in the know, The Crow Hill Company’s Theo Le Derf picks up what is an incredible story in itself: “DJ Pierre and his band called Phuture found a used TB-303 in a music shop in Chicago for a bargain price. They started experimenting with the bass sequencer and a drum machine while playing about randomly with the filter and resonance knobs. The sound they produced was so unique and, frankly, weird that they decided to commit the jam session to tape. With the release of this experiment on Trax Records in 1987, they unwittingly birthed a new genre: Acid House. This slimy, hypnotic, subversive sound subsequently built a cultural movement, and was the soundtrack to many illegal warehouse parties of the late Eighties — all of this from a tiny synth that was used ‘incorrectly’.”

Thanks to VAULTS - ACID SYNTH’s GUI (Graphical User Interface) being as intuitive as always, correct — or ‘incorrect’ — usage of the virtual instrument in question comes quickly. “The first large dial — CUT OFF — is a 24dB lowpass filter that controls what high frequencies you cut out, and it is automatically assigned to MIDI CC1.” So starts Theo Le Derf by way of an appropriately quick guided tour, before continuing: “RESONANCE determines the peak of the filter as it opens and closes, which creates that characteristically ‘squelchy’ sound that the synth is known for. The small dials are more concentrated effects — MOD controls how much voltage is being sent to the filter, so you can get some really interesting sounds by adjusting the CUT OFF dial and MOD simultaneously; DECAY controls the decay for all the envelopes; and, of course, there is also our standard ECHO and SPLOSH, with the SPLOSH being an algorithmic imitation of a cave, which suits this synth so brilliantly.”

It is as easy as that, though Theo Le Derf is keen to add: “Another thing to mention is that you can obviously play staccato, but when you play legato — MIDI notes overlapping with one another, you get a glide between the notes. This glide effect is another characteristic that the ’303 is renowned for.”

No need, necessarily, then, to risk dropping a bank-balance-busting four-figure sum on a decades-old Roland TB-303 Bass Line when The Crow Hill Company’s ‘tribute’ truly captures the essence of its distinctive sound for all to enjoy for literally nothing. Notes Theo Le Derf, ending on a high note: “The story arc of this synth is so amazing — from its unpromising beginning to completely defining a genre and an era, it’s so
exciting to have this celebrated instrument at my fingertips for free!”

VAULTS - ACID SYNTH is free for everyone — as are all VAULTS… releases from The Crow Hill Company — from here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/vaults/