MUSEWIRE – Music News: UK-based The Crow Hill Company has launched their self-proclaimed “second season” with a wealth of innovative and inspiring tools for music composition, film and game scoring, and sound design. With a new hybrid instrument called Pocket Strings, Crow Hill brings the best of sampled orchestra with classic analog string synths. The free Vaults Bridge Guitar offers creative sonic explorations. Finally, the revamped flagship Glass Strings instrument further refines a “main go-to tool” for scoring pros.

CROW HILL SEASON TWO DROP: Pocket Strings Launched

As part of their second season drop, Crow Hill’s “cant miss” offering has to be the ridiculously low-priced new instrument called Pocket Strings. This $14 instrument is described by the company as so: “At last a definitive string plugin that opens the doors to collaboration between anyone anywhere. Live cinematic orchestral recordings, with some rarefied vintage synth classics made to measure for added body, depth and character.”

This very cool instrument combines multiple sampled string sources with two of the best classic analog synthesizer string instruments ever made (Yamaha CS80 & ARP Solina Ensemble), with some amazing presets and the ability to cross fade between analog and orchestral sources in real-time.

The more long-winded promo copy reads like so: “Music needs humanity now more than ever. This never-tried-before strings plugin aims to bring broadcast-grade string possibilities to everyone. No corners have been cut. Indeed this journey started recently with some of the best musicians working in the UK today.

“Via a road trip to Pisa in Italy to acquire the most definitive, rarefied and sought-after analogue strings synths, to ensure this library will be right for everyone regardless of age, success, background or indeed where and how people will be hearing your music, with this generous addition to your working arsenal.”

PRODUCT SPECS:
3 refined techniques performed by a classical string section.

Independent double bass player control

Fully blend-able & matched synth layers

Featuring a restored vintage Yamaha® CS80 & ARP® Solina Ensemble

Tonal control over fundamental frequencies with the Glass EQ

Curated algorithmic & granular Reverbs

Composer-friendly modulation tools

Over 130 GB of meticulously crafted recording sessions refined into a single 850 MB losslessly compressed instrument.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NEW POCKET STRINGS: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/explore/pocket-strings/

CROW HILL SEASON TWO DROP: Glass Strings Reimagined

As part of its second season roll out, Crow Hill’s flagship scoring tool, Glass Strings, got a notable makeover, tune up, and re-imagining. The new version is free upgrade for existing users.

According to the company, “In a scoring landscape homogenized by swamp-like epic sounding sampled strings. Crow Hill has taken decades of sampling experience has re-written the rule book in order present an alternative take. One where power can be expressed in your music by raw emotion not simply the number of musician’s bums on seats playing single uniform notes.

“It is an individualistic approach to every note engineered into our new process of production that offers the composing world a new set of tools that will set you aside from the orchestral maelstrom. If you want a sound-set that is both ultra tender coupled with bitingly dynamic cinematics which eschew machine grade orchestral in favor of something wholly human Glass Strings is something you should take a look at.”

With a selection of microphone signals to choose from (or indeed incorporate into a true-surround mix) custom curated effects designed by composers who use these tools day in, day out. Not least our “glass” control which can attenuate the levels of the fundamentals being played in order to prevent frequency-peaking often found when working on larger arrangements with orchestral samples.

We have distilled not just decades of making these tools, but using them as composers ourselves on the front line to come up with something we are confident is a sound investment in your musical journey.

THE SPECS:

• Expertly Assembled String Quintet – Vn, Va, Vc, Db* [2.1.1.1]
• 3 Categories (Shorts, Longs, Gestures)
• 31 Techniques (12 Gestures, 10 Sustains, 11 Shorts)
• 3 Mix-Ready Stereo Signals (Close, Wide, Ambient)
• “Bass” layer control to independently blend in a Double Bass performance*
• Tailor-made “Glass Spectral EQ” to control resonant frequencies
• 4 Unique Reverb Algorithms
• Master Processing Tools incl. Room Tone, Stereo Imaging & Mono Filter
• 43 GB of Uncompressed Material (Compressed Losslessly to 20 GB)
• Included presets
• Recorded with the Scottish Session Orchestra

Audio Files: 33,392 audio files
Uncompressed: 43.86 GB
Compressed: 20.76 GB
*Bass captured independently and available for “core” techniques

Techniques

GESTURES
• Beautiful Thing
• Gliding Angels
• Leapzilla
• Maximism
• Octavia
• Misalignment
• Rubbing Shoulders
• Scoopy Doo
• Spring Flowers
• Movements
• The Individual
• It’s Drooling

LONGS*
• Sustained
• Legato
• Free Bowing
• Tremolo
• Circular Bowing
• Sul Tasto
• Sul Ponticello
• Sul Ponticello X
• Sul Ponticello Tremolo
• Harmonics

SHORTS*
• Marcato
• Tenuto
• Staccato
• Staccato Sul Tasto
• Staccato Sul Ponticello
• Feathered
• Spiccato
• Jeté
• Pizzicato
• Col Legno
• Bartok

*Include additional “Bass” layer option

LEARN MORE ABOUT GLASS STRINGS: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/explore/glass-strings/

CROW HILL SEASON TWO DROP: VAULTS – Bridge Guitar

The newest offering in Crow Hill’s generous and totally free ‘VAULTS” series is a new guitar sample instrument described by the company as, “A novel way of treating guitars pioneered by LA luthier Rueben Cox and featured on hits by Perfume Genius, Wilco, & Taylor Swift has been faithfully recreated here as part of our ever-growing Vaults range.”

Crow Hill’s Christian Henson writes: This latest drop is a really unique new edition to our ever-growing Vaults range. Perfect for songwriters, it’s called bridge guitar. It is an acoustic parlour guitar detuned and intimately miked using a DIY rubber bridge which mutes the sustain and the resonances of the guitar. The rubber bridge is a distinctive lowfi acoustic innovation pioneered by LA luthier Ruben Cox from his shop in Silverlake since the early 2010s. Cox salvaged inexpensive vintage acoustic guitars from brands such as Harmony, K, and Silvertone and replaced the wooden saddle with a rubber slab. This created a muted percussive tone which was reminiscent of a pizzicato on a cello or violin.

In a shared video, The Crow Hill Company’s Theo Le Derf takes us through how muting the bridge of a detuned parlour guitar can create a sound not unlike pizzicato on cello or violin.

Theo Le Derf, an accomplished guitarist himself, said, “The rubber bridge guitar is a distinctive, lo-fi acoustic innovation pioneered by LA luthier Reuben Cox. This unusual sound caught on when Perfume Genius used it on his 2017 single ‘Slip Away’, drawing in artists like Jeff Tweedy from Wilko, Madison Cunningham, Phoebe Bridgers, and Taylor Swift on her album Folklore.”

LEARN MORE ABOU VALUTS BRIDGE GUITAR AT: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/bridge-guitar/

ABOUT THE CROW HILL COMPANY

The Crow Hill Company mission is to create the highest quality resources, approachable and entertaining content, developmental and experiential opportunities, and an abundance of free samples and world-class composer tools that we can offer, to inspire and enable our valued Crow Hill community to create their best art. Here at Crow Hill, we strive to maintain nothing less than excellence and innovation in an evermore competitive space.

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This news article first appeared on MuseWire.com and is Copr. © 2025 Christopher Simmons – all rights reserved. Image credits: courtesy The Crow Hill Company.