How to resolve AdBlock issue? The Crow Hill Company …GLASS BEAKER
The Crow Hill Company announces the availability of VAULTS - GLASS BEAKER as the latest downloadable drop in its free virtual instrument collection, created from thecnotion that music need not necessarily begin with formal training, specialist instruments, or expensive tools but instead it comes from working directly with sound - specifically, placing a microphone in front of a simple object and exploring what happens through touch, movement, and experimentation, the resulting tone of which feels familiar but resists easy identification, sitting somewhere between a glockenspiel and a celeste without being either - as of February 2…
Though the name gives the game away as to what, exactly, that simple object actually is, VAULTS - GLASS BEAKER acts as an invitation to step away from prescribed methods, to try things, discard them, and arrive at something personal. Put it another way: it treats experimentation as a way of finding sounds that are authentic to its user and, ultimately, original. Of course, the source of those VAULTS - GLASS BEAKER-created sounds had to originatecsomewhere. Time, then, to reveal that the glass beaker in question was recorded by The Crow Hill Company’s Christian Henson at Gorbals Sound in Glasgow - self styled as the premiere recording studios in Scotland, thanks to state-of-the-art Neve mixing desks and world-class outboard equipment combined with experienced engineers and excellent client facilities - using an X-Y pair and a spaced pair of Neumann KM 184 end-address cardioid small-diaphragm condenser microphones (often referred to as ‘pencil’ mics) and a close-mic’d Neumann U87 legendary large-diaphragm condenser microphone.
Moving on to the resultant virtual instrument itself, The Crow Hill Company’s Theo Le Derf duly talks through its gorgeous GUI (Graphical User Interface) that should already feel familiar to users of other VAULTS… releases with which it shares its ease of use and lovingly-crafted looks. “As always, it’s our intuitive GUI,” he begins, before continuing thus: “The first large dial is CHORUS; this effect adds depth, warmth, stereo width, and a shimmering, watery quality to the glasses. The second large dial is expression [EXP], which gives you finer control over the expressive potential of the glasses. The smaller dials are more concentrated effects, the first one being LPF, or Low Pass Filter, which gradually cuts off the high end of the glasses, giving them a very distant, haunting quality; the next dial along is DELAY, which is an enveloping stereo delay; we also have REVERB, a lush convolution reverb which you can dial in from completely dry to completely wet; and last, but not least, the CRYSTALLIZER, which is a kind of granular synthesis effect, and it can be dialled up for quite a sparkly, ethereal vibe, or dialled back down for a more subtle ambient bed underneath what you’re playing.”
It is fair to say, though, that VAULTS - GLASS BEAKER surely stands as a testament to what sampling enables The Crow Hill Company and, by that same token, its users to do - make beautiful sounds and music with nothing more than a bit of imagination and care, in other words. With that very thought in mind, Theo Le Derf signs off on an upbeat note: “I hope this sample library sparks your imagination and nudges you towards crafting an evocative instrument from something as primitive as a glass beaker. You might surprise yourself with the range of timbres and moods that it can reveal.”
VAULTS… releases from The Crow Hill Company - including …GLASS BEAKER - are free for all to download and make music with for the rest of their lives from the website below. VAULTS - GLASS BEAKER 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 the website below.
Although anyone adding a VAULTS… release to their account for free can make music with it for the rest of their lives, only six such releases are available to download at any given time - the oldest being ‘rested’ whenever a new monthly release is added. All is not lost for those who may have missed the boat, so-to-speak, since those VAULTS… taken out of rotation periodically reappear as donation-ware, with six rested releases already available as VAULTS ARCHIVE N°01 for a small donation to Love Music, a Scottish dynamic music inclusion and education charity that strives to increase its participants’ confidence, musical skills, and well-being through an exciting range of open-access projects designed to remove all barriers to participation and increase diversity in music-making.