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.
For more information, visit thecrowhillcompany.com.