The Crow Hill Company have released Arcane Strings, available at the intro price of £109.00, increasing to £149.00 after the promotion.
Arcane Strings is a deeply unhinged baritone ensemble library built specifically for media composers who want raw, rustic, and unsettling textures rather than polished concert-hall perfection. Focused exclusively on the lower spectrum—Basses, Cellos, and Violas—it treats stringed instruments less like a polite section and more like a feral, brass-like force of nature.
To achieve a sound that feels genuinely wild and unrefined, Crow Hill threw out the traditional sampling playbook. Instead of recording a pristine, perfectly tuned orchestra, they assembled an ensemble pairing seasoned classical professionals alongside improvisational multi-instrumentalist novices. The result is a library defined by intentional friction: bowings that rasp like dry straw, strings that bite like rusted barbed wire, and microtonal pitch separations that add a menacing, unstable edge. It isn’t meant to sit quietly behind a mix as a smooth background pad; it is engineered to deliver petulant, aggressive surprises and inject visceral, dark character into thrillers, horror, and gritty drama scores.
Key Features
- 19 Distinct Articulations: Includes Rust Longs, Ashen Longs, Icebreaker/Stormbreaker Harmonics, Violent Strikes, Loose Plucks, Oscillations, and brass-like Gasps.
- 3 Mixable Signal Partials: Choose between Microtonal (reined-in pitch), Macrotonal (full raw tuning width), and Intense (crushed, close-miked punch).
- Built-in Effects Suite: Front-panel macros for Cassette tape instability, custom Frequency Distortion, LPF, and Splosh reverb.
- Deep Sampling: 6 GB raw samples (3 GB compressed), up to 4 dynamic layers, 7 round-robins, and over 40 minutes of performance per pitch center
Watch the walkthrough video HERE
Arcane Strings is available to PC and Mac users (VST2, VST3, AU and AAX).
For more information on Arcane Strings, click here:
NOTE: Some of the links you click on may be affiliated. Clicking and purchasing using these links helps support and fund The Beat Community. Thanks for your support.
