The Crow Hill Company has just released the Lo-Fi Strings as part of their free vaults series.
The Crow Hill Company’s Vaults series has long been a source of excellent free instruments. Since the recent overhaul, we’ve seen Bridge Guitar added to the collection, along with the option to recover older Vaults as donationware.
The latest addition, Lo-Fi Strings, gives us another example of what The Crow Hill Company does best, which is orchestral cinematic magic.
Lo-Fi Strings differs from the previous R+D Strings Vault in that it’s not quite so lush and pristine. Instead, Lo-Fi strings takes a beautiful string recording through a vintage cassette deck to add the imperfections that are synonymous with so many classic recordings.
The subtle compression, saturation, and constant hiss give Lo-Fi Strings the quintessential analog flavour, and the more inconsistent characteristics, like the pitch-drifting wow and flutter, create an authentic tape emulation.
Lo-Fi Strings has the standard Vaults interface, and this time, the two larger controls are Timbre and Dropout.
Timbre is an expression control that adjusts volume and filter settings, helping you humanize your performance.
Dropout adjusts how the tape and tape head interact, providing some control over the amount of imperfections in the sound. The more you let the imperfections creep in, the stronger the sense of nostalgia the sound brings.
I know words like ‘nostalgia’ aren’t always appreciated when describing sound, but in media composition, when much of what you do is about subtly guiding the listener’s emotion, rather than directly telling them what to think/feel, sounds like Lo-Fi Strings are great.
You can rely on the character of the sound to do the heavy lifting without the need for complex voicing or arrangements.
Moreover, I remember how terrible the available virtual strings were when I was a student, and even the best compositions struggled to match the quality of a Nokia ringtone. So, I’m enthusiastic about every good orchestral freebie that comes our way, no matter how many we have.
The first two of the smaller controls are Filter (high-pass) and Dirt.
Using the Filter to remove some of the bottom end thins the sound and changes the character. While it’s still reminiscent of the typical vintage tape character, it’s a more uneasy and vulnerable sound.
Dirt, on the contrary, is a preamp saturation that is fed back into the circuit to thicken the sound. For me, the fuller sound is where Lo-Fi Strings is best, but it’s great to have that variation.
The remaining controls are the Vaults standards Echo (stereo ping-pong delay) and Splosh (reverb).
I think we’ve come to know what to expect from Vaults, generally speaking. The Vaults series offers us iconic, vintage, or quirky sounds, processed in creative ways to produce the most authentic or cinematic results, and Lo-Fi Strings is another excellent addition.
Download: Lo-Fi Strings (FREE)
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Last Updated on August 14, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.
