The latest arrival to The Crow Hill Company's revolving selection of free instruments has been “built around the idea that music doesn’t have to begin with formal training, specialist instruments, or expensive tools”. Glass Beaker encourages users to take an experimental approach to sound creation, and delivers an interesting pitched percussion sound that sits somewhere between a glockenspiel and a celeste.
As you might have guessed, the library captures the sound of a set of glass beakers, recorded by company founder Christian Henson at Gorbals Sound in Glasgow, Scotland. Neumann mics were the order of the day, with close-miking duties falling to a U87, and two pairs KM184s forming both X-Y and spaces stereo arrays.
Housed in the same pedal-style interface as the company’s other Vaults offerings, the bulk of the new instrument’s tonal shaping is provided by large central Chorus and Expression controls, with the lower section of the GUI occupied by some fine-tuning tools. a low-pass filter is followed by simple built-in delay and reverb effects, while a Crystalliser control offers access to a versatile granular synthesis-style effect.
Compatibility
Glass Beaker is supported on PCs running Windows 10 and above, and Macs running macOS 11 or higher. VST, VST3, AU and AAX plug-in versions are available.
Availability
Glass Beaker is available now as a free download.
