The Crow Hill Company launches its Vaults series with the FREE Attic Grand piano.
The Crow Hill Company is a project led by Christian Henson, formerly of Spitfire Audio, while Vaults is a series of plugins that host exclusive sounds, like Attic Grand.
As I understand, there will be various Vaults that you can subscribe to in order to access everything inside. The first Vault (Vaults Beta) containing Attic Grand is free and always will be, but other Vaults require a paid subscription.
The Crow Hill Company will continue to add new items to the free Vault but will also remove items over time. Anything you take from the free Vault is yours for life; just make sure you take what you want while it’s available.
Attic Grand is something of a happy accident that comes from some forgotten, dusty old recordings.
In 2008, Christian sampled a piano with the celeste pedal down; the result was a virtual instrument named The Felt Piano (later The Soft Piano) that has been downloaded over three million times.
While going through the master recordings from that 2008 session, Christian found some unused material that has since become Attic Grand.
Attic Grand is one of those pianos that won’t be perfect for everything because it has a distinct character, but it sounds lovely.
The piano is quite lush and dreamy, but more in a nostalgic way than being overly polished or refined. It’s a piano that helps you make simple harmony and melody sound great by letting that beautiful character ring out.
The neat GUI features six macros, two large central sliders, and four control knobs below.
The first two macros control Reverse and Offset.
Reverse piano is a sound I love when used well, and one of the cool things about this particular instrument is that the reverse effect is less pronounced further down the keyboard to avoid becoming too muddy.
The offset macro allows you to adjust the tightness of the piano action.
The remaining macros are Smash, Hair, Echo, and Splosh.
Smash adds a combination of limiters and compressors in a not-so-subtle way. Hair adds crunch based on a British combo amp and upper harmonics that help the piano sit in a mix better. The Echo and Splosh macros are interesting because you can reverse the order and have the reverb before the echo or vice versa.
It’s a lovely piano, and given its history, it’s a fitting debut for The Crow Hill Company. Sign up, and Attic Piano and future freebies are yours.
Our Milestone Madness giveaway is almost over, but there’s still a little time before we announce the winners; if you haven’t entered yet, go now!
The Vaults Beta plugin is available in AU, VST, VST3, and AAX formats for macOS and Windows.
Download: Vaults Beta (FREE / Sign-up required)
More:
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- Audiolatry Updates Their FREE Grand Piano ROMpler
Last Updated on October 23, 2023 by Tomislav Zlatic.
