Set up in 2023 by composer Christian Henson, formerly of Spitfire Audio, The Crow Hill Company is a developer of software instruments and sample libraries based out of Edinburgh.
As well as turning out a stellar series of free instruments under the Vaults banner, Crow Hill has been gradually building up a catalogue of creatively inspiring paid-for libraries with an unexpected edge.
The company’s most recent release was Crystal Piano, a delicate and evocative instrument built from the shimmering sounds of 18 different glass objects, from wine glasses, to beakers, to bowls. (If you thought your DX7 was glassy, get a load of this.)
The next instrument to descend from the top of Crow Hill draws on a decidedly different aesthetic – something, shall we say, a little less clean-sounding. This is the amusingly named The Shit Synth, a stinking collection of 48 “circuit, wave and sample-bent instruments” that share a lo-fi, retro, edgy and “AI-slop-free” aesthetic.
Run through vintage radios, cassette machines and ailing mixers, these broken, busted and otherwise borked noise-making machines are an antidote to the sterile sheen of your DAW’s stock synth plugin, taking inspiration from the way that Henson’s favourite artists (Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada) masterfully deploy “bad sounds, but with good notes put in a good order”.
“Many of the instruments sampled have that all too troubling sound of electronic relics teetering on their last legs,” reads the press release. “A little bit shit but... good shit, if you know what we mean?”
The Shit Synth offers 16 individual instrument presets – covering piano, bass, organ, guitar, strings, beeps, plucks, pads and more – each made up of three layers spanning analogue, digital and sampled sound sources.
Among the synths used in their creation are the Roland JX3P, Prophet VS and the Wersi String-Orchestra, a rare vintage analogue string synth from the ‘70s that, though it doesn’t much sound like a real string section, has a gloriously shitty character all of its own.
The instrument’s interface features a large central dial that controls expression and The Shit Synth’s high- and low-pass filters. On the right-hand side, you’ll find faders to adjust the levels for each preset’s three layers, alongside controls to introduce several effects in keeping with the instrument’s sonically scatological theme: tape emulation, saturation and spring reverb.
There’s also a sidechain compression ducking effect onboard that can be triggered via five lower notes on the keyboard, each linked to a differently-shaped trigger for the compressor.
If you’re looking for something to add a little grit, grime and character to your next musical defecation, then The Shit Synth is certainly worth a sniff – and it’s generously priced, too, at only £29.
