Terrifying Sounds From Schoolkids

The Crow Hill Company has announced availability of CHILDREN'S CHOIR which they say crafts terrifying sounds from a school-age troupe of boys singing with just the right amount of 'beautiful menace' and an ability to be creative while working with the Edinburgh-based enterprise. A spokesperson described it as in "An instrument based around an expertly curated sample-set with a broad range of timbral possibilities designed by media composers with other media composers in mind." Here's more details direct from the company...

Asked about the task of crafting CHILDREN'S CHOIR, The Crow Hill Company co-founder and media composer Christian Henson has his tongue not entirely out of his creative cheek in response, resurrecting the famous showbiz warning usually credited to American comedian W.C. Fields, effectively, by way of opening: "Never work with animals and children! So what's this going to be like? Getting kids to be slightly demonic, evil, scary... they love it! And they totally seem to get making it so pretty that it's scary. So we thought we'd try and nurture that spirit in a children's choir library designed particularly for media composers -- people who write for film, TV, and computer games. Why are these guys going to be wanting to use a children's choir? Maybe there's something set in a boarding school, maybe there's something slightly choral and religious, but, more times than not, something unsettling is needed, and that's where we've gone with this one. There are limits to how long children should be asked to perform. So, we thought we'd use the time thoughtfully, curating a selection of singing styles that capture this spirit. As opposed to giving you yet another library with 'AAs', 'EEs', 'Ahs', 'Ohs', and 'MMs', etcetera, AHOH, OHEH [and many more singing styles are available using the EXPRESSION wheel]. There's some lovely WAVERING stuff where the pitch centres change. They sound great and scary when you cluster up, but on their own -- or just a couple of notes -- they have all sorts of childlike menace. There's terrifying RISES and FALLS. And we've got a whole bunch of SHORT [singing styles].

"So many choir libraries out there do all sorts of clever things with word builders and all sorts of MIDI tomfoolery, but, particularly with choirs, I feel that you're always going to grab your audience's attention within any piece that you're composing, and, therefore, I want the ingredients laid out in a spice rack and I'm going to add them as I see fit." Wise words from Christian Henson himself, hungry as always for new sounds and styles, who adds: "I don't want too much trickery -- too much MIDI tomfoolery, though where the shorts -- these different vowel and consonant sounds -- are concerned I asked the team to put them on separate key switches, which I think works a real treat for mocking up some kind of chanty stuff. But you can also access the different consonants and vowel sounds from the SINGING STYLE dropdown menu."

Continues Christian Henson: "We try to be as DAW [Digital Audio Workstation] agnostic as possible with our plug-ins, so whatever way you want to configure your controllers is left to you. Anyway, the inner knob handles EXPRESSION, albeit with a slight LPF [Low Pass Filter] on it, but on the outer knob -- which I've got configured to CC1 -- there's this totally ambivalent, atonal, scary, shouty layer [SHOUTS] that is great for adding intensity to what you're doing."

Delving deeper into the design of the instrument itself, Christian Henson has this to say. "A lot of sample companies offer you a set of faders that will control different mixes and different signals, but we find that it's a lot more useful to give you different options -- different ideas -- with this sample set, and we call them Partials as a consequence. I think particularly partial number two [PITCHED] is just that; it's something that adds to and enhances the sound. When the guys first played it to me, I wasn't sure of its purpose. It's this kind of time-stretched, artifact-y, octave-down pitch thing, but, I have found that by adding it into the mix, I kind of miss it when it's not there anymore. I think that it's going to be useful when used in context with string libraries and stuff -- just to give it a little but more weight. Interestingly, on the third [DISTANT] partial we have a baked reverb layer, and the idea behind that is not like a reverb engine; it's more like triggered samples that I think are fascinating to work with. They're beautiful, but also particularly fun when you release the keys. There are a whole bunch of presets that are basically snapshots of the front GUI [Graphical User Interface], and we've designed them to be really good kicking off points to see how you can not only utilise the different partial mixes but also all of the onboard additions that we have made, including this very strange DAEMONS macro, which is a whole bunch of odd effects chained together. Speaking of effects, there's a beautiful CHORUS, which broadens the stereo width; we've also got this soft, aleatoric CHOP thing; and finally -- though you'll hear that this was recorded in a room that has a bit of life in it, but not much of a reverb tail -- there is the reverb or SPLOSH macro to give you ultimate control over whether you want it really in your face or really much further off into a much larger space."

Sounds like CHILDREN'S CHOIR has seriously succeeded in its musical mission of bringing The Crow Hill Company's catchy ...for there is nothing more terrifying than children tag line to life. Concludes Christian Henson -- somewhat succinctly for a change: "I hope you're not going to have to sleep with the light on tonight!"

Pricing and Availability:
CHILDREN'S CHOIR is available to purchase -- priced initially with a so-called Early Access offer of £49.00 GBP/€59.00 EUR/$69.00 USD until midnight BST (British Summer Time) on October 5, 2026 (rising thereafter to its regular price of £69.00 GBP/€79.00 EUR/$89.00 USD) -- as a sample-based virtual instrument comprising 3.4 GB of uncompressed audio, supporting AAX-, AU-, VST-, and VST3 plug-in formats for macOS 12 through to 15.x (Apple Silicon and Intel compatible) and Windows 10 through to 11 with up to four round robins, 10 shorts, eight sustains, eight FX, three mixable unique Partials, and four specially curated effects macros.

CHILDREN'S CHOIR installation and activation requires installation of The Crow Hill App -- an easy-to-use app designed by the best in the business to provide seamless download, installation, integration, calibration, and organisation of The Crow Hill Company tools -- available for free from here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/crow-hill-app/

More information:

• CHILDREN'S CHOIR

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