Free Plugin: The Crow Hill Company's Lo-Fi Strings

Good news for music producers and sound designers – Lo-Fi Strings has joined the free Vaults series from The Crow Hill Company.

Vaults has been a reliable source of great free instruments for years, recently adding Bridge Guitar and even bringing back older sounds as donationware.

Lo-Fi Strings is all about orchestral cinematic character, but with a twist. Instead of pristine recordings, these strings have been run through a vintage cassette deck.

That tape process adds gentle compression, saturation, and a constant hiss, giving the sound a warm analog edge. Pitch drift, wow, and flutter make it feel like a true tape recording.

The interface follows the familiar Vaults design, with two main controls: Timbre and Dropout.

Timbre adjusts volume and filter settings to bring more human expression to your performance.

Dropout controls how the tape and tape head interact, letting you decide how many imperfections you want in the sound.

There’s also a high-pass Filter to thin out the low end for a more vulnerable tone, and a Dirt control for adding rich preamp saturation that thickens the sound.

As usual, you also get Echo (stereo ping-pong delay) and Splosh (reverb) for extra depth.

Final thoughts: Lo-Fi Strings delivers vintage-style orchestral sounds that can guide emotion and set the tone without overcomplicating your arrangements. A great freebie for any cinematic toolkit.

Download The Crow Hill Company's Lo-Fi Strings for Free: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/lofi-strings/