Christian Henson sampled glass beakers in Glasgow

A free virtual instrument just dropped that turns literal glassware into a quirky, pitched percussion tool living between glockenspiel vibes and celeste tones.

The Crow Hill Company's latest freebie

• Glass Beaker lets anyone mess with experimental sounds without needing gear or lessons.
• Christian Henson recorded actual beakers at Gorbals Sound using fancy Neumann microphones.
• The setup used a U87 for close capture and KM184 pairs for stereo arrays.

How the interface rolls

• Big Chorus and Expression knobs handle most of the tone sculpting duties.
• A low-pass filter sits next to basic delay and reverb processing options.
• Crystalliser mode unlocks a granular synthesis effect for textural sound design.

Tech requirements for running it

• Windows 10 or newer handles the PC side of compatibility without issues.
• macOS 11 and above covers the Mac users who want in.
• VST, VST3, AU, and AAX formats mean it works across major DAWs.