CROW HILL’s Dirty String Alchemy: When Resampling Gets Weird

Christian kicks things off by smashing a myth: resampling your own commercial string libraries isn’t illegal, as long as you’re not flogging the results or sharing them around. He’s blunt—use what you’ve paid for, twist it, bounce it, and make it your own. The only line you can’t cross is redistribution, which is a copyright nightmare waiting to happen.

He points out that every time you bounce, mix, or record a virtual instrument, you’re already resampling. The trick is to do it deliberately, turning your processed sounds into a personal toolkit for future projects. It’s a call to arms for anyone bored of pristine presets and ready to get their hands dirty.

Now for the fun part: Christian wires up a Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water and a Damedash T120, both Canadian, both dripping with boutique weirdness. He’s not fooled by their earthy looks—these aren’t old-school tape machines, but digital boxes with serious personality. The T120 is basically a VHS deck in pedal form, serving up degraded echoes and fizzy repeats that sound like your childhood home videos on a bad day.

The Shallow Water brings its own brand of fragile, warbly magic, making everything sound like it’s been left in a damp rave bunker for a decade. Christian’s workflow is all about stereo sampling—two pedals per side, each channel dialled in just differently enough to create a wide, unpredictable field. If you want to know exactly how he dials in the settings, you’ll have to watch the video—this is pedal-tweaking at its finest.

This is where the magic happens. By running Pocket Strings through these pedals, Christian transforms vanilla samples into wild, post-apocalyptic textures. He’s obsessed with stereo width and loves sounds that stray far from the centre—think strings that lurch and wobble like a drunken horse on a VHS tape.

The pedals aren’t just for show; their quirks and artefacts become part of the instrument. Christian layers in pitch variation, tape fizz, and even some grumbly sub bass for extra filth. The result? Strings that sound like they’ve survived the end of the world. If you want to hear the full sonic carnage, you’ll need to check out the video—words don’t do justice to this level of creative destruction.