The Crow Hill Company has announced Forest Harps, the newest entry in its Origins series of virtual instrument plug-ins, available as of October 20. The instrument draws from a genuinely unusual source: a harp-like folk instrument built from a conch shell soundbox, elk horn neck, unidentified animal ribs, and fishing wire strings, discovered by co-founder Christian Henson in a Hobgoblin folk instrument shop near the company’s Edinburgh studio.

The core instrument was recorded both acoustically and through a small guitar pickup and amp, then routed through a slowly spinning Leslie cabinet alongside a Hammond organ session that happened to be running at the same time. Henson has described the result as sitting somewhere between a classical harp and North African stringed instruments, with the Leslie adding a quality that pushed it into its own category.

To build out the texture, Henson added two psalteries sourced from the same shop, one bowed-style plucked and one designed for plucking, layered to create a wide stereo image with what he describes as a bright, feathery, almost unsettling character. The combination feeds into a plug-in aimed at composers and producers looking for atmospheric plucks and textural material that sits outside conventional orchestral or folk palettes.

Forest Harps is part of The Crow Hill Company’s ongoing Origins series, which focuses on rare and unconventional physical instruments captured as playable virtual instruments. Pricing and format details are available at thecrowhillcompany.com.