LA Scoring Strings

[colony nofi]

Well, fedex just left a note saying a package had come if for me....
that would be LA scoring strings... :)
Now, why they didn't ring the door bell, I have NO idea... (I've been at the studio since 8am....)
Anyway...hopefully I'll get my hands on it in the next 24 hours. And when I do, will report back on it. From the demos, it feels like this really does change things from a sample library (strings) perspective...in a very good way.

Cheers, Brendan.

[LEX]

Well, fedex just left a note saying a package had come if for me....
that would be LA scoring strings... :)
Now, why they didn't ring the door bell, I have NO idea... (I've been at the studio since 8am....)
Anyway...hopefully I'll get my hands on it in the next 24 hours. And when I do, will report back on it. From the demos, it feels like this really does change things from a sample library (strings) perspective...in a very good way.

Cheers, Brendan.

You won't be disappointed. Thonex knows what he is doing and his support is stellar!

Looking forward to reading your reaction.

LEX

[paulwr]

Yea, thanks for any reports. My expectations are high from hearing the demos. If feels as though a lot of emotion can be milked from these. Very expressive and natural sounding.

-Paul

[colony nofi]

Well, I finally got it last night.

Unfortuantely have some post to do for the next 3 or 4 hours.
Then its loading time. :) Methinks I might be at the studio a little late tonight. Good thing my partner works late on wednesdays...

Have a project to do this week that could really benefit from them too. Wonder if I'll be able to integrate it into my working methods by then :D

Cheers!

[colony nofi]

This library is worth WAY more than the US$1k I paid for it.
Andrew will sell many of these at such a competitive price point. I honestly have yet to hear better.
Legato strings are off the planet, and the ART scripts for the short articulations are very usable.
Am not using CC1 nearly as broadly as with other libraries. Less is more, but its still very important. Seems very true - keep it f when you want to hear f...don't just turn it up to 127 (fff) and turn down the mix...(which I've done in the past with other libraries just to get the right intensity in a full mix...)
It does tax the computer...I've just ordered another 8GB of ram... I think my template for using them is going to be 120 midi tracks... and by themselves this will be 6 to 8 GB of ram...not to mention the other libraries I use.
This doesn't surprise me in the least, and its awesome that K3.5 allows this kind of session now. It actually feels like my macpro might just be able to handle my template on its own now (rather than needing to split it between systems).
I am going to split the samples between 2 drives though...(One for V1,V2 and bass, the other for Viola and Cello).

The first chair samples are very much like really good solo samples... and I'm sure I will end up using them in this way. But my use so far has been to add just that "leading" sound onto other divisi layers, and it does this no probs. Not unexpected - I think this is how they were intended to be used.

I've been using shorter (1.8 to 2.2sec) hall type altiverbs with the libarary, and found that provides the "big film" kind of sound very quickly. Am sure I'll use them "dry" in the future though - esp for a very "now" sound mixed in with beats and electro-acoustic kind of productions.

Ok - enough for now. I have work to do.

Cheers, Brendan.

[Thonex]

Hi Brendan... thanks for the kind words. Glad you're liking them.

Yeah... Altiverb is a great reverb. Although I'm trying out Bricasti and it sounds great as well. But those Todd AO Altiverb IRs just make LASS sound even more... well... "LA"!!

Cheers,

AK

[LEX]

Hi Brendan... thanks for the kind words. Glad you're liking them.

Yeah... Altiverb is a great reverb. Although I'm trying out Bricasti and it sounds great as well. But those Todd AO Altiverb IRs just make LASS sound even more... well... "LA"!!

Cheers,

AK

The briCasts are nice, but expensive. Almost 4 G's for 1 unit. The M10 remote is nice though.
Controls 8 units.

Do they chase timecode?

LEX

[Animus]

The new Lexicon PCM96 is pretty nice too.

[Thonex]

The briCasts are nice, but expensive. Almost 4 G's for 1 unit. The M10 remote is nice though.
Controls 8 units.

Do they chase timecode?

LEX
I donno... The Guys from Bricasti were kind enough to contact me an see if I wanted to try a loaner. It's definitely a sweet sounding verb. The small spaces especially sound nice and lush without sounding grainy and metallic.

AK

[Daryl]

The Bricasti remote is not far off the price of the Bricasti itself.

For what I do the Lexicon is not in the same league. However, it does sound good on small rhythm stuff.

D

[Thonex]

For what I do the Lexicon is not in the same league.


D

Daryl,

I'm liking "Heavy Room" with reverb time set to about 1 sec for a nice stage ER sound. Care to share any of your favorite algos or settings? I just got it in the studio yesterday.

[Edit oh... Casey of Bricasti (the programmer) is the guy I'm in contact with... so if you have any feedback (or such) I can let him know.]

[Animus]

The Bricasti remote is not far off the price of the Bricasti itself.

For what I do the Lexicon is not in the same league. However, it does sound good on small rhythm stuff.

D


yeah if you want real sounding spaces Bricasti seems to be the ticket. I am more a Lexicon guy.

[Daryl]

Daryl,

I'm liking "Heavy Room" with reverb time set to about 1 sec for a nice stage ER sound. Care to share any of your favorite algos or settings? I just got it in the studio yesterday.

[Edit oh... Casey of Bricasti (the programmer) is the guy I'm in contact with... so if you have any feedback (or such) I can let him know.]
Most of the settings we have used are heavily tweaked for use with VSL, so I'm not sure that it will be of much use to you.

Actually, on that sort of reverb question, would it be possible to post some demos, however simple, with little or no reverb. I really can't tell from what I've heard what LASS actually sounds like. All I can hear is the reverb....!

D

[Daryl]

yeah if you want real sounding spaces Bricasti seems to be the ticket. I am more a Lexicon guy.
Lexicons give a fake, but pleasing wash to the sound. However, I thought that some of the older units sounded way better than the PCM96. However, this new unit is better than the PCM70 or even PCM91, IMO. My old 70 is used as a doorstop these days, now that I've got rid of the Mac. :icon_eek3:

D

[Sam]

you wanna sell a PCM70 cheap Daryl? ;)

I love the delays in that thing...but i am a rock guy...

[LEX]

you wanna sell a PCM70 cheap Daryl? ;)

I love the delays in that thing...but i am a rock guy...

Was going to say the same thing. The delays are great.

LEX

[bartok29]

Lex, did you buy LASS? What do you think of it?

[paulwr]

well, just received mine. Having way too much fun messing with it tonight after a long install....... been getting used to those these days with the EW stuff being so big.

The divisi is to die for. The gliss and portamento...... you wonder immediately how you got by without it before. The A.R.T. (programmable rhythms/accents when you hold the sus pedal down) will be a time vampire if I let it, because it is so much fun to mess around with. I just need to dig in and built some good templates right away, and then back to work. Very power stuff. Don't just have to use the aggressive side of it either. Nice for some softer pulsating things, too.

I'm just using the IK Multimedia CSR Classic Reverb on it, and didn't take long at all to dial in a nice hall. (great verb, and very great for the price.)

I put it up against EW on the violins, playing the same divisi part. They sound great, but just more life in the LASS, and then the balanced divisi and gliss/port..... and the contest ends. They can blend together well if you need, I think.

Anyway, just first impressions.

I'm got my work cut out for me getting them across two computers and creating the template. The way the divisi is organized, I don't think my keyswitch templates are going to work well with this. As has been said, 120+ midi tracks for this puppy. Easier to grab like kind divisi tracks to edit without being worried if you have the right key switch on every one of them. If anyone has working experience setting up the whole thing and has different ideas about it, I hope you'll speak up.

Thanks for a great strings set, Andrew!

-Paul

[Daryl]

The way the divisi is organized, I don't think my keyswitch templates are going to work well with this. As has been said, 120+ midi tracks for this puppy. Easier to grab like kind divisi tracks to edit without being worried if you have the right key switch on every one of them. If anyone has working experience setting up the whole thing and has different ideas about it, I hope you'll speak up.

-Paul

Can't you create your own keyswitch patches?

D

[paulwr]

Can't you create your own keyswitch patches?

D

yes, no problem creating them. But then if you are using a lot of the divisi capability, even using all the divisi sections to create the full section and humanizing midi a bit for even more realism..... it gets cumbersome. Say you quickly grab four tracks into keyedit at once...... you have to be sure to set the correct keyswitch on every track. That starts to feel like it would be harder to do to me. With current EW, no divisi so not that added layer of complexity. I break my tracks for that into Long/ModWheel/Short/FX of each string section and do keyswitching from there. I'm sure vsl is much easier in that regard.... I only have the original Cube.

Separate track for each articulation is the way Andrew/Thonex works, I believe. I just don't see a better way to use them. If a script could be written to change a group of tracks keyswitches from one switch, it may very well be another story.

[EDIT: Just found the midi track 'send' can be set to a specific midi port/channel and you have four slots than can be setup to send all midi data including program changes on it. So getting close to the decision to use key switching as I do with E/W]

If you have any other thoughts, I'm all ears. This is a lot to toss into my existing template.

-Paul

[Animus]

Does LASS do vibrato? Can you crossfade a note into vibrato?

[paulwr]

no, but most of the instruments do have a vibrato and non vibrato articulation. I don't see why Andrew counldn't program a patch across the boards if he gets enough requests. I was wondering about that, too. I think I'll bring it up on his forum.

Also, some guy over there at the audiobro forum (you have to own the product to go) took a couple of very small sections of the Hollywood Strings demo and reproduced it with LASS. Very short, but even so, quite telling I think. There is a certain 'life' to the LASS sounds that really can't be matched at this point. Not that you'd always have to have that sound, but I see myself using them as the primary strings. My current project that I had gotten a small start on with the EW strings.... I changed them over to LASS and for this project, the more 'alive' sound is serving the picture well.

-Paul