# LASS Demo



## Max Castillo (Sep 21, 2011)

Hey, so I was asked to write a demo for Audiobro. Since they're busy with LASS 2.0 right now I figured I'd post it here and get some more comments so http://www.box.net/shared/tj2zmvb4tyt1it8cg4bi (here it is). This is my take on a big Hollywood sound using LASS.


----------



## Rob (Sep 21, 2011)

nice one, I guess this proves that lass can sound "big" if needed... still I'm not fond of portamentos, though you've been quite sober in their use.


----------



## Farkle (Sep 21, 2011)

Really nice full orchestral writing, Max!

The strings do sound big and spacious at about :40 seconds, and not tinny or biting. Which is really impressive, because a common "gripe" about LASS is that it sounds too up-front and thin.

It also sounds like you did not EQ LASS too much, which is also encouraging, it means that it plays in this piece "right out of the box".

One thing I've always wanted to hear is the classic 3-octave Hollywood sounds (Vlns - Vlas - Vcs)... maybe I'll try something to that effect this week... I'm interested in seeing how that sounds with LASS...

Really nice work, again, especially with the soaring strings near the end!

Mike


----------



## zacnelson (Sep 21, 2011)

I enjoyed that a lot, you have certainly captured the big Hollywood sound beautifully! A great achievement that demonstrates how far sampled libraries have come that you can create such a thrilling captivating mood using samples alone.

I look forward to listening to this again a few times to learn more from what you have done here.


----------



## Max Castillo (Sep 21, 2011)

Farkle @ Wed Sep 21 said:


> It also sounds like you did not EQ LASS too much, which is also encouraging, it means that it plays in this piece "right out of the box".



It has a TON of EQ. I think any sound engineer would kill me if he saw the EQ curves.  I was just very careful not to end up with an unnatural sound.


----------



## zacnelson (Sep 21, 2011)

hehehe sometimes it would be easier not using these graphical plugin eqs so you aren't constantly reminded of how much carving has been done! A nice little discrete knob on a mixing desk can `fly under the radar' if you aren't looking at it closely (even if you ripped out 15db!!)


----------



## Farkle (Sep 21, 2011)

Max Castillo @ Wed Sep 21 said:


> Farkle @ Wed Sep 21 said:
> 
> 
> > It also sounds like you did not EQ LASS too much, which is also encouraging, it means that it plays in this piece "right out of the box".
> ...



ROFL! Argh! I was dreaming/hoping that it was just sitting there with a nice 'verb plugin and good orchestration. EQ'ing LASS always throws me, I can't seem to figure out how to EQ it against other orchestral instruments. 

Well, then, you did an EXCELLENT job EQ'ing it, Max, 'cause it sounds GREAT! Very natural!

Mike


----------



## Casey Edwards (Sep 21, 2011)

This sounds very nice I think! Everything sounds well placed and pretty natural for the most part.

Would you care at all to tell us your EQ values and if you grouped any of them? Also, do you EQ your Reverb? I'd love to play around with some new numbers.


----------



## Gabriel Oliveira (Sep 21, 2011)

Show us your EQ curves! plz!


----------



## Gabriel Oliveira (Sep 21, 2011)

btw, NICE PIECE, SOUND and ORCHESTRATION


----------



## CouchCow (Sep 21, 2011)

Spectacular piece! Felt very organic and cohesive nice work!


----------



## Jem7 (Sep 21, 2011)

I know his EQ secrets.


----------



## whinecellar (Sep 21, 2011)

Gabriel Oliveira @ Wed Sep 21 said:


> Show us your EQ curves! plz!



+1! I love LASS but I definitely have to wrestle with it to get it to fit well with my other libraries, not to mention just getting it to warm up a bit. Always curious about others' approach when I hear it sound like this.

Nice job!


----------



## Jeffrey Peterson (Sep 21, 2011)

Gabriel Oliveira @ Wed Sep 21 said:


> Show us your EQ curves! plz!



+1


----------



## Pochflyboy (Sep 21, 2011)

SIMPLY WOW! Great work


----------



## germancomponist (Sep 21, 2011)

Like it!


----------



## Mahlon (Sep 21, 2011)

Wow! Excellent composition. Not only is your treatment of LASS stellar, you're brass is fantastic too. Ok, I'm out of superlatives, but really, this is a great demo for LASS. The space for the instruments (all of them, but especially the strings) is so well done. How did you get the strings to sound that smooth and buttery and to sit back in the recording like that?

Mahlon


----------



## Dracarys (Sep 21, 2011)

Very nice, 
from 40 - 43 sounds a bit mechanical, same with all the other parts that have those same string transitions, that's always been difficult for me.
Brass in my left ear sounds amazing, on my right side sounds a bit squeeky and synthy.
Composition was perfect. Thanks for sharing this.
I could imagine your EQ curves, LASS is not easy.

Never truely understood why a sample library today can't just sound natural without EQ'ing and Layering so much, all articulations aside.
Even a sustained legato by itself screams fake unless tweaked some how.

Maybe it's the A to D conversion, I've always wanted to ask the engineers what the deal is.


----------



## Max Castillo (Sep 22, 2011)

Thanks for all the comments so far, everyone!



Mahlon @ Thu Sep 22 said:


> The space for the instruments (all of them, but especially the strings) is so well done. How did you get the strings to sound that smooth and buttery and to sit back in the recording like that?
> 
> Mahlon



It's all about volume levels, reverb, and EQ. I use more early reflections on the LASS violin longs. I even rolled off the highs because these violins are so bright.



Casalena @ Thu Sep 22 said:


> Never truely understood why a sample library today can't just sound natural without EQ'ing and Layering so much, all articulations aside.
> Even a sustained legato by itself screams fake unless tweaked some how.
> 
> Maybe it's the A to D conversion, I've always wanted to ask the engineers what the deal is.



I think in LASS' case it's because they recorded divisi sections. Each divisi section sounds fine on its own but once you layer them there seems to be some frequency buildup.


----------



## Gabriel Oliveira (Sep 22, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Wed Sep 21 said:


> Gabriel Oliveira @ Wed Sep 21 said:
> 
> 
> > Show us your EQ curves! plz!
> ...



+1 :D


----------



## TintoL (Sep 22, 2011)

Excellent work Max... it really has that big Hollywood sound. 

I was wondering if you might be so king of telling us which reverb are you using; is it algorithmic or is it convolution?

Also, the Brass sounds very good, which VI are you using?

Thanks in advance for your kind answer. By the way, I will understand if you rather keep that secret to yourself.

Agustin


----------



## Max Castillo (Sep 22, 2011)

TintoL @ Thu Sep 22 said:


> Excellent work Max... it really has that big Hollywood sound.
> 
> I was wondering if you might be so king of telling us which reverb are you using; is it algorithmic or is it convolution?
> 
> ...



Thanks! I use convolution. If you want some reverb tips, there's a really good post by Thomas Bergersen somewhere here, and check out the Audiobro forum for a thread about Colin O'Maley's reverb setup.

My brass is a lot of custom samples.


----------



## adg21 (Sep 22, 2011)

This sounds great. Why don't Audiobro hire you to implement those EQ curves directly into Kontakt so it sounds like that directly out the box.

Nice composition!


----------



## Jeffrey Peterson (Sep 22, 2011)

Am I missing something? There are a lot of good demos posted on the Music Cafe that don't get half of the recognition as this demo did. Its a good demo sure, but honestly I don't know what the big deal is. The mix? The composition isn't any better than tons of the demos I hear on the music cafe. Is it just because Audiobro requested he do a demo? The mix is good though.
What I actually want to know is, what are you hearing in this one that is so much better than so many of the other ones. Granted this is in the top 30% of the demos in the music cafe but what about the other top 30%?
IF this piece was Aura by Thomas, then I'd understand but I don't see anything special about it.

Max your only 22? How did you sample your own brass? I"m sure your not going to tell me, as your not going to provide EQ for the inquirers. But I thought I'd ask.


----------



## Max Castillo (Sep 22, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Thu Sep 22 said:


> Am I missing something? There are a lot of good demos posted on the Music Cafe that don't get half of the recognition as this demo did. Its a good demo sure, but honestly I don't know what the big deal is. The mix? The composition isn't any better than tons of the demos I hear on the music cafe. Is it just because Audiobro requested he do a demo? The mix is good though.
> What I actually want to know is, what are you hearing in this one that is so much better than so many of the other ones. Granted this is in the top 30% of the demos in the music cafe but what about the other top 30%?
> IF this piece was Aura by Thomas, then I'd understand but I don't see anything special about it.
> 
> Max your only 22? How did you sample your own brass? I"m sure your not going to tell me, as your not going to provide EQ for the inquirers. But I thought I'd ask.



This coming from the guy who kept wanting to buy the MIDI to my Kung Fu Panda mockup for $10. :lol:

Oh and about the EQ's. I just cut out a lot of high mids and low highs, along with some very highs on the violins.


----------



## adg21 (Sep 22, 2011)

Max Castillo @ Thu Sep 22 said:


> If you want some reverb tips, there's a really good post by Thomas Bergersen somewhere here.



I assume you mean this?


Thomas_J @ Fri May 27 said:


> Guys! You're too kind! There's nothing special going on as far as the reverb goes. I don't have any expensive hardware verbs or anything. On the Allegro Agitato piece I used Altiverb and the Todd-AO impulse that's downloadable from altiverb's site to registered users. Around 30% or so. On top of that I used the Wizoo Cathedral impulse. Again around 25-35% (I can't remember the exact setting). Another good trick is to try and make your template sound like you're listening to a well balanced orchestra in a modest sized room (with little or no reverb - there's a good impulse for this in the wizoo reverb called "percussion room" iirc - this could help give a sense of space to your dry(ish) samples). Once you've achieved that, it really doesn't matter what kind of reverbs you slap on top, it should still sound good and spacious. There's very little reverb can do to create a sense of space, it all starts with the samples and the balance of your template. Typically the rule of thumb is, if it sounds good without reverb it'll sound great with.
> 
> If you go to Peter's site: http://www.samplicity.com/demos/
> and scroll down to my dry version of the demo, download that file and apply any kind of nice large hall reverb (whether impulse or algorithmic) I think you'll find that pretty much anything will suffice to bring out a greater sense of depth because it's already there, at least to a certain degree in the dry version.
> ...


----------



## Max Castillo (Sep 22, 2011)

Yeah, use that as a reference. I also like the sound of QL Spaces, thinking of buying that.


----------



## Cookmposerie (Sep 22, 2011)

that was amazing ! gj Max ! :D


----------



## Jeffrey Peterson (Sep 22, 2011)

And I still do, your editing and mixing is very good.


----------



## Dan Mott (Sep 22, 2011)

Nice demo, but to me HS to still sounds ten times better than this even without EQ. I've never been a fan of LASS, but this is probably the closest to that big hollywood sound I've heard with the library.


----------



## TintoL (Sep 22, 2011)

Thanks Max for your answer, and thanks adg21 for finding that incredible paragraph from Thomas. Unfortunately I didn't enter the thread again until I found the post Max was referring to. I had to go through all Thomas posts until I found it. Then, I enter this thread again, and there it was. I am glad that I have the info though.


----------



## Mahlon (Sep 22, 2011)

Jeffrey Peterson @ Thu Sep 22 said:


> Am I missing something? There are a lot of good demos posted on the Music Cafe that don't get half of the recognition as this demo did. Its a good demo sure, but honestly I don't know what the big deal is. The mix? The composition isn't any better than tons of the demos I hear on the music cafe. Is it just because Audiobro requested he do a demo? The mix is good though.
> What I actually want to know is, what are you hearing in this one that is so much better than so many of the other ones. Granted this is in the top 30% of the demos in the music cafe but what about the other top 30%?
> IF this piece was Aura by Thomas, then I'd understand but I don't see anything special about it.
> 
> Max your only 22? How did you sample your own brass? I"m sure your not going to tell me, as your not going to provide EQ for the inquirers. But I thought I'd ask.



Well, I don't think I've heard anyone get LASS violins/high strings to sound quite this this lush and smooth in a lead line. A large part of it is mad midi skills, but there sounds like some extra massaging. LASS short artics have always sound stellar. The legato and sustains, though, are a bit concentrated right out of the box. Normally, in lead lines, they have an upfront character reminiscent of John Barry recordings from the 70s (at least to me, that's what they sound like) or maybe Poledoris' Conan?. If Max hadn't said these were LASS, I don't know if I would have been able to tell you they were.

So, in short, I think he's made LASS sound very different. I guess that's what we're all crowing about. It's a soudn that I'd like to be able to get.

EDIT: LASS Celli have always sounded big and smooth to me, and they do here too. I just wanted to make clear that I am mainly talking about what Max did with the Violins/Violas.
Mahlon


----------



## TintoL (Sep 23, 2011)

I found the post from Colin O'Maley's reverb setup Max is referring to.

It's called: "Some Colin O'Malley Demo Tips".

Here is the link:

http://audiobro.com/forums/viewtopic.ph ... olin#p5454


I don't know if you guys will be able to follow the link because you need to log in into audiobro's forum to see it.

Any how, excellent and very helpful information. Thanks Max for sharing it.


Agustin


----------



## Dracarys (Sep 23, 2011)

I have to disagree, any section in any library solely sustained is distinctively midi sounding.


----------



## vancomposer (Sep 23, 2011)

Max EXCELLENT track!!!! >8o


----------



## Cookmposerie (Sep 23, 2011)

TintoL @ Fri Sep 23 said:


> I found the post from Colin O'Maley's reverb setup Max is referring to.
> 
> It's called: "Some Colin O'Malley Demo Tips".
> 
> ...


hey thx for posting but could you paste it here plz ??
It requires an account and some serial number... 0_o


----------



## TintoL (Sep 23, 2011)

Cookmposerie, sorry that you were not able to make the link to work . I was expecting that, so that's why I putted the name of the topic in the audiobro's web site so people can search for it a bit easier.

Now, about copying and pasting that info here: I believe I don't feel conformable doing that. Audiobro's forum is open only to people who owns the library and that's why you can not even see that info as a guest. The thing is, that that info was a personal tip and message that Colin O'Malley gave himself to Andrew (LASS creator). Then, Andrew decided to share it with his clients in the forum. I wouldn't dear sharing something that is not mine. just that.... I guess I am an old man 


I hope I am not been rude.... 

Agustin


----------



## EwigWanderer (Sep 24, 2011)

Great track..and LASS sounds very nice. Maybe just a bit too much eq:n..little nasal at times.

It's saturday morning here so this was a great song to start the day with


----------



## noiseboyuk (Sep 24, 2011)

Another vote for this - great work. Personally I could use the strings a tad fuller, but I appreciate its probably a specific sound they're after. Would be interesting to take the same piece through 2.0's Stage and Color when released, and see what that would do.

Terrific composition, and as someone else said the brass really shines too.


----------



## Cookmposerie (Sep 24, 2011)

TintoL @ Sat Sep 24 said:


> Cookmposerie, sorry that you were not able to make the link to work . I was expecting that, so that's why I putted the name of the topic in the audiobro's web site so people can search for it a bit easier.
> 
> Now, about copying and pasting that info here: I believe I don't feel conformable doing that. Audiobro's forum is open only to people who owns the library and that's why you can not even see that info as a guest. The thing is, that that info was a personal tip and message that Colin O'Malley gave himself to Andrew (LASS creator). Then, Andrew decided to share it with his clients in the forum. I wouldn't dear sharing something that is not mine. just that.... I guess I am an old man
> 
> ...


Hey Agustin, no problem, nothing rude here. I understand if you dont want to, its fine . Thx for replying though :D


----------



## Gabriel Oliveira (Jul 4, 2012)

wanna hear this again


----------



## jleckie (Jul 4, 2012)

sept 2011 you were asked to do a demo. Did the demo get accepted? Is it anywhere on the audioBro site. Just curious.

I would be curious to compare it to out of the box LASS.

Personally I think that if any demos get accepted to actually represent a product either ALL of the external processing should be documented and displayed or it should be a part of the product in terms of the presets (effects, etc)


----------

