LA Scoring Strings hopes to set itself apart from the competition with clever devices that make it both more realistic and more user‑friendly. LASS is a deep sample library. Fortunately, a fair amount of information is visible from each instrument's window and is specific to that particular articulation. 'You wrote that?” my wife asked, after hearing the results of my toying around with LASS for about half an hour. 'That sounds really good. Did you really write that?” she added. In a way, that sort of sums up my experience with LASS, but since Sound On Sound doesn't print two‑sentence reviews, I'm going to have to elaborate.

LASS is the brainchild of Andrew Keresztes, an accomplished film composer who was frustrated with the current crop of string libraries and decided to do something about it. Conquest Of The Sahaba Pdf To Excel. While most of us would sit back and wait for technology to catch up with our ever‑increasing demands, Mr Keresztes hired a string orchestra, booked time at an LA film scoring stage, and created a string library that overcomes many of the limitations of other libraries, while implementing several innovative ideas of its own. Quite Imposing Plus Mac Serial Check.

LA Scoring Strings, or LASS (thank heaven for acronyms), is installed from six dual‑layer DVDs, takes up about 40 gigabytes of hard drive space, and uses the ubiquitous Native Instruments Kontakt player. Now 40GB of samples is a good chunk of hard-drive real‑estate, but when you take into account that it includes both 16‑ and 24‑bit versions of the library, it's actually a pretty efficient usage of samples. The manual for LASS is in PDF format, is well written and explains LASS's unique features quite capably. I would have liked a hard copy to peruse away from the computer, or at least a chart with the MIDI controller info and possibly quick how‑to guides. I ended up copying and pasting excerpts from the manual to create my own version of a one‑sheet reference to print out. While this is a minor issue, in view of LASS's price tag I think something more substantial than a PDF is in order. LASS employs several features that differentiate it from other high‑end string libraries.

The first and most noteworthy of these is its true divisi implementation. Composers working with string libraries have had to compromise their arrangements to some degree due to the fact that divisi sections have, up until now, not been available. But why does it matter? Well, suppose your first violins are divided into two groups, each group playing a different note. If you play two notes on duplicate violin patches, the whole section will play each note, effectively doubling the section size. That is not the composer's intention, but the workarounds are not usually worth the effort. Mixing libraries can yield decent results but may require serious tweaking.

Using smaller sections (provided in some libraries) seems like a solution, but not when it is the same two sections. While your notes‑to‑players ratio is intact, it's not the same as two separate groups of players. LASS overcomes this dilemma by providing separate sub‑sections within each instrument section. For instance, the first violins patches are divided up as follows: 16‑player full section, eight‑player section, two different four‑player sections, and a first-chair section leader.

LA Scoring Strings 2.0 (LASS) – a set of new stringed bow instruments, LASS 2 has more than 60 new patches, it is possible to simultaneously and easily have access.

The divided sections are recorded separately in their own physical position, with different players. This array of sub-sections makes it possible to divide your section in a very realistic fashion. Whether you're dividing the sections into sub‑sections, as pictured, or using the full instrument patches, instantiating multiple Auto Rhythm Tools add a tremendous amount of movement and colour to your string arrangements.

LASS's use of legato is truly outstanding. Typically, legato passages (notes tied together with no space between them) contain varying amounts of subtle portamento and glissandi between the notes. LASS handles this wonderfully, and achieving realistic legato playing in LASS is essentially effortless. Alfred Rappaport Shareholder Value Pdf Merge. If a note is held down while the next note is played, LASS adds either portamento or glissando, depending on the velocity of the second note. If the time it takes you to reach your second note is not to your liking, no problem: just use MIDI CC (Continuous Controller) 83 to control speed. When I first read the manual and saw that there was no keyswitching but instead lots of MIDI CC numbers to tweak, I was worried that I wouldn't have enough knobs on my controller to get the most out of LASS. My fear was allayed when I noticed that it was the same series of controllers being used for the different articulations.

The six knobs on my keyboard controller were quite enough. Another unique element of LASS is the first‑chair solo player in each section. While Andrew Keresztes is quick to point out the distinction between a first‑chair player and a soloist, many users, including myself, have been using it as a solo instrument, with fantastic results. One of the benefits the first‑chair player provides is the ability to amplify and add expression to a section in a realistic way. In my test arrangement of only the smallest sections of each family of strings, the first‑chair player added a subtle yet evocative element to each section. The inclusion of the first‑chair player is both unique and highly practical. It also adds string quartet to LASS's feature list.