Intel recently did an interview with me for the ISTV content channel. Check it out, see what I was up to at GDC this year, read the post about the presentation and check out other photos of me and video game superstars!
Hi Everyone, last year in Portland, OR, I was hired to create a special driving, dramatic composition for a 2 minute trailer showcasing beautiful scenes of skies moving and time lapse photography, as a trailer for their “Magic Window” application for iOS and Mac OS X. This was the result of that project. Enjoy!
Tahoe Blue from Josh Michaels on Vimeo.
Beautiful views of Lake Tahoe captured between 2012 and 2013 by photographers Hal Bergman and Josh Michaels. From North Lake to South Lake to Emerald Bay, this video highlights some of the most beautiful spots in the region. Available in interactive form with AirPlay for iPad/iPhone and as Live Wallpaper for Mac (Mac App Store) and Android (Google Play) devices.
Interactive Timelapse for iPad/iPhone: bit.ly/tahoeblueios
Live Wallpaper for Mac: bit.ly/tahoebluemac
Live Wallpaper for Android: bit.ly/tahoeblueandroid
Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/magicwindowapp
Produced by Josh Michaels (magicwindowapp.com)
Photography by Hal Bergman (halbergman.com) & Josh Michaels (@joshjet)
Music by Justin Lassen (justinlassen.com)
I gave a talk this year at GDC about creating digital content, audio and sound design for films and games on Ultrabooks during GDC 2013 at the Intel booth! I’d like to thank all the sponsors who helped with prizes and goodies for the talk!
I spoke about the ability to create massive orchestral and electronic music without the need for mega desktop computers or desktop replacement workstations, but instead that Ultrabook’s powered with Core i7 processors and Windows 8 can handle and perform the massive and gorgeous samples of PROJECTSAM | ORCHESTRAL ESSENTIALS. As well as the spectral audio design power of IZOTOPE | IRIS™, the modern dubstep and synth sounds of CAKEWALK | ZETA+ 2 with help from audio recorded by BLUE MICROPHONES | SPARK | YETI all at the same time running through PRESONUS | STUDIO ONE PRO 2 on INTEL | SSD DRIVES. I used both an M-AUDIO | KEYSTATION MINI 32 and an AKAI PRO | MAX49 on stage and in the expert bar. (there’s a mouthful) :)
The amazing thing is that neither the MIDI controller nor the Ultrabook were plugged into the wall (power) during the presentation. Everything was running off the battery of the Ultrabook, with no latency in audio performance. There was no ASIO external audio card used on stage, everything was running through WINDOWS AUDIO in Windows 8, from the HEADPHONE PORT OUT! This demonstrates that Ultrabook’s have finally come into their own being quite competitive choices for musicians, dj’s and performers to use on stage!
Me with one of the Intel “Bunny suit” guys, made a surprise visit during my talk on Friday!
On the screen is a gorgeous image from concept artist Alex Ruiz, as during the show I announced also the coming of Synaesthesia 2. Stay tuned for that!
In this part of the demonstration and audio, I showed the inter-play between orchestral samples, found sounds (music in everything), synthetic sounds, and being able to quickly create a concept for an image or scene. I also at one point started playing some of the Braveheart theme song with the same samples to show the flexibility of libraries today! Enjoy the track below!
This was from my stage demo that showcased Cakewalk’s Zeta, iZotope’s Iris and ProjectSAM’s OE all running simultaneously. This was for a rapid-prototype stage performance to show how quickly you can create concepts with Ultrabooks that sound full and rich right out of the box!
This year I was approached by an indie developer creating an exploratory video game called LifeEssence. I wanted to demonstrate the rapid-prototyping and re-scoring abilities of both iZotope Iris on Ultrabook devices. With just a few presets (Apocalyptic Whisper Tree, Caught In The Biscuit Tin, Garden of Eva Tarr, The Walking Dread) I created (and they come with Iris!), I was able to create a believable atmosphere during the presentation for the video walkthrough of the game.
Thanks for checking out the files and images of my talk during GDC 2013 this year. I really enjoyed speaking with developers after the talk, and I met a lot of wonderful bright creators, composers, performers and artists!
Thanks to Intel and their staff for helping my talk run smoothly, and I’m glad we were able to attract big crowds to the talk and presentation this year! Thanks everyone, see you next year at GDC!
Hi everyone! I had the pleasure of going to GDC 2013 this year in San Francisco! As usual it was a blast, I think I’ve been to 10 of these things by now! Every year something magical happens, cool encounters, and I get to meet all my favorite video game developers and creators, befriend them, work with them and look deep into the future with them!
Of course there were tons and tons of parties, more parties than you can possibly attend in just 4 days. I tried to make it to about 3 parties per night, which kept me up until about 3AM every night! However, I made some valuable new friendships, business partners and creative encounters. I think half the magic of going to GDC has everything to do with the parties during the after-hours.
Union Square, nice weather, day and night!
My portable Ultrabook studio in a hotel suite! Getting ready for my talks and performances.
Here I am with the one-and-only Tim Larkin! composer, musician extraordinaire at Valve Software! This guy has been an inspiration to me for many years. It was so wonderful to meet him! (thanks Jason for the introduction!)
Me and Jason Hayes, composer/musician for Blizzard Entertainment (World of WarCraft, Diablo, StarCraft, etc.) Also great friend of mine. We have talked about all kinds of exciting things for the future! Stay tuned!
This was just a super magical encounter at one of the after-hours hangouts. I am honored to share this picture with Michael D. Csurics (middle) and Kevin McMullan (right). Michael thought we were doing crazy faces, but Kevin and I didn’t know that! :) Both of these guys are amazing! Kevin was audio guy and music guy at Ensemble Studios and worked on all my favorite “Age” games (Age of Mythology, etc.) Michael is also an audio guy and seems to know pretty much every voice actor out there! Honestly it was awesome to hang with both of these guys all night!
The legendary Dave Chan! This guy knows everyone in the business it seems! He’s also a damn amazing friend of mine! He was once the Audio Director of Bioware and worked on tons of my favorite games! We’re here at the Pyramind Studios in San Francisco checking out a 200K mixing room. :) This was for the G.A.N.G. mixer/after-party.
Here I am with Dave Chan again and also our dear friend Naomi Mercer (voice over artist, Mass Effect 2, etc.). We seriously had so much fun throughout GDC and wished it could last longer!
Here’s a cool random bunch! Gordy Haab (left), Justin Lassen (me), Sam Hulick (middle) and John Rodd (right). Look these guys up on Google and your mouth will drop, all of these composers, engineers and audio people have contributed so much to the worlds of games and film. It was an honor to hang with them at the TouchArcade party that I was invited to (thanks Josh!)
Steve Ouimette (left) and Justin Lassen (right). We met through Shawn Clement (composer) at NAMM one year and became friends ever since. We both are Arizona natives, but tend to only run into eachother when we’re traveling or doing shows! We both do a lot of sound libraries, synths and sound design, so you all have probably used our sounds in your productions at some point in your career if you are a composer or sound designer! :) More on the way!
Here I am with the creator of “Ow My Balls” for iOS, with over 5 million downloads, he asked me to do the soundtrack to his game and for his other “magic window” app that has topped the charts a few times! We’ve got some cool stuff in the works!
Of course I had to put a picture of Øystein Furevik, my fellow Norwegian darkly inclined rocker of The Dead Birds! He’s also a game journalist. We were hanging at the Microsoft booth and had a quick catch up before he headed back to the dark beautiful forests of Europe. :)
I met this cool guy named Andrew, who created this amazing 12.1 360 degree surround system, and my friend Josh wanted us to meet to collaborate on me doing some special compositions specifically for that format! very cool! ex-Adobe guy!
Here I am sitting inside the 360 degree audio sphere!
here I am with Pianist extraordinaire Jeffrey Michaels! We met for the first time at the GANG get together at Pyramind Studios. We both have a mutual friend named Rob Knapp, who composes and designs for slot machine games!
Here I am with my friend Bob Duffy, from Intel! He helped setup my theater slots and made me feel very welcome at the Intel booth this year!
Here I am with Intel CMG guru, Mike Fard! He came by the booth for a few hours to do some social media marketing for Intel. We did some fun photos for their viral campaign and it was so good to catch up! This guy has been a super guy for me at Intel, always sticking up for me and sharing cool opportunities with me!
Here is Nadia Banks, also from CMG at Intel. We met at CES and have done a few phone calls on Intel projects, but this is our first photo! :) Very cool, very smart lady! We’re both addicted to Candy Crush (game)!
GDC wouldn’t be complete without the annual group photo of Dave Taylor (doom, quake, abuse) (left), Sebastian DeGuy (Allegorithmic) (middle) and myself. We are old school, long time friends. Each of our careers has blown up in a lot of ways over the years, every year it gets better and better for all of us. We are on different paths however, there are parallel goals. We love making games!
I leave you with some bunnies I found in San Francisco! I met so many people on this trip, I had dozens of meetings, made all kinds of new friends, came home with a stack of 150 business cards, and overall had an amazing trip at GDC 2013! So much exciting things to look forward to! I got to check out tons of cool new games too! Stay tuned for how this all develops! Thanks for reading!
Last year, filmmaker Mark Oxman asked me if he could use one of my remixes in his short film called “Sing Along” a musical short film starring Myles Erlick, Alice Ripley, Sam Tsui, Heidi Blickenstaff, Uzo Aduba, Remy Zaken, Cassandra Taylor, and Patrick Page.. It was from a special remix I did for some friends of mine many years earlier.
This is a remix I did for the lovely Fisher, a wonderful wife/husband duo, whom first gained fame getting a record deal from their mp3.com exposure in 1999. And were on the soundtrack to one of my favorite movies of all time "Great Expectations":
Listen to the original track so you can see how much I changed the original song. The song is about artists who don't appreciate their fans... and take for granted their success... That's why I used a Christopher Walken quote. The remix:
Justin says: The end sequence in the remix is me singing tons of layers of falcetto vocals! don't miss it. :)
And here is Kathy and Ron's review of my EMT Remix of the same song:
"AMAZING!!!!!!! Kathy and I just listened, and were blown away. Kathy put it best saying "Finally someone has done a remix the represents us instead of them". I thought that summed it up perfectly. The textures, sonics...EVERYTHING is so incredibly interesting. Much more like great sex instead of a race. You are very gifted my friend...It's a total soundtrack."
- Ron Wasserman, Fisher
Earlier this year I finished up the score to the short film “Ceramic Tango” for Canadian filmmaker Patricia Chica. She had emailed me for a while asking if I would collaborate with her on one of her productions. Our schedules finally lined up and we’re all very proud of the final short film production!
Psychological Drama / Fantasy
After receiving grave news, a young man spirals into a deep depression, leaving him vulnerable to the will of a dangerous intruder.
CERAMIC TANGO a film by Patricia Chica (Official Trailer) from Patricia Chica on Vimeo.
Justin Lassen at the Paris Opera House!
Bottom of Eiffel tower.
Top of Eiffel Tower.
Outside of Eiffel Tower.
Louvre artifact restoration room.
Egyptian thing in Louvre.
Train through countryside with UB.
Mona LIsa.
Train station ambience.
huge jesus painting, favorite picture at the Louvre.
general street ambience.
inside tower.
just a few pictures for fun!
This year I participated in the MIDEM 2013, world-wide music convention! This is one of the biggest music industry conventions, where labels, distributors, companies and business leaders in the music industry come and work together from all parts of the globe!
I went with my new awesome artist NMERCER whom I am writing and producing for at the moment! I had meetings with tons of labels in Korea, Japan, Germany, Canada, UK, France, China, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and a dozens of other countries. It was a valuable experience for me as I left with a lot of great new contacts and new friendships throughout the world.
Justin Lassen with Mark Hoppus (Blink 182) in Cannes, France!
Justin Lassen with DJ Spooky (Paul D. Miller) in Cannes, France!
There was some great night-life, events, and gatherings at various venues and clubs around town. On one of them I met this incredibly talented duo of keyboardists/singer. the singer is Ann Vriend and the keyboardist/accompaniment is David Aide. I loved their version of We are the Campions. :) Awesome talent!
This was one of my FAVORITE talks of the whole event, it is a lawyer talking about the “Anti-360 deal” which is apparently why I’ve got going on with over 40+ companies for the past decade of my career. I’m ahead of my time. :)
Mark saying funny stuff on stage and hearing cool info about his experiences in the major label system. He’s a very insightful guy. Lives in London now!
Spooky performing with a member of the Cannes Orchestra (violin)
Here I am with the community manager of MIDEM, James Martin. We met digitally but later at the show in person. We both agree face time is the best. Cool things in the works. :)
The ultimate ultrabook portable studio with SOL Republic headphones as my on the road mixing solution. :) which I also used on a train through the french country side back up to Paris. :)
heres the famous Carlton (basically the hang out zone for all the “cool people” at MIDEM. 
