Product Review - Yellow Tools Independence Pro : July 2009
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| Product Review - Yellow Tools Independence ProArticle Preview :: Software Sampler [Mac/PC]Published in SOS July 2009 Reviews : Software: Instruments This suite of sampling, effects and live performance software, with a bundled 65GB library, is feature-rich but also up against heavy competition. Can it make its mark?
Yellow Tools are a German company who started producing CD-ROM-based sample content back in the days when men were men and samplers were mostly white and rackmounted. Their involvement with soft sampling dates back to the early noughties — they released the sample-based instruments Culture, Majestic and Candy between 2003 and 2005, and followed them up with a fully-fledged sampler, Independence, shortly afterwards. While software-based samplers and sample players were quite a big deal in 2003, they’re not now, and Yellow Tools’ current flagship instrument, Independence Pro — the subject of this review — goes up against some industry-standard heavyweights in today’s market. Independence What?
So what exactly is Independence Pro? It’s actually a little suite of software. The main attraction is Independence 2, which is a software sampler that runs as a stand-alone application or as a plug-in in AU or VST format on Mac OS 10.4 or later, or Windows XP and Vista. As with any ‘proper’ sampler, you get to load, edit and loop your own audio, control the way it’s mapped onto the keyboard, and tweak hundreds of other parameters. However, no-one would blame you if you only ever used the bundled library, and Independence Pro’s runs to a chunky 65GB. It offers a typical workstation-style spread of instruments: pianos, guitars, orchestral, organs, pop horns, drums, percussion and synths. Those earlier specialist libraries, Culture, Majestic and Candy (specialising in percussion, electric basses and saxes, respectively), are thrown in, and there are some tempo-locked arpeggiated and sequenced patches too. I’ll talk more about these later. Alongside Independence 2, the stand-alone-only Independence Live presents a streamlined interface for accessing the sound library in a live situation. The plug-in-only Independence FX splits off (you guessed it) Independence 2’s effects section so that it can be applied to any other track in your DAW. There are in the region of 45 processors, effects and ‘helpers’, including Yellow Tools’ convolution reverb, Origami. Independence Pro is clearly a complex beast, and it would be virtually impossible for a review to dig into every single little detail. So I’m going to concentrate on what seems to me the really crucial factors of the Independence 2 plug-in: the operational ‘feel’, mixing and effects, the sound library, the unique features and the potential for expansion. Taken together, these will hopefully give you a good idea of just what’s on offer. User Interface ...
Published in SOS July 2009 
| Sunday 8th November 2009 November 2009
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