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Yellow Tools - 5 Disc Sample Disc’s -Pure Drums, Guitars, E-Basses 0
$ 15.83
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Description
Yellow Tools 5 Disc Sample Disc’s -Pure Drums, Guitars, E-BassesThe Pure Drums set contains 2 Sample Disc’s. The rest have 1 disc a piece.
These discs are DVD’s which can also be read by a computer’s DVD-Rom or a SCSI external DVD-rom on older hardware.
I've listened to many drum-kit libraries that focus on building a particular vibe through creative production techniques. Yellow Tools'
Pure Drums
(Akai; 9.95) takes a decidedly different and perhaps more traditional approach: record the drums as simply and purely as possible. All samples are dry and in mono without room ambience or added reverb. Some sounds use a fair amount of compression, but many others sound very much as though you were simply putting your ear dangerously close to the drum (or cymbal) itself. I first compared
Pure Drums
with several other drum libraries that exhibit lots of ambience, compression, and so on. Initially,
Pure Drums
sounded somewhat flat and drab in contrast to the other libraries.
Drums Straight Up
The trick is that the drab quality is intentional. The CD-ROM's sparse documentation notes that the samples are presented dry so that “there are no limits to your creativity.” Because the drums are completely dry, you can add compression, EQ, and ambience yourself to create your own finished drum sound.
That is a either great advantage or a major drawback, depending on your preference and working style. If you need samples that you can instantly drop into a track with no processing required, then
Pure Drums
is probably not for you. However, if you want to make your own decisions about processing, this collection gives you plenty of raw material to blend to your liking.
Through extensive Velocity switching — more than I've seen in any other drum library — the samples enable as much creativity in playing and programming as they do in production. For instance, each kit includes no fewer than 44 snare samples: 16 Velocity levels each for left and right hands and 4 levels of Velocity each for side stick, flam, and buzz roll. All of the snare samples are also available in a separate program, laid out with one sample per key. Kick and tom samples offer 16 Velocity levels, hi-hats have 6, and cymbals provide 4. This structure is identical for all programs on the disc — a commendable degree of organization! With so many levels of Velocity available, it's relatively easy to make parts sound natural, expressive, and highly dynamic.
You get 17 basic kits, each with 2 variations. My favorites include Funk Kit A, with its snappy kick drum and a compressed snare that rings, and the solid kick drum and low-pitched snare of Street Kit A. I appreciate the unusual luxury of having two brushed kits (Swing and Jazz) to choose from, but I still wish that their ride cymbals had been recorded with brushes instead of sticks.
Get Your Kicks
Almost all of the snares have an interesting and useful character, but they tend toward higher tunings and can sometimes sound a tad brittle (easily solved by a touch of EQ). Although many of the kicks are solid, several have a disappointing hollow character that I couldn't fix with postprocessing. Finally, there is a good selection of toms, from the beefy Rock Kit to the trashy Jungle Kit, but not one includes the sympathetic buzzing of the snare drum, which is sometimes desirable.
Overall,
Pure Drums
is fairly successful. The pervasive Velocity switching is amazing, but not all of the sounds measure up to this level of control. Considering the affordable price, those interested in more sonic and expressive control over their drum sounds should certainly give it a listen.
Pure e-basses volume 1 features the "Fender Jazz Bass" and "Fender Precision Bass".
The Fender Jazz Bass was recorded in the playing styles fingered, slap and pick muted. The Fender Precision Bass was recorded in the playing styles fingered, pick and pick muted. Each playing style contains about 2,000 sound samples. All playing techniques like ghost notes, tappings, hammer-ons, 8th notes, slides slow, slides fast, pop ghost notes, pop slides, pop 8th notes etc. are also playable separately with up to 8 velocity splits per note. For the first time all basses were recorded in 2 different scales! This unique feature enables the choice of the string on which the note should be played!
All playing techniques give you the option of combining any of the basses!
Plus you get prefabricated combinations for each playing style with 8 velocity splits per note. More than 100 different samples per note!!! More than 150 FX per bass (harmonics, fret noises, slides, noises, scrapes etc).
The 24bit quality and precise editing of the samples puts this collection in the "must have" category.
PURE DRUMS contains multiformat option is 1 DVD (EXS24 & Gigasampler).
Yellow Tools Pure E- Basses Vol. Two
Yellow tools pure e-basses is the first E-Bass library which allows perfect, live sounding e-bass performances:
Through the recording of all playing techniques with several velocity splits per note and their breakdown into independent programs, pure e-basses offers boundless possibilities for the user, to combine the basses at will, depending on the kind and his preference of his music production.
With the e-basses "
Ibanez BTB 5-string
", "
Warwick Streamer Stage 1 fretless
" and "
Epiphone Jack Cassidy Signature Model
", volume two of this firstclass sampling library completes the whole range of electric basses
The Ibanez BTB 5-string was recorded in the playing styles fingered, slap and fingered short
The Warwick Streamer Stage 1 fretless was recorded in the playing style fingered
The Epiphone Jack Cassidy Signature Model was recorded in the playing style fingered muted
Each playing style contains about 2,000 sound samples: all playing techniques like ghost notes, vibrato, tappings, hammer-ons, 8th notes, slides slow, slides fast, pop ghost notes, pop 8th notes etc. are also playable separately with up to 8 velocity splits per note.
All playing techniques can be combined to new basses at will!
Already prefabricated combinations for each playing style with 8 velocity splits per note
More than 100 different sound samples per note!!!
More than 150 FX per bass (harmonics, fret noises, slides, noises, scrapes etc)
High end recording and editing of the sound samples in real 24bit
To achieve best possible playability, all basses were recorded in 2 different scales:
The breakdown into two scales is a very important features of this library. Performing electric basses, there is often a choice between notes and the strings on which this note can be played. A1, for example, can be played on the open third string as well as on the 5th fret of the 4th string. Because there is no rule for that in general, we want to let the user decide! Scale 1 is the complete basic scale. Within scale 2, the following notes were replaced:
E1 (open 4. string)
-->
to D1 (Rock-mood)
A1 (5. fret / 4. string)
-->
A1 (open 3. string)
B1 (7. fret / 4. string)
-->
B1 (2. fret / 3. string)
D2 (5. fret / 3. string)
-->
D2 (open 2. string)
E2 (7. fret / 3. string)
-->
E2 (2. fret / 2. string)
F2 (8. fret / 3. string)
-->
F2 (3. fret / 2. string)
G2 (5. fret / 2. string)
-->
G2 (open 1. string)
A2 (7. fret / 2. string)
-->
A2 (2. fret / 1. string)
B2 (9. fret / 2. string)
-->
B2 (4. fret / 1. string)
C3 (10. fret / 2. string)
-->
C3 (5. fret / 1. string)
You can play the complete basses of scale 2 as well as just load the replaced notes.
All e-basses are optimized for the respective format
Yellow Tools Pure Guitars
Although my main instruments are keyboards and percussion, I've always been fascinated by guitars. I recently took one down from the rack at my local music-gear superstore, held it to my body, visualized perfection — and played a poorly fingered E-minor chord. Maybe some day I'll sit down and learn to play; for now Yellow Tools'
Pure Guitars
(9.95) does a pretty good job of fulfilling my jones for an acoustic guitar.
The collection is available on CD-ROM in Akai/E-mu, Giga, or Emagic EXS24 sampler formats. For my review, I used an E-mu E6400 Ultra sampler with 128 MB of RAM.
Pure Guitars
favors quality over quantity. The collection presents seven extensively multisampled guitars: Nylon Concert, Nylon Spanish, Steel Pick, Steel Fingered, Steel Jumbo, Ovation Piezo, and 12-string. There are also sets of chords from the Ovation and 12-string and two multisamples of acoustic bass.
Take Your Pick
The bulk of the sounds share a refreshingly regular layout; the sound designers were clearly well organized. All of the main programs take up 32 MB and use five levels of Velocity switching: soft, medium, loud, hard attack with string buzz, and a bend up to the root pitch. Most include a separate harmonics program with two-way Velocity switching, along with 60 or 70 FX Samples of string scrapes and body knocks — pretty hefty stuff.
Rather than resorting to loops, Yellow Tools captured the full, natural decay of all of the instruments. Samples are usually mapped to cover a few half steps, keeping pitch-shifting artifacts to a minimum. The samples are close-miked and in mono, resulting in an intimate but rather dry timbre. For best results, add a touch of reverb.
Up for the Down Stroke
Almost all of the programs sound great — they're expressive and fun to play. Steel Jumbo has a sweet, round tone, possessing a steely tone without being overly bright. The nylon programs are open and pure, with Nylon Spanish offering a slightly fuller tone than Nylon Concert. The Ovation Piezo harmonics are really neat, with a timbre that straddles the line between acoustic and electric. The wild, organic character of Aggressive Acoustic Bass would be perfect for rootsy rock. I have other sets of sampled chords — some including distinct sets of samples for up and down strokes — but
Pure Guitars
' 12-string chords are the best I've heard. A three-way Velocity switch adds to their realism.
Still, the collection isn't completely perfect. Several samples have clicks at the end, which usually show up when holding down the sustain pedal. The clicks were easy to edit out, but I wish that they weren't there in the first place. Also, one program had a gap in its complex Velocity map, such that a Velocity of exactly 123 would play no sound at all.
Strum Away
Pure Guitars
' great samples, strong organization, and playability overshadow those few weaknesses, especially because of its reasonable price. I recommend it to anyone who needs to create realistic acoustic-guitar parts with their samplers as well as to keyboardists who just want to sit down and strum every once in a while.
