Yellofier being ported to Android from iOS is an interesting and new addition to the selection of musical manipulation and music making applications for Android.
One thing that got obvious from the beginning is that they have actually succeeded in doing what their publicity said it would do. Creating an application that is easy to use for non musicians and musicians alike getting some musically effective beats going in no time.
Interesting to is that one of the creators being part of the band Yello that made some waves in the eighties with quirky catchy pop music and being sold as a application that will make a Yello type of music it actually succeeds in doing just that, as a lot of the sounds you throw at it actually comes out Yellofied after just a little bit of messing around.
So what is Yellofier.
At a quick glance it looks like a sample player with a built in sequencer and effects to use on top of you samples with a colourful and different type of interface. Effectively that's it.
So what makes it different from any other sample player / sequencer?
The directness and workflow gives it a easy learning curve makes it fun to use.
What you get is the possibility to create two soundbanks with up to eight sounds each plus four soundbanks that comes with the application.
This you can sequence in one of four tracks that can span 99 bars each and each bar can use any of the soundbanks for sequencing. So here comes one of the things that makes Yellofier different and that is that you have eight effects and you can use any of the effects on top of any of the sequencer steps / sounds. Meaning that you can have sixteen steps, each with different effects.
The effects have four fixed settings that gets accessed by turning a square with the sample and effect this takes some practice but not too much and that may be the only thing that is slightly difficult learning in Yellofier.
The effects and how they work with their four fixed settings is the main reason how the application makes the music sound like it could have been made by Yello.
For me though what is both the great and at the same time my biggest complaint of Yellofier is for the same reason.
What is good like mentioned is that you fire it up experiment and have a piece of music that sounds good. This because a lot of things is sweetening the sound behind the scene and even things like panning of the samples are made for you.
Making it perfect for people that do not know how to set effects and mix.
Not to say that it is toyish it is definitely capable of doing some serious music with.
But it gets slightly repetitive to hear the same effects as some of them tend to smooch any sample to sound the same. And already have heard a fair bit of music being made with Yellofier it is getting boring already to hear certain things in all of the songs.
So on one hand it is great that you can create and have fun easily but as you are forced in many ways into a specific sound it can feel limiting. Have to mention to that there is only one time signature 4/4.
So in the end it's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness as it would not be fun and intuitive if it was set up differently but it also makes it limiting and somewhat frustrating.
In either case i do feel like it is an application that is worth getting as you can also just use it as a sampler that can load a sample or record directly and then slice it easily to be played directly with responsive pads or sequenced and even though I complained about things turning out similar it also can get some funky grooves going that you would have a hard time getting in other ways. Of course it can also be useful for shorter beats and sample manipulations and to throw in parts of something that you work on to see what you can make happen.
Okay there is also one critique that has to be brought up. It is that they have set the minimum for Android at 2.3.3 which is not right. It does not work at all on neither my device that is 2.3.3 and my tablet that uses 3.2 it started more or less good but stopped working pretty fast... For some reason when I go to the Playstore through my device it says that you need Android 4.0. In either case be aware that your device may not be able to handle it and there is no Demo version to try but if you are reading this as posted now there is a free version ( for Europe ) that you can use for for the contest that is going on which functions the same but will stop working on March the first. In either case if you have Android 4.0 or over it should not be any problems.
To finish here is some music that I made for the competition that is going on with Yellofier.
One thing that got obvious from the beginning is that they have actually succeeded in doing what their publicity said it would do. Creating an application that is easy to use for non musicians and musicians alike getting some musically effective beats going in no time.
Interesting to is that one of the creators being part of the band Yello that made some waves in the eighties with quirky catchy pop music and being sold as a application that will make a Yello type of music it actually succeeds in doing just that, as a lot of the sounds you throw at it actually comes out Yellofied after just a little bit of messing around.
So what is Yellofier.
At a quick glance it looks like a sample player with a built in sequencer and effects to use on top of you samples with a colourful and different type of interface. Effectively that's it.
So what makes it different from any other sample player / sequencer?
The directness and workflow gives it a easy learning curve makes it fun to use.
What you get is the possibility to create two soundbanks with up to eight sounds each plus four soundbanks that comes with the application.
This you can sequence in one of four tracks that can span 99 bars each and each bar can use any of the soundbanks for sequencing. So here comes one of the things that makes Yellofier different and that is that you have eight effects and you can use any of the effects on top of any of the sequencer steps / sounds. Meaning that you can have sixteen steps, each with different effects.
The effects have four fixed settings that gets accessed by turning a square with the sample and effect this takes some practice but not too much and that may be the only thing that is slightly difficult learning in Yellofier.
The effects and how they work with their four fixed settings is the main reason how the application makes the music sound like it could have been made by Yello.
For me though what is both the great and at the same time my biggest complaint of Yellofier is for the same reason.
What is good like mentioned is that you fire it up experiment and have a piece of music that sounds good. This because a lot of things is sweetening the sound behind the scene and even things like panning of the samples are made for you.
Making it perfect for people that do not know how to set effects and mix.
Not to say that it is toyish it is definitely capable of doing some serious music with.
But it gets slightly repetitive to hear the same effects as some of them tend to smooch any sample to sound the same. And already have heard a fair bit of music being made with Yellofier it is getting boring already to hear certain things in all of the songs.
So on one hand it is great that you can create and have fun easily but as you are forced in many ways into a specific sound it can feel limiting. Have to mention to that there is only one time signature 4/4.
So in the end it's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness as it would not be fun and intuitive if it was set up differently but it also makes it limiting and somewhat frustrating.
In either case i do feel like it is an application that is worth getting as you can also just use it as a sampler that can load a sample or record directly and then slice it easily to be played directly with responsive pads or sequenced and even though I complained about things turning out similar it also can get some funky grooves going that you would have a hard time getting in other ways. Of course it can also be useful for shorter beats and sample manipulations and to throw in parts of something that you work on to see what you can make happen.
Okay there is also one critique that has to be brought up. It is that they have set the minimum for Android at 2.3.3 which is not right. It does not work at all on neither my device that is 2.3.3 and my tablet that uses 3.2 it started more or less good but stopped working pretty fast... For some reason when I go to the Playstore through my device it says that you need Android 4.0. In either case be aware that your device may not be able to handle it and there is no Demo version to try but if you are reading this as posted now there is a free version ( for Europe ) that you can use for for the contest that is going on which functions the same but will stop working on March the first. In either case if you have Android 4.0 or over it should not be any problems.
To finish here is some music that I made for the competition that is going on with Yellofier.
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