Sampleson Funkastic

Generate endless funky keyboard part ideas with Sampleson’s lightweight AI‑powered plug‑in.

The role of AI technology within music production is something that can trigger a wide range of opinions. I suspect pretty much everyone can agree that any AI that involves unlicensed scrapping of the Internet for training materials for the generation of complete tracks from a text prompt is highly undesirable. However, AI applications can be both more ethically built and more tightly focused. Sampleson’s Funkastic plug‑in strikes me as just such a thing. It also fits very neatly into the Sampleson mould; it’s quirky, cool, fun to use and accessibly priced. So, if your funk needs a little inspiration, is Funkastic for you?

Funky Little Thing

Running as either a standalone app or as a plug‑in within your DAW, Funkastic is designed with one specific task in mind: it generates short funk‑style MIDI phrases/riffs based upon a specific user‑defined chord. These are designed to suit a keyboard; think Clavi, but any piano, electric piano, organ, synth or even bass sound could be the target. Indeed, the app/plug‑in includes a suitable Clavi (with optional wah) sound for auditioning purposes.

Funkastic’s underlying algorithms are AI‑based but, to meet the focused aim, require an equally focused training dataset, which Sampleson have achieved by collaborating with a suite of experienced funk and soul keyboard players. The user simply configures a number of musical options within the straightforward UI and the AI‑based engine then generates a suitable one‑bar phrase based upon what it has learned from the carefully curated training data.

In terms of those musical options, you can choose a Variation Style and Mode (both of which define the harmonic choices the engine can work with), the Root Note (of the chord), the Feel (straight or swung), the Notes Amount (how busy the performance might be) and Velocity Strength (essentially influencing the overall MIDI velocity dynamics). With this done, you hit Generate, and up pops a one‑bar phrase — rather nicely visualised within the main display — that matches those criteria. If it doesn’t inspire, hit Generate again or, if you like what you hear, you can hit Variate to generate a variation on the phrase that’s rhythmically similar. As clearly described in the PDF manual, you can easily route the MIDI output from the plug‑in to another virtual instrument but, once you have a phrase you like, the most straightforward workflow is to simply drag and drop the MIDI on to another suitably virtual instrument track of your choice within your DAW. And that’s kind of it.

Bite‑sized Inspiration

In use, you simply repeat this Generate and Variate process one bar at a time, adjusting the other settings based upon your project’s chord sequence. It’s easy and quick to do and, I have to say, the results are really rather good. The Variate feature, in particular, makes it very easy to build a sequence of one‑bar patterns that feel like a coherent whole and, of course, once you have constructed a multi‑bar phrase, you can always edit the MIDI to customise things further.

Obviously, the engine is intended to target keyboard‑based playing, and it does this really well. However, I also found it great for generating ideals suitable for bass lines if I started with the ‘Sparse’ Note Amount setting or thinned out some of the notes in a more densely populated pattern.

AI Done Right?

For anyone whose funk and soul keyboard skills are limited, Funkastic is a lot of fun to use, and the output can be genuinely inspiring. It doesn’t do all the work for you; it’s your chord progression and you define many of the aspects of the performance style. It’s kind of like having a mate made of software who is a decent funk and soul keyboard player, and you are able to say ‘give me a riff for C7 with these characteristics...’ and off Funkastic goes.

Focused but nicely finessed, it does one thing, but does it very well and, because of that, Funkastic is fantastic.

Your mileage may vary, but this strikes me as a perfectly acceptable way to lean into AI technology as part of a music production workflow. Here’s hoping Sampleson are already working on flavours of Funkastic suitably trained on equally focused (and ethically sourced) training materials for guitar, bass and drums. Small, but beautifully formed. Focused but nicely finessed, it does one thing, but does it very well and, because of that, Funkastic is fantastic.