Samplers / Sampling

If you want to artificially extend your instrument samples, or make entire backing tracks from one rhythmic snippet, you'll need to know about looping and time-stretching. And then there's keygrouping... We explain these fundamental sampling processes, and more.

If you want the sample playback features of Steinberg's Halion sample player, but you don't need its detailed editing facilities, there's now an affordable answer to your needs — and it includes the full Halion sound library too...

Having introduced the concept of looping, velocity switching, and multisampling, it's time to actually make some samples. We give you a few hard-won tips that can make your life easier on the way.

FXpansion's software drum machine takes the 'pad sampler' concept pioneered by Akai's MPC range to new levels.

As we saw last month, sampling is really just a form of digital recording, but to use short recordings to emulate real instruments, you soon need to understand new concepts like multisampling, looping, and velocity switching. We explain all...

Most modern musicians use samples, even if only in Sample & Synthesis-based keyboards or virtual instruments. But sampling itself has become something of a lost art. In the first part of a short series on rediscovering this skill, we look back at how the technique and the technology developed.

Native Instruments' Kontakt has become one of the most popular software samplers since its release in 2002, and the new version, with its many excellent new features, should keep it near the top of the heap.

If you are keen to move to an all-software setup, but still depend on sounds from your hardware synths, Redmatica's utility might smooth the path...

Version 3 of Gigastudio has taken a long time to arrive, and plenty of other software samplers have come along during the wait. Does it still have what it takes to see off the competition?