SampleRobot let’s you clone your hardware and software instruments

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Have you ever wanted to have a specific set of sounds at all times?

Maybe you have a favorite old school synth that you love, but you just don’t love carrying it around.

Or you like everything software has to offer, but you haven’t found anything to replace your favorite string patch from that roland xv 5080!

The answer is sampling the sound…but really, who wants to spend the time to do all that? Sample all the notes, trigger them one by one, etc…

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.

Luckily for us there’s SampleRobot!

What is SampleRobot?

It’s basically your personal software, hardware, acoustic instrument cloning, recycling, re-mangling, ninja sound design system.

It will automate the process of cloning ANY instrument that can receive midi, and will even help automate sampling and instrument creation of acoustic instruments.

It can export them in various popular formats like Reason’s nnxt, or Cakewalk Dimension format, Wusik format, or Emulator X, Kontakt, EXS, you get the idea.

It’s a simple way to automate the creation of your own custom virtual sound library made up of any instrument you have laying around, or your friend has laying around, or your friend’s cousin’s uncle Steve has tucked away in his Ghostbuster van!

You get the idea!

So is it easy to use and does it give good results?

I don’t wanna sound like the infomercial dude but it’s really “set it and forget it” lol.

It’s VERY deep, you can do multi layers, automatic sound looping and crossfades for perfectly playable instruments.

You can send all the attack parameters, midi cc, program changes, or anything else you need to make sure you capture every subtle characteristic of your favorite sound.

In my tests, the auto-loop and crossfade was spot on! Very seamless and I couldn’t even tell where it looped.

It can record up to 192kHz at 24 bit dependent on your interface.

Has a very nice built in wave editor, and a ton of presets for common projects like sampling bass, piano, synth, rhythms, pads, etc.

This will give you various options, and tell you how much space it’s going to take!

So what’s the bottom line?

You know I REALLY wish I could have tested this out when I had my hardware, but you know me, I look for various uses!

Even if you don’t have hardware I can see using this to create your own instruments, since you can drag any wave/samples into it.

But also, if you have some cpu hungry plugins, you can sample your favorite sounds and load them as samples into your favorite sampler, making them much lighter on the cpu.

If you have a monster computer in your studio, but your mobile rig is a little less powerful, you could clone your favorite plugin sounds for use on the laptop.

Clone your keyboards, your synths, your drums, sample acoustic guitars, make your own custom library.

I really was impressed with how easy it was, because when I first opened it, it really didn’t look so simple, but it is.

If you’ve ever wanted to clone, combine, create, or make your favorite sounds portable then definitely check this one out.

I first heard about SampleRobot many years ago, me and a bunch of friends where going to sample each others keyboards, synths, etc….

Things happened, we never got around to it, and now most of us have sold all of our hardware!

That’s okay though, this software is flexible enough to be used in many different ways.

There are many flavors of the program, the full featured version is $419 while the essential version is $159.  Depending on what features you need, will determine which one you go with.

Check it out if this is your type of thing. http://samplerobot.com/index.php

14 Comments

  1. What up Joe,

    AhhhhYeahhhh I remember my encounter with SampleRobot….I know you remember when I decided to use it to resample the Beat Thang library being that they didn’t have a VST plugin yet. I actually got a good portion of the library sampled and converted to Kontakt format but I decided to stop and wait for the Beat Kangz to make the VST available (which is suppose to be soon, I hope). The main reason I stopped is because I couldn’t use my computer for anything else while I was sampling and then I had to tweak the samples, remove silence from samples, fix loop points, map samples, etc. (very time consuming) but it is a good application for getting sounds from hardware & plugins. I haven’t had a chance to use Open Labs Mimik yet but both apps sound very similar and seem to have the same purpose.

    Thanks for the review Joe. This is a very good application as an alternative to get those classic sounds from older hardware.

    Reply
    • @Madbull1971, yeah man, it’s good stuff I feel ya. You can tweak it so you don’t have to change those settings…I had some great results actually, not any silence etc…

      I sampled a kit from btv to for testin, it worked pretty good.

      thanks for the response

      Reply
  2. I saw this a few years back in Computer Music magazine and was blown away that someone made such a thing and it worked well. I got a i7 quad but that doesn’t stop Massive from hitting 30-40% on the regular, so good example there. I’m about to invest in some new hardware (and some used haha) and I have no shortage of cpu-abusing plugins, so this is looking very appealing.

    Reply
  3. Joe, Joe, Joe!! I was…dude I was thinking about this software just this morning and I said to myself “I have got to get a copy of this powerful tool”. I had read about this program more than a year ago in an article in Remix magazine. I held on to the issue to come back to it and I rushed home thinking it would be there and NOPE! Can’t find it at all. I racked my brains trying to remember the name of the software but no dice. I searched google and it took a minute to find the company’s link (on synthtopia.com). As son as I get to their home page, I see your face! LOL They posted the above review. Great minds think alike but damn..what a coincidence. I am getting this software most def. I need to rape some Tritons, Fantoms and Motifs! Well rape is a strong word but I NEED that. We gotta build either way. I have an offer for you. I will send you an email…

    Reply
    • @EDAYE, Whas good fam! Always great to hear from ya! Yeah ma, I wish I would have checked this out back when I had my Supernova Rack or fantom, emu racks, etc…but even using it to clone cpu hungry plugins is a great tool as well. So many things you can do with it, you can also drag in your own waves and make instruments that way.

      The full version comes with cakewalk dimension le, with a special “bridge” so when you convert it automatically shows up in dimension presets!

      sickness

      holla at me man, it’s been a minute!

      Reply

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