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

The first thing I notice about SampleTank 2.5 XL is the layout. I think they were one of the first ever
The instrument layout:
If there is one thing I don’t really care for, it’s the sound browser. Being the first to do something usually means you get piggybacked by a lot of others, and SampleTank 2.5 XL set the standard for software workstations.
I really like how fast most of the instruments load in SampleTank 2.5 XL, especially compared to the slow loading instrument sin Kontakt. It’s very cpu friendly and allows you to work by quickly scrolling through sounds.
The sounds are good, remind me of a hardware workstation, many are drenched in fx but that’s okay because the fx are actually pretty good.
I love this instrument, the quickness with which it loads paired with the quality of the sounds is good enough for most production work. Even if you use it as a sketch pad to flesh out ideas quickly, then come back to replace sounds later.





