sample-multi-shotifier

Create perfectly aligned multisample output. A Hack which expands your traditional hardware/software samplers using many-samples-in-one-sample (poor man's soundfont).

UPDATE: added automatic slice detection/cutting support (think drumloops e.g.)

UPDATE: added reversed padding option, pad with reversed sample instead of silence

UPDATE: added appending of silence after every shot (so samplers with autoslice will still function properly)

Introduction

Breath new life into your hardware/software samplers by using multishots + start-sample-offset-parameter. Combine all samples to one wavefile, and expand your 1-sample-per-midichannel device into a xxx-sample-per-midichannel device. For example, on the electribe ESX one can have 128 samples on one drumtrack using this utility. (Only requirement is having SOX utilities installed)

Why?

In these days fiddling with hardware samplers can be cumbersome..swapping disks, copying stuff etc. With this tool you can just 'bake' a subset of your sample collection/directories to one file, and access them all at once on your sampler.

How it works

This is a directorybased sample-utility which can glue samplefiles together into one samplefile. This file can be used in old/new hardware/software samplers. This only works well if your sampler supports setting the samplestart-offset-parameter on-the-fly. For example, the startposition-knob on your sampler goes from 0..127. In theory this means you can navigate thru 128 samples if you generate a sample which contains 128 samples (with the same length..hence the trim-feature). Hope this makes sense, if not, check out this sexy ascii art:

Normally you would load one sample into one sample slot:

0                                                127
+-------------------------------------------------+
| yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!!|
+-------------------------------------------------+



Ok now suppose a sample like this:

0      1      2      3      4                      127
+---------------------------------------------------+
|yeah! |ooh!  |funky!|hello!|    .. (and so on)     | = 128 samples :)
+---------------------------------------------------+
       ^     ^-- bit of silence, takes up a bit of samplememory 
       |
       +----------------- Assuming your sampler startpositionknob ranges from 0 till 127:
                          If you twist/set your startpositionknob to value 1, 
                          then in theory you'll skip to the next sample

In theory this means you can turn an old dusty hardware sampler with these specifications:

(st) sample tracks:                                                         11
(pm) sample possibilities per memoryslot                                    1
(sm) sample memoryslots:                                                    128      
(ms) max sequencer steps:                                                   128
(ps) possibilities of different samples playing per step:     (sm*pm)^st  = 151115727451828646838272 
(pp) possibilities of different samples playing per pattern:       ps^ms  = big

Into a beast with these specs:

(st) sample tracks:                                                         11
(pm) sample possibilities per memoryslot                                    128
(sm) sample memoryslots:                                                    128      
(ms) max sequencer steps:                                                   128
(ps) possibilities of different samples playing per step:     (sm*pm)^st  = 22835963083295358096932575511191922182123945984
(pp) possibilities of different samples playing per pattern:       ps^ms  = HUGE!HUGE!HUGE!

Pros/Cons

• Pros: This gives a totally new dimension to your sampler.
• Cons: it can cost a bit more samplememory since the samples need to be padded properly

The sample-multi-shotifier includes a (non-lossless) pitch-up-feature which can save samplememory, so its up to you in which area you will suffer samplememory.

Requirements

following things are usually installed on any linux system:

• nc (netcat)
• a browser
• bash
• sox utilities (14.4.*)

Credits

• made with bashwapp