The sample and sampler have been around for quite a while, but the concept is not new. First, what's a sample? Think of it this way: No matter how hard you try to re-create the sound of an acoustic instrument synthetically, it's never as good as the real thing. So, instead of trying to re-create the sound, you can record each note of a real acoustic instrument as an audio file and place each one in a machine capable of assigning MIDI notes to those sampled sounds. The sampled sounds, which are real recordings of real instruments, can be played back from a MIDI keyboard.

Now, what's a sampler? A sampler is a device that plays back prerecording audio via MIDI commands. For example, you play a note on your keyboard controller, and the corresponding audio sample is played back in whatever sound you choose. With this invention, musicians could play an authentic sounding trumpet from an ordinary keyboard. For a long time, rack-mounted samplers that read floppy disk and CD-ROM samples were important and frequently used studio tools. Samplers were also integrated into many of the high-end keyboard workstations available.

There are many virtual samplers made today. Some are standalone applications, such as the popular Gigasampler. Many are plug-ins that act as virtual instruments. EXS24 by Emagic, Sampletank by IK Multimedia, Kompakt and Kontakt by Native Instruments, and MachFive by MOTU are all examples of software-based samplers that exist as virtual instrument plug-ins.

As time marches on, the sound of the sampler is constantly improving. In the early days, the size of the audio files was prohibitive to “real” sampling. Usually, a few notes were sampled truly, and the rest were pitch-shifted to accommodate the full range. They sounded very good, but they were never replacements for the real thing. With the power of the personal computer and the affordability of larger hard disks, the quality of the sampler is hard to believe. FIGURE 17-4 shows MachFive's main sampler window.

FIGURE 17-4

MOTU MachFive Screenshot used by permission of MOTU.

As you can see, you have a lot of control. Not only can you change aspects of the sample, you can sample instruments yourself! MachFive will also import and read most of the sampler formats available on the market, a great idea if you worked with a hardware sampler in the past and already have samples you like.