https://samplab.com/plugin

This is an interesting free VST hybrid online tool which can take audio samples and loops to transform into a midi file which you can then edit in your DAW to create a new version of the sample or loop.

This is how it works.

When you drag and drop an audio file into the plugin, it is sent to our server for processing. Once this is completed, you receive the result with all the notes in the audio seperated. In order to edit the notes, we generate a MIDI file that you can drag into the Samplab track. From now on, the plugin acts like a virtual instrument: It gets the MIDI events as input from your DAW and plays the (edited) notes. If you don't make any changes to the MIDI, the result should sound the same as the original audio. Of course, you can also just use the MIDI file for other things.

I would recommend leaving the vst3 file to install to the default location as I had problems in getting it recognized when I used a custom location in both Cubase and Studio One. It also seems to work best with harmonic instruments.

Patrick

If I understand this correctly, it could be of tremendous assistance in doing transcriptions. I do this kind of work a lot.

Are you involved with this product? You said ‘our server’. Or is that a quote of the marketing statement? EDIT: never mind; I see this in their FAQ section.

What is the definition of ‘harmonic instruments’? Might that be monophonic (versus polyphonic)? EDIT: I did not find the answer to this.
Thanks. It’s intriguing.

Not sure what they mean by "harmonic" instruments, but where Samplab would definitely fail for me is transcribing acoustic double bass lines for use on an electric bass.

Example: Patricia Barber's "Too Rich For My Blood".

I could NEVER get the first two notes on the bass to sound right on my bass. I finally ran it through Melodyne and got my answer. The first note was 50 cents sharp. The second note was 25 cents sharp. The remaining bass line, along with the entire song played in F major.

So my guess would be that microtonal audio would cause Samplab to return false results. Any note not sitting square on one of the twelve tones could be returned +/- one semitone.

Maybe in a case like that, fix it in Melodyne first?

That way, you can find out what Paul is really singing in the first note of each verse for Yesterday.

Hi Matt,

I have no connection with the developers so all info is from their website. I think the current version is limited to 10 seconds of audio but this will be upgraded to longer times in future versions.

For all interested, PluginGuru will be doing a live stream which will be featuring Samplab amongst other items @ 12pm PDT today. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr7-Xqps1ag

Very quick report:

I played with it a few minutes and was successful taking a six second audio snippet into Studio One and getting a MIDI track of it.

You have to create an account after downloading the EXE file and running it, but that was quick and easy. You can choose whether to sign up for their newsletter. I did.

It took me a moment to figure out the output was SampLab at first, then I had to assign my own output device, but this is standard stuff in a DAW with a new instrumental project.

I see some potential for this.

Features that were not yet available include Stereo, hi-quality audio, and longer samples. It should be a paid plugin once those are ready.