Sampler,
Redefined
Bitwig’s Sampler is the only tool you need for modern sampling workflows. It offers quick, versatile slicing along with five playback modes, covering time-stretching, granular sculpting, hardware emulation, and wavetable-style synthesis.
Sampler’s automatic tempo and pitch detection revolutionize old workflows and introduce new ones, while powerful multisample editing combines depth with ease of use. And because this is Bitwig, Sampler’s parameters are mappable, automatable, and modulatable, allowing you to shape your sound in real-time.
Sampler makes all audio playable – and ready to color, explore, and perform. It also invites you to sample in ways that weren’t possible before. Create layers from looping slices or apply modulation per slice. Bend a sample’s harmonics to your key signature or “auto-tune” an entire sample to the note you’re playing. Modulate your sample’s pulse width, sculpt grains into hypnotic rhythms... The exploration never stops.
Ways to Get Started
To start working with Sampler, simply drag in an audio file from the browser – or any clip from the Arranger or Clip Launcher. Additional keyboard modifiers allow you to instantly create a time-stretching or sliced Sampler. You can even drag multiple samples to create a round-robin Sampler. Or drag with a keyboard modifier to layer your samples and have them tuned for you.
Not sure where to start? Get inspired by one of the many presets and multisample instruments in our vast sound library.
Advanced
Slicing
Sampler now offers slicing in all play modes. Click the Sliced icon to instantly convert a sample into slices that can be triggered from your MIDI controller or the piano roll. Or slice a clip from the Arranger or Launcher directly into a Sampler.
Slicing is about making a sample more accessible to your creativity. Slice a drum loop by beat division – or let Sampler automatically detect the onsets – and you have a playable drumkit at your fingertips. Find a new hook in an acapella by setting slices manually, or by pitch. Whatever the mode, you can adjust, create, and delete any slice with a click or two.
Once sliced, a sample is split into chunks that are triggered by an input. If triggering via notes doesn’t work for you, target your slices with the Select control to explore them with the turn of a dial (or via automation or modulation). You can also trigger your slices via note velocity. Then engage dynamic pitch analysis, and every slice will follow the pitch of the notes you play. A new kind of round robin.
Slicing in Bitwig’s Sampler starts off fast and easy, and ends up exploratory and deeply expressive. Per-slice looping lets you create complex bouncing textures and granular layers. And per-slice modulation means that any parameter in Sampler (or nested devices) can behave differently for each slice. Is this a sampler or a step sequencer?
Intelligent Pitch Analysis
Working with a sample traditionally starts with setting a Root Key, aligning its pitch with the notes on your keyboard. And Sampler lets you manually define a root, but it also revolutionizes this process with dynamic pitch analysis. Click the orb icon to get an analysis of your sample. Now the entire sample will dynamically match whatever pitch you play.
Pitch analysis works in all play modes and with slicing and multisample modes. As well as speeding your process, this presents exciting new possibilities. In Repitch mode, Sampler will dynamically speed up or slow down through the sample to match your chosen notes, for a whole new take on auto-tune. Whatever your mode, all kinds of material become playable melodies and chords. Or Freeze the playhead and modulate its position to enter outer space.
Powerful Time-Stretching
In traditional sample playback, time and pitch are connected: the faster the playback, the higher the pitch. Time-stretching algorithms break this rule, letting you change the speed of a sample while preserving its pitch. We looked closely at the many ways to time-stretch, then came up with our own, optimized for real-time use. Our Spectral play mode is designed to provide the cleanest possible time-stretching no matter your speed, and open a vast space for sonic exploration.
To hear what Spectral mode can do, throw in a drum loop and change the playback speed. We think you’ll be impressed by the results – particularly when you engage Preserve Onsets, which uses clever math to “unstretch” the sample around transients. By the way, Sampler can automatically detect your sample’s tempo. It can link your sample to the project BPM, too. Change the tempo and hear it keep step.
It’s not just about time: Spectral can also do wild things to timbre. Engage formant processing to morph your sample in ways subtle or uncanny – with an extra Relative Formant Shift option, to take pitch changes into account. Spectral can also Bend your sample’s harmonics into bold new shapes. You can even quantize its harmonics to any scale to access delightful harmonic terrains.
Expressive Granular Engine
Bitwig’s Sampler features two powerful granular play modes. Use Textures for quick and powerful grain shaping, or dive into Fragments for deeper granular design. Generating up to 256 independent grains per voice – with each grain having its own playback rate and direction, position, and size – Fragments is a mighty tool for precise and unusual grain-shaping.
With granular playback in Bitwig’s Sampler, dramatic clouds of sound are just the beginning. Slow playback down to treat your grains like an oscillator. Add random Motion, and set your grains to run in different directions to create complex textures. Shape grain envelopes from smooth to clicky, sync grains to the project tempo for rhythmic effects, and make grains repeat up to 16 times for extra density.
Hardware Emulation...
Repitch is Sampler’s classic playback mode. The Speed control dynamically changes both playback time and pitch, even allowing negative speeds for record-scratch effects and more.
Two optional Repitch characters emulate beloved hardware sounds. Analog brings you juicy saturation and tape flavor, while Digital can emulate iconic ‘90s samplers, or mangle your sound beyond recognition. And because Sampler is polyphonic, this processing can be applied differently per-voice, taking you places your hardware could never go.
...and Sonic Exploration
Cycles unites sampling and synthesis. This play mode preserves pitch when speed changes by generating wavetables from the sample audio. Its three characters allow you to adjust the pulse width of your sample; apply phase modulation; or rebalance its odd and even harmonics. An additional Duophonic option crossfades two Cycles engines to give you a smoother sound.
Cycles combines well with Freeze, a feature available in all Sampler play modes. Freeze puts the sample playhead under your control, letting you position it at the turn of a dial, or use modulation and automation to explore your sample in new ways. With Freeze engaged, Sampler becomes an oscillator with vast timbral possibilities.
Working With Multisamples
Working With Multi-
samples
Whether you’re creating lifelike sampled instruments or experimental layered sounds, Bitwig’s Sampler makes multisampling easy. Multisample zones can be created, arranged, and edited in either grid or list view. Zones can be grouped, muted, and soloed for easy editing, and with multiple zones selected, you can quickly edit their values using the Histogram.
The Select parameter decides which samples will be triggered as each note is played, and with Live Select Updating turned on, you can crossfade between samples via pressure, modulator, or whatever else you've got. Both velocity and select parameter settings can transition across zones, blending multiple samples and creating endless sonic combinations.
Sampler in The Grid
Sampler is also available as a module in The Grid, so you can combine it with our 230+ modules – and enjoy some Grid-only features. In Fragments mode, grains can be triggered via signal input. And in all modes, optional module outputs let you take Sampler’s analysis data to-go. Trigger drum sounds with synced onsets, match an oscillator to a sample’s moving pitch, layer sounds using amplitude data… We’re curious to see where that takes you.
