microSAMPLER How the microSAMPLER works
A plain-English tour of the concepts behind the hardware, so the editor's parameters and views make sense. This is a primer written for editor users — your microSAMPLER's own manual is the authoritative reference.
Banks & memory
Everything on the microSAMPLER lives in a bank. A bank is a complete kit: its 36 sample slots, all their parameters, the bank's name and tempo, one effect setting, and 16 pattern slots. Only one bank is loaded at a time — that's the "current bank" you're editing.
- The current bank lives in RAM. When you sample, upload or tweak a parameter, you're changing this working copy. Switching banks or powering off discards it unless you save (see below).
- User banks are persistent storage on the device. Saving the current bank into a user bank keeps it across power cycles.
- ROM banks are factory content (samples and patterns) you can load as a starting point; you can't overwrite them, but you can load one, edit it, and save the result to a user bank.
Each bank draws on two separate memory pools: a large one for sample audio and a small one for pattern sequences. The editor's memory meters show how full each pool is for the current bank — handy before sampling something long or recording busy patterns.
RAM vs saved
The editor writes to the device's current bank, which is RAM. Those changes are lost on power-off or a bank switch. To keep them: do a WRITE on the device to a user bank, or restore a backup into a user bank from the editor's Utility view. Always back up a bank before bulk operations, and never disconnect mid-transfer.
This RAM model is why the editor can be non-destructive: previewing a pattern, for instance, writes it to the current bank and plays it, but nothing is permanent until you deliberately save. It's also why bank backups matter — a backup captures the whole RAM bank to a file you can restore later.
Samples & the two play modes
A bank has 36 sample slots, laid out across the device's keys (and mirrored on the editor's pad grid). Each slot holds one recorded or imported sound plus its parameters. The microSAMPLER plays those 36 sounds in two distinct ways, and understanding the difference explains a lot of the editor:
- Sample mode — each key triggers its own slot at its original pitch, like a drum kit or a pad bank. This is how you play a kit where every key is a different sound.
- Keyboard mode — the keys play a single, selected sample chromatically, like a sampler instrument: hold a melody and the one sample follows the pitches.
The on-screen keyboard's SAMPLE / KEYBOARD toggle, and MIDI-keyboard input, map straight onto these two modes. The two modes are also why a pattern has two tracks: one for sample-mode hits (which pad, when) and one for keyboard-mode notes (which pitch of the selected sample).
Sample parameters
Every slot carries a set of parameters the editor exposes and writes live:
| Parameter | What it does |
|---|---|
| Start / End | The portion of the recording that actually plays. Trim on the waveform or type exact frames. |
| Loop | Whether playback loops between the start and end points (sustained sounds) or plays once (one-shots). |
| Reverse | Plays the sample backwards. |
| Level / Pan | Per-slot volume and stereo position. |
| Decay / Release | How the sound fades while held and after release — its amplitude envelope. |
| Semitone / Tune | Coarse (±24 semitones) and fine (cents) pitch offset. |
| Velocity intensity | How strongly playing harder/softer affects the level. |
| FX switch | Whether the bank's effect is applied to this slot (see Effects). |
| BPM-sync / Original BPM | Time-stretch or pitch behaviour relative to the bank tempo (see below). |
The microSAMPLER only transmits a knob move while it's on its sample-edit page; turned elsewhere, the value changes silently. So the editor re-reads the bank when you press RECEIVE or refocus the window, keeping the two in sync after you fiddle with the hardware.
BPM-sync & original BPM
A bank has a tempo, and each sample remembers the tempo it was recorded at — its original BPM. BPM-sync decides what happens when the bank tempo differs from a loop's original tempo:
- Off — the sample plays at its natural speed and pitch.
- Stretch — the sample is time-stretched to match the bank tempo, keeping its pitch. Great for keeping a drum loop in time across tempos.
- Pitch — the sample is sped up or slowed down to match the tempo, so its pitch changes with it (classic sampler behaviour).
For stretch/pitch to track correctly, the sample's original BPM must be right — that's why the editor lets you edit it (the BPM chip on the Samples view). When BPM-sync is on, the editor's waveform playhead even sweeps at the stretched rate.
Sampling on the device
Sampling itself happens on the hardware (the editor can remotely trigger it via the Utility view, but you watch the device screen). A few concepts shape how a recording turns into a playable slot:
- Input — record from the audio input(s) or the built-in mic, or resample the device's own output (to bounce a sound through the effect, for example).
- Trigger style — the device offers several ways a sample is captured and replayed, e.g. looping material, one-shots, gated (only while a key is held), key-gated, and "auto next" for capturing a run of slots in sequence. These map onto the loop/one-shot behaviour you see per slot.
- Audio-in through the effect — the bank's effect can process the live input, so you can monitor and even sample through it.
Whichever way you capture audio, you can also bring sounds in from your computer: the editor uploads WAVs (resampling them to the device's rates), with optional normalize / trim / fade and auto-slicing across pads.
Effects
Each bank has one effect, chosen from 22 types (filters, modulation, delays, reverb, a looper, and more). It's applied to any sample whose FX switch is on, and optionally to the live audio input. Two of the effect's parameters are assigned to the hardware's FX EDIT 1/2 knobs for quick hands-on tweaking — the editor badges those two and tracks the physical knobs live. Which parameters are available, and how some gray out or swap, depends on the chosen type; the editor mirrors the hardware's behaviour exactly, and you can save/load whole effect setups as presets.
The pattern sequencer
Each bank holds 16 patterns. A pattern is a short, looping performance recorded across two tracks that match the two play modes:
- a sample-mode track — which pads were hit and when, and
- a keyboard-mode track — notes played on the selected keyboard-mode sample.
You can record patterns on the device, edit them in the editor's built-in piano roll (both tracks at once), and import/export them as Standard MIDI Files for your DAW. Because a pattern is just notes on two tracks, a MIDI file round-trips cleanly: channel 1 becomes the sample-mode track, other channels the keyboard-mode track.
The device's sequencer doesn't run on its own clock when driven externally — it advances on incoming MIDI
clock. That's why the editor streams clock at the bank tempo to play a pattern, and why the device needs
GLOBAL → MIDI CLK = AUTO. See device setup.
MIDI & the USB link
The microSAMPLER speaks MIDI over its USB connection. The editor uses that for the small, live things — playing notes, nudging parameters, transport — while large transfers (samples, whole banks, patterns) use a higher-throughput mode on the same USB pipe. A few consequences worth knowing:
- One owner at a time. Because those transfers aren't ordinary MIDI, the device can't be shared with a DAW or other MIDI software while the editor's bridge is running — close them first.
- Notes & velocity play samples; in keyboard mode they play the selected sample pitched. Pitch bend bends the keyboard-mode voice; the sustain pedal holds notes. The editor forwards all of these from a connected MIDI keyboard via your browser's Web MIDI.
- Continuous controllers and NRPNs drive things like volume, pan, pattern selection, and triggering record or sampling — which is how the editor's remote record/sampling buttons work.
- MIDI clock advances the sequencer (above).
The editor itself never touches your computer's MIDI directly — a small local bridge owns the USB connection and the browser talks to it over HTTP, which is why the bridge needs administrator rights while it runs.
Audio format
The microSAMPLER stores samples as 16-bit audio at one of four sample rates (48 / 24 / 12 / 6 kHz) — lower rates trade fidelity for more recording time. When you upload a WAV the editor resamples it to the nearest device rate automatically; when you download a slot you get a standard WAV back. Total sample time depends on the rate and on mono vs stereo, which is what the memory meter is tracking.
Ready to use it? Head to the guide for each view, or get set up first.