Free VST/AU plugin, Samplab, Lets You Edit The Notes In Polyphonic Audio Samples
Swiss-based music software company Samplab has introduced Samplab, a plugin that lets you edit and rearrange pitches in polyphonic audio samples.
Could the power of AI give you Melodyne-style editing for nothing?
Here’s what the developers say about the plugin:
“When you drag and drop an audio file into the plugin, it is sent to our server for processing. Once this is completed, you recieve the result with all the notes in the audio separated. 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.”
Yesteryear, the idea that you could one day be able to edit the individual notes in a polyphonic audio sample seemed like a pipedream. Then Melodyne Direct Note Access technology came along, providing exactly that kind of functionality. Now, thanks to the power of AI, Samplab puts this functionality into a free plugin.
Though it is not as sophisticated as Melodyne, but the Samplab demo is still very impressive.
Import a sample into one of your DAW’s audio tracks, open the plugin on a MIDI track and then drag the sample into it. The individual notes are then displayed in your piano roll ready for editing.
As processing is done on the Samplab server, therefore, it requires an internet connection to work. Samplab is currently limited to editing samples with a maximum of 127 notes. Though only short samples can be separated, but the developers say that they are working on adding support for longer audio files.
Samplab runs in VST/AU formats on Windows and Mac, and is available now as a free download from the Samplab website.
