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Just a Sample is a FREE Sampler Made for Ease of Use

By 50 Comments3 Mins Read
Binyamin Friedman’s Just a Sample is a FREE Sampler Made for Ease of Use

Binyamin Friedman released Just a Sample, a free and open-source audio sampler.

The plugin is a macOS, Windows, and Linux release for VST3 and AU formats.

Friedman describes Just a Sample as a modern sampler focused on simplicity and ease of use. 

Just a Sample integrates an effects chain with verb, chorus, distortion, and EQ for spicing things up with some sound design.

YouTube video

The plugin allows you to seamlessly zoom in to the level of individual samples so you can set the bounds as accurately as you wish. 

The controls are set up to easily browse the waveforms with a mouse or touchpad.

Just a Sample integrates Kupix’s Bungee time stretcher, allowing you to modulate time and pitch individually.

Users can create unique sounds by setting the slow down to extreme levels, such as 0.01x.

You can also turn Just a Sample into a tone generator with Waveform Mode, which activates when small bounds are set and loops the waveform like a wavetable synth.

Equal power crossfade looping is included, with separate attack and release sample portions.

It’s easy to mod the attack and release curves, and the plugin also supports pitch bend and fine-tuning.

Other features include the ability to get a gritty lo-fi effect by disabling antialiasing, record samples directly into the sampler, store samples directly in the plugin state to remove dependencies, and auto-tune to A440, which is an experimental feature that works best on a simple source. 

So, all in all, it’s quite a feature-packed freebie. 

When I read through the specs, Just a Sample doesn’t seem all that simple, but when you look at the interface, then it is indeed easy to get a feel for how it all works at a glance. 

Friedman has provided links to downloading the plugin for all three OSs on the Itch.io product page, and you can make your way to downloading the zips in three clicks, with no personal information required. 

Hats off to the developer, as I always appreciate a nice, simple download process like that.

The downloads won’t take long either, as the biggest file is the macOS installer, which comes in at a svelte 6.7 MB.

The plugin can be downloaded without any expense, but Friedman does present it in a ‘name your price’ model, which gives the option of supporting his work. 

If you fancy a gander at the source code, then you can check it out on Friedman’s GitHub.

Download: Just a Sample (FREE / Name-your-price)

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Stephen is a musician and journalist who hails from Melbourne, Australia. He learned everything he knows about production from Google and used that vast knowledge to create a series of records you definitely haven’t heard of.

50 Comments

  1. Binyamin

     on

    Thanks for the mention!

    To add something not shown in the video: Press the pin button (bottom right of the waveform) and zoom in as far as you can go to activate Waveform Mode. This turns Just a Sample into a kind of wavetable synth.

    Reply

  3. Mark

     on

    sadly this crashes in my Linux Reaper. I installed it via Wine / Yabridge, that went all fine. However, Repear detects it correctly, but crashes upon loading. What a pity, it looks so good according to the video and specs.

    Reply

  4. obo

     on

    intel Mac anyone? I tried manually adding the VST3 but not showing in Daw. Tried installer – says can’t be installed on this Mac (after I removed from quarantine).

    Reply

      • obo

         on

        Not seeing the au either – it just says it can’t be installed on this Mac. I’m stuck at version 12.7.8 (older MacBook Pro and Apple decided I can’t get any newer versions after that – so ridiculous!)

        Reply

              • obo

                 on

                JustASample.vst3” can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software

                This software needs to be updated. Contact the developer for more information.

                This is the new error. It let me install but when I try to update my plugins in Ableton, the error above pops up. Will keep trying

                Reply

                • obo

                   on

                  Quick update on this -I tried copying the VST3 file from my VST3 folder, then deleting the original and copying the copy back to the VST3 folder after removing quarantine. This sometimes works for similar errors but doesn’t appear to have worked here.

                  The good news – Ableton picked up the AU file and it’s working! (the VST3 is still MIA)

        • lars

           on

          Probably a dumb question, i am all new to the plugin world….i am on the last intel gen on a 2019 Mac and i am rather confused about what happens once changing over to the new Mac (native?) generation. Will any of the AU and some VST3 plugins still work then or do they have their own system(?)?. I know there are 2 other formats (Clap and sth ….) =)

          Please forgive if it is a seriously dumb question, i just have to admit, i am a bit overwhelmed with all the new language/system/formats/etc….and i keep reading about all the problems with it all, so i really would be more than grateful, if someone could bring a little light into the subject matter for me, thank you very, very much

          Reply

  5. Vincent

     on

    Thanks you to Binyamin Friedman. I really like Just a Sample, and it’s simple to zoom on and create a nice sustain loop. It is simple and well though out. For me, it would be complete if I could save the sample with the sustain loop for future sessions.

    Reply

  6. Mark

     on

    @Bob, thank you so much! I did not see the Linux Version, my failure. I installed it and it works perfect now.
    Highly recommend this little sampler – it is easy to use and has very nice features.

    @Ben (if you are reading here) Thanks your very much for making this!

    Reply

  9. Tom

     on

    Wow, one of the best free sampler out there! Responsive clean GUI and lot of feature, no email for installation, this is the kind of plugins we want to see !! Well done to the dev 🤘

    Reply

  10. Wasyl

     on

    @Binyamin
    Reaper v7 on Win10 21H2 scans it (it briefly shows plugin’s name during scan), but then the plugin is not visible in the list. I tried it on two different computers – same behaviour.
    I have the 2022 C++ runtime installed. Is there anything else that this plugin may require to work?

    Reply

    • Binyamin Friedman

       on

      The VST3 ought to work standalone. Unfortunately, I don’t have a straightforward way to debug this kind of issue. Open an issue up on https://github.com/BOBONA/Just-a-Sample/issues so we at least have a record if anyone else runs into a similar problem. Include your system specs too.

      If you have the technical knowledge, you could also try building the plugin from source on your system.

      Reply

      • Georg

         on

        Hi Binyamin,
        thank you so much for this plugin. I have the same issue in REAPER / Win 10.
        I’m absolutely not a professional programmer, but I found the following in a JUCE-related forum – could this help solve the issue?:

        “On Windows, the appropriate C++ runtime may be missing on the user’s system. This is most easily fixed by statically linking the C++ runtime into the plugin.”

        I’ll gladly help test this.

        Thank you, much appreciated!

        Reply

  12. JimVlach

     on

    Happy new year, alex.

    Thanks for the plugin! However, as with many plugins, it doesn’t open in win 8.1, Waveform 12 free. Is it for windows 10?

    Reply

  14. Dee

     on

    This is amazingly well made plugin. Super Useful. Thanks !!!
    One thing that surprised me was how it maintains the ‘hi end’ of the sample while playing it in various pitches/notes.

    Reply

  21. Wasyl

     on

    @Binyamin
    I can see that you release new versions on your Github, by simply overwriting previous version each time.
    Plese, release new versions with a proper number (or at least date), as separate releases. Also, please publish a change log each time.
    Thank you.

    Reply
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