Not so long ago, the idea that you’d one day be able to edit the individual notes in a polyphonic audio sample seemed like a pipedream. Then Melodyne’s 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 (opens in new tab).
OK, it’s not as sophisticated as the likes of Melodyne, but the Samplab demo is still pretty 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.
Processing is done on the Samplab server, meaning that it requires an internet connection to work. At the moment, only short samples can be separated, but the developers say that they’re working on adding support for longer audio files.
Samplab runs in VST/AU formats on PC and Mac. You can download it from the Samplab (opens in new tab) website.