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The best sampler 2026
What is your favorite sampler? Why? Are there category leaders?
(This is to replace a necro thread with a fresh round)
Comments
It was always Wavebox because it can load auv3 fx.
But since a while koala can do that too.
Do you maybe mean Dawnbeat by the same developer as Wavebox?
Has to be Koala overall for me but I really enjoy Outgrowth as well.
I suspect if I really understood Loopy Pro inside out like some do, that would probably take the crown with all it offers in flexibility.
Koala would probably be the most popular, I’m guessing. It’s very easy-to-use, flexible, AUv3, well designed and supported.
Samplr still hasn’t been topped, for me. So inspiring to use, even if it does require some extra steps to integrate it in a ‘modern’ set-up.
Although they probably don’t fit in this conversation (they wouldn’t be many people’s nomination for ‘best’ at anything 😆), I’ve always really enjoyed using Korg’s Abu Dhabi and Vancouver gadgets. Despite their sometimes-infuriating limitations, I usually get great results from them.
I'll toss my hat in the ring and say Koala Sampler. In my personal opinion.
Koala is the best for a standalone MPC style sampler. But I use the sampler modules in Drambo for most of my sample work. Sampler, Flexi Sampler, and Wave Scanner.
Same. Love Flexi Sampler!
No I mean wavebox.
I also like Async Sampler a lot.
Hmm, fair enough. I think of Wavebox as an audio editor, not a sampler.
Favorite: Beatmaker3. Koala: eh/meh, never grabbed me, always feels limited
I second this emotion. Koala is fast and has fun stuff inside but I’m more likely to make things that I will keep, working in BM3
Most of these are my faves too!
Koala is just insane value and its ease of use is unbeatable. I'm often tempted to pick up more...idk...'focused' or 'conventional' samplers like 4Pockets' Chameleon or VirSyn's AudioLayer, or an audio recorder like 4Pockets' Neon or Multitack Recorder, but I can coax Koala into doing almost everything that I'd used them for. I saw on Reddit, there's yet another free update too! Should be announced here shortly.
I too keep going back to Samplr, my very first iOS music app! Some hoops to jump through for sure, but I haven't come across anything like it for 'tactile' sample manipulation. My workaround is to use it in AUM and record loops that I then export to other DAWs.
As for the Gadget "samplers", I took a punt on all of them except for Stockholm early in my iOS journey when I wanted to stick solely to Gadget and NanoStudio2 to keep things "minimal". That didn't really work out lol.
Anyway, Bilbao is still pretty much my go-to drum sampler. Vancouver is great for gritty, industrial or ambient textures, and Sydney loop sampler is really cool for cut-ups, layering, and pseudo-Frippertronics. I find Abu Dhabi a bit fiddly to work with, but I've done some cool Jungle beats with it.
Gotta give props to the Drambo samplers too.
The sampler in Beatmaker 3 really is excellent. For those that have never used it: it has a lot in common with Ableton’s Simpler, it’s deep, but easy to use, covers a lot of ground for editing and (if I’m remembering correctly) has layers, and possibly splits.
I ran into too many problems with the app as a whole (stability, sequencer timing), but that sampler is a thing of beauty. If they released it standalone I’d snap it up.
👍🏻 yup, the more I use Drambo, the more I appreciate Flexi Sampler.
Stockholm is a great instrument, with some nice built in samples. But needing to source Rex files will have meant plenty of people passed it over.
I was always a 'Reasonista', so making/getting Rex files shouldn't be an issue, but the extra admin required to copy + convert samples to and from the Mac/PC puts me off doing it. Stockholm hasn't had as much use as DrRex/OctoRex did for that reason.
When did you last use it? There were a couple significant updates that really improved stability.
Ah, ok. It was a few years ago, now, tbf.
The new Resamplr is good. It's missing a few features at the moment, but they're on the roadmap. I really like the layout and the workflow.
I searched, found an effect called wave box and an audio editor called wavebox. Is it discontinued?
Honestly I’m still missing samplers that function like Ableton Simpler and Sampler. I have a few of those mpc descendant things like koala, with pads and sequencing, but nothing for multisampling, or just something to bang in one sample á la Simpler.
Or nothing sharp and with a pro looking UI and all that.
For me, it's still the holy trinity:
Beatmaker 3 - Unlimited Power (insert Palpatine meme here)
Samplr - Creative possibilities
Koala - Fun and fast
Honorable mentions (and some may not even be sampler, but sample players in some capacity)
Yellofier, Flip, Borderlands, Samplewiz, Sector, Blocswave, Triqtraq, Thumbjam
Favorite sampler for me is the one in BM3, unfortunately it’s trapped in BM3. I use Drambo’s “Sampler” the most but it’s sorta bare bones. Love Koala for MPC style stuff, but again the actual sampler is basic.
I’ve used hardware samplers since the early 90’s, the lack of a full feature sampler in iOS is vexing (BM3 gets the closet, IMO).
Would LOVE to see something like TAL Sampler in iOS.
A (maybe stupid) question for the people who have both BM3 and GR2:
Even though GR2 comes from a groovebox mindset and BM3 from an MPC-style workflow, i feel they sort of converge in many things nowadays.
If you have both, when would you pick one over the other? Or what are the standout differences between them?
PS. Adding Egoist to BM3 really levels it up in a lot of ways.
Tal sampler is what I’d most like.
Does it do anything Koala doesn’t do?
can you talk about how you make this work?
Are you sampling Egoist, or recording him into tracks from Song or Sequence mode, or using him as a midi instrument, or…?
Asking for a friend
@Littlewoodg
yes.
I haven't used BM3 in years. I eventually switched to Koala Sampler for the MPC-style workflow. Of course Koala Sampler has grown a lot since I first started seriously messing with it four years ago.
GR2 is definitely a hardware-styled groovebox, and I can't believe it's now on my iPhone (besides iPad that is). 😱 Somehow, Jim Pavloff made it work! It's really the best groovebox app on iOS. Gadget too, but Gadget's gadgets can be used as AUv3 instruments in GR2.
When would I pick one over the other? Hmmm...for my personal use cases, I'd use Koala Sampler for Frippertronics-styled Ambient, where "tape loops" don't line up exactly with one another and are allowed to "drift". And now that I can sample AUv3 plugins within Koala standalone (from oneshot drones to melodic passages, etc), and it has a decent-enough sampler (albeit not as feature-heavy as BM3's), it's an unstoppable force.
GR2 is perfect for just about everything else to be quite honest, including "time-signature-based" Ambient. GR2 lends itself nicely to beat-based genres such as HipHop (and the various subgenres under that umbrella), EDM (including Trance, House, and even Dubstep like Skream and Digital Mystikz), Chill/Downtempo including TripHop and Hauntology, etc. GR2 can also host AUv3s both as IFX and as instruments.
One thing I love about Koala and GR2 is how "immediate" the workflows feel, even if two different workflows. In Koala, as I said, I can sample AUv3 instruments and get a piece of Ambient going in no time flat. In GR2, there's not a bunch of extra fluff getting in the way of the act of creation like in an app like Cubasis.
That said, I hope to return to BM3 someday in the future, but it isn't very likely anytime soon for me personally. I like the idea of a roided-out MPC, but don't like the idea of being tethered to my iPad. Lol.
Ah hah a grammarian. Or smart arse. Same thing really
I should have said “would you…?”
Bang for buck: koala
Exceptional: Grooverider II