DIY Samplerbox
updated May 28, 2023 Glenn Meader glenn@chromakinetics.com
This page documents how to create a low cost Samplerbox that supports the latest features and requires no soldering or electronics construction. It is based on a small, very inexpensive Raspberry Pi single-board computer. It has a color display and high-quality audio output. Everything just plugs together. All the software is free.
What is a Samplerbox?
SamplerBox is an electronic musical instrument. Drop audio samples onto it, hook up a MIDI keyboard, and you'll be able to play with realistic piano, organ, drums, etc. sounds!
The Samplerbox is a small device that plays pre-recorded instrumental sounds when it receives MIDI commands. Vintage products that do this include: ASR-10/EPS/Mirage samplers. Here are other similar products: Sound Modules
It's sample player. It's a MIDI sound module. It is a ROMpler. It stores the sounds of instruments and plays notes from those instruments when it recieves MIDI note commands. Those sounds can be any WAV files. You can freely download sound files (samples and sample-sets) over the Internet, or you can record them youself and copy the sound files into SampleBox. It can then receive MIDI from a MIDI keyboard controller, or any other MIDI device and play the sounds out an ordinary line-out jack.
The original Samplerbox project is described at this website:. https://www.samplerbox.org/ However that's outdated now. We're providing current (Sept 2022) much easier build instructions here. I will be updating this site as I learn more and as updates to the software are published.
Extensive, detailed information on the latest Samplerbox development is at: https://homspace.nl/samplerbox/ Note: this website is offline. Use the Wayback Machine to view the archived version of that website. I have copied some of the content from the archive her - under the Documentation menu at the top of this page. There are a whole lot of pro-level features that you can access, depending on how much complexity you want to deal with.
Good article on using a Samplerbox as a Mellotron replacement SamplerboxMellotronArticle.pdf