SourceLab 2.4.0 added a second user browser inside the Load Source panel, so single samples from your own drives now load without a folder hunt.
That sounds like a small housekeeping change. It isn't. The way you hand audio to a sampler decides how much of your session goes on making music, and how much goes on fixing tuning.
SourceLab runs up to six independent sources inside one preset, and each source can act as a sampler, a loop slicer, or a wavetable oscillator. Your own recordings can sit in any of them.
C2.wav. A4.wav. Nothing clever about it.
Drag the folder itself onto the source, not the files inside it. SourceLab reads those names and places each recording at the correct key, then fills the gaps between them.
Naming each file after its root note is the step people skip, and it decides whether the instrument plays in tune.
Velocity ranges are the next layer up. If you recorded a soft take and a hard take of the same note, SourceLab can map them to different playing strengths.
Quiet passages pull the gentle file, loud ones pull the other. Two folders, one instrument.
The lazy alternative is stretching a single recording across all 88 keys. That works for soft pads. On anything with body, a piano, a voice, a plucked string, the top octave turns thin and the bottom turns to sludge.
From there you have two useful routes.
Loop slicer mode cuts the file into segments across consecutive keys. Replay the loop out of order, or throw half of it away.
Instrument mode does the opposite. It stretches the one sample across the keyboard so you can play it as a pitched instrument.
Loops behave better in slicer mode. Single hits and sustained notes behave better in instrument mode. Choosing wrong is the most common reason a sample sounds broken in a plugin that handled it fine seconds earlier.
Loop points get dragged manually in the same view. For sustained material that matters more than anything else you'll adjust, because a badly placed loop point ticks on every held note.
Dragging got steadier in the 2.4 patch too. Sample and sequencer ranges no longer wobble vertically while you move them sideways. You can nudge a start point without wrecking the range you already set.
Rename your samples once they're in. The plugin lets you, and a source called vox_take_3_final_v2 will mean nothing to you in a fortnight.
One last thing worth knowing. When you save a preset, SourceLab consolidates the audio into the preset file itself, so your samples travel with it.
Move to another machine, send the preset to a collaborator, and the sounds arrive too. If you already own SFZ libraries, those load as well, which spares you rebuilding instruments you mapped years ago in something else.
That sounds like a small housekeeping change. It isn't. The way you hand audio to a sampler decides how much of your session goes on making music, and how much goes on fixing tuning.
SourceLab runs up to six independent sources inside one preset, and each source can act as a sampler, a loop slicer, or a wavetable oscillator. Your own recordings can sit in any of them.
Folders do the mapping work for you
If you want something playable across the keyboard rather than a single triggered hit, start with a folder. Drop your recordings in, then rename each file so it carries its own pitch.C2.wav. A4.wav. Nothing clever about it.
Drag the folder itself onto the source, not the files inside it. SourceLab reads those names and places each recording at the correct key, then fills the gaps between them.
Naming each file after its root note is the step people skip, and it decides whether the instrument plays in tune.
Velocity ranges are the next layer up. If you recorded a soft take and a hard take of the same note, SourceLab can map them to different playing strengths.
Quiet passages pull the gentle file, loud ones pull the other. Two folders, one instrument.
The lazy alternative is stretching a single recording across all 88 keys. That works for soft pads. On anything with body, a piano, a voice, a plucked string, the top octave turns thin and the bottom turns to sludge.
A single file is a legitimate starting point
Most of the time you don't have a tidy multisample set. You have one loop from a session, or one bass note you liked at 2am. A second browser tucked into the Load Source panel now handles that case directly, sitting alongside the preset list rather than replacing it.From there you have two useful routes.
Loop slicer mode cuts the file into segments across consecutive keys. Replay the loop out of order, or throw half of it away.
Instrument mode does the opposite. It stretches the one sample across the keyboard so you can play it as a pitched instrument.
Loops behave better in slicer mode. Single hits and sustained notes behave better in instrument mode. Choosing wrong is the most common reason a sample sounds broken in a plugin that handled it fine seconds earlier.
Trim it before you blame the plugin
The sample editor shows the waveform and lets you set start and end points by hand. Use it. A few milliseconds of silence at the head of a file will push every note late, and no amount of quantising hides that.Loop points get dragged manually in the same view. For sustained material that matters more than anything else you'll adjust, because a badly placed loop point ticks on every held note.
Dragging got steadier in the 2.4 patch too. Sample and sequencer ranges no longer wobble vertically while you move them sideways. You can nudge a start point without wrecking the range you already set.
Rename your samples once they're in. The plugin lets you, and a source called vox_take_3_final_v2 will mean nothing to you in a fortnight.
One last thing worth knowing. When you save a preset, SourceLab consolidates the audio into the preset file itself, so your samples travel with it.
Move to another machine, send the preset to a collaborator, and the sounds arrive too. If you already own SFZ libraries, those load as well, which spares you rebuilding instruments you mapped years ago in something else.
