Subsample guide

Every chapter of the Subsample guide, in reading order, with the first sentence of each.

• What Subsample does, and where to start - Subsample cuts separate sounds out of a recording or a live input, sorts them by how they sound, and plays them from MIDI.
• Installing Subsample - By the end of this chapter, Subsample is installed on your computer, and it can name every audio and MIDI device you have.
• A project folder - By the end of this chapter you have a folder for your project, and you know what each file in it is for and where Subsample looks for its settings.
• A drum kit from a recording - By the end of this chapter, ten sounds recorded in one room are a drum kit: play MIDI channel 10, and the kick, the snare and the hi-hats are sounds you made.
• How Subsample hears a sound - By the end of this chapter, you can read what Subsample heard in any of your samples, see which of them it ranks closest to each drum, and choose a drum's sound by a recording of your own.
• Recording well - By the end of this chapter, Subsample is recording live from a microphone in your room, set for that room: a long ring kept whole, and nothing saved when nothing happened.
• Your first MIDI map - By the end of this chapter, a map of your own chooses the sound each note plays: one sound by its name, one by how much it sounds like a drum, and one by a rule, and you change it while it plays.
• Shaping a sound on the way out - By the end of this chapter, your kick is compressed, your hi-hat filtered, and a knob on your controller darkens the snare as you play.
• Pitched instruments and loops - By the end of this chapter, one held note plays across a keyboard, the same note holds for as long as you keep a key down, and a rhythm you tapped plays on the beat, round and round, while its key is held.
• A kit of your own - By the end of this chapter, your kit is a map of its own, short because its pads share their settings, kept in a folder with its sounds, which you can copy anywhere and play.
• Keeping a sample library - By the end of this chapter, your library grows from one session to the next and stays tidy: new sounds load while Subsample runs, a folder of sounds comes in whole, and near-duplicates are found and thinned.
• Several kits at once, and switching live - By the end of this chapter, two kits play at once, each on a MIDI channel of its own, beside your keyboard, and a MIDI Program Change switches between kits as you play.
• Playing with other software - By the end of this chapter, a sequencer on the same machine plays Subsample through a MIDI port of Subsample's own, Subsample keeps to the sequencer's tempo, and another program hears from Subsample each time it captures a sound.
• Many audio channels - By the end of this chapter, Subsample records from the pair of inputs you choose on an interface with many, your keyboard plays on outputs of its own, and you know what recording in ambisonics needs.
• Recording on one machine, playing on another - By the end of this chapter, one machine records and another plays what it records, the two sharing a folder, and each new sound is ready to play moments after it lands.
• Playing live - By the end of this chapter, your kit plays live with the least delay your machine allows, and no clicks.