Samplab FREE!

[Larry Shelby]

Samplab is a free "AI powered" plugin (VST3/AU) that allows you to turn harmonic audio samples into MIDI.

https://samplab.com/plugin

[TracingArcs]

Just checked this out. You have to be online and send the sample to their server to be processed. No off line option.

[paulo]

There are still DAWs that can't already do this?  

What kind of fool would use a DAW like that? ?

 

[Brian Walton]

5 hours ago, paulo said:

There are still DAWs that can't already do this?  

What kind of fool would use a DAW like that? ?

 

Have yet to see a DAW do this perfectly, there is room for improvement in the market.

Not sure this is it though, haven't tried it.

[Jeslan]

20 hours ago, paulo said:

There are still DAWs that can't already do this?  

What kind of fool would use a DAW like that? ?

 

Just curious, what DAWs are supposed to allow conversion of polyphonic audio to midi without the need of a third party plugin or software ? In fact as far as I know there is still plenty of DAWs that don't even have monophonic audio to midi conversion.

[Fleer]

Anyone tried it yet?

[dubdisciple]

13 hours ago, Jeslan said:

Just curious, what DAWs are supposed to allow conversion of polyphonic audio to midi without the need of a third party plugin or software ? In fact as far as I know there is still plenty of DAWs that don't even have monophonic audio to midi conversion.

Studio One does it and so does cakewalk is you have melodyne installed. For those of us who had cakewalk before bandlab, this was included and celemony has continually updated that version for free. Although the essentials version will no edit polyphonic material, it will detect and convert to midi. 

[dubdisciple]

12 hours ago, Fleer said:

Anyone tried it yet?

for the sake of science, I will install today and compare it to same process in cakewalk and studio one (which theoretically should be the same) and report back

[Brian Walton]

24 minutes ago, dubdisciple said:

Studio One does it and so does cakewalk is you have melodyne installed. For those of us who had cakewalk before bandlab, this was included and celemony has continually updated that version for free. Although the essentials version will no edit polyphonic material, it will detect and convert to midi. 

I believe the point he was making is that both applications/DAWs require the 3rd party app (a version of melodyne) to be owned and installed for this to work.  

I bought Studio 4 to get the best polyphonic offering in this area (at the time) and personally didn't live up to my own expecations.

Edited August 24, 2021 by Brian Walton

[dubdisciple]

Results part 1: Cakewalk process and visual differences

 

Installation was straightforward.  It installs as VST3. Cakewalk places it in synth category by default. 

 

For sake of simplicity, I used an audio piano loop that came with a midi version of same loop as control.  I created 3 instances of Addictive Keys.  One for midi file that came with audio, one for melodyne essentials generated midi, and one for Samplelab generated midi.

 

Registration is required. That was done with no hiccups.  I did get a warning that there is a time limit for samples, so it only converted up to the limit. This makes this pretty much useless for anything but super short loops.  The limit is , however based on time rather than musical measures, so I may experiment with speeding up samples at a later time.

 

Here is what files looked like: Top pic is samplelab midi compared to melodyne and bottom is samplelab compared to original midi file version of audio that was provided

 

The random nature of the file made source less than ideal but more realistic in terms of not knowing what results would yield.

Observations 

The melodyne one generated in cakewalk looked more like supplied MiDI file.  It did however have a slight sustain issue with some notes that cut them kind of short.  I hypothesize that better results would be had using melodyne editor since notes could be edited before converting (the essential version of melodyne  will detect and convert but you cannot do anything in melodyne except select between two poly algorihm choices and export midi. Overall, less than ideal, but results seemed tweakable

 

The samplelab one stalled on first attempt.  Also, there are features not yet working like ability to use higher cpu usage mode that i assume would yield better results. Second attempt it took about 10 seconds to convert. Looks wise it did not appear to  look as similar to control midi as the melodyne one, but it did do a better job on sustained notes.

 

Coming up....... audio resultts

Edited August 25, 2021 by dubdisciple
Edited to clarify images

[dubdisciple]

51 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

I believe the point he was making is that both applications/DAWs require the 3rd party app (a version of melodyne) to be owned and installed for this to work.  

I bought Studio 4 to get the best polyphonic offering in this area (at the time) and personally didn't live up to my own expectations.

I understood what he was saying and i believe I acknowledged that it is being done via third party. From the consumer perspective, since this has been bundled with Studio one for years now,  as of today, this is part of what any studio one user already has even if it was not made by presonus personally. After testing this , I have concluded that this gives you an even lesser version of that capability. It has potential but is far from magic. The presonus model underwhelms for me as well,  but I have discovered that like most things melodyne , the "magic" tends to work better with more work. 

[dubdisciple]

Results  Part 2: Sound and conclusions

 

I assumed it would be the case that the cakewalk and Studio one would yield identical results since, as pointed out, they are using same melodyne generated result

attached are 4 files:

1.The original audio

2.File made from Composers supplied midi

3. File made from melodyne midi

4. File made from Samplelab midi

 

My conclusions are that the only one that is true is obviously the one the composer created . i don't find the other results useless, but the yare far from earth shattering and certainly not an instant  type of workflow thing.  I have thought of ways it can be useful, but imo , at this time no more so than what is available to those who own similar products already.

 

Composer MIDI.mp3 Meldodyne MIDI.mp3 Original Audio.mp3 Samplelab MIDI.mp3

[dubdisciple]

as an FYI, i did this very quick and dirty.  I grabbed the 1st piano loop I saw that had a midi i could use as a reference. I am already convinced i could have gotten a better result if I was more selective about audio source

[Doug Rintoul]

From what I understand, Samplab is more than just an audio to MIDI converter. If you drop the MIDI on the Samplab track, you can modify the original audio by changing the MIDI notes. It breaks up the audio and allows you to pitch shift each portion independent from the rest of the track.

This can be done in Melodyne as well but I think this might be a little more convenient. 

[paulo]

On 8/24/2021 at 11:00 AM, Jeslan said:

as far as I know there is still plenty of DAWs that don't even have monophonic audio to midi conversion.

Exactly. 

 

[dubdisciple]

3 hours ago, Doug Rintoul said:

From what I understand, Samplab is more than just an audio to MIDI converter. If you drop the MIDI on the Samplab track, you can modify the original audio by changing the MIDI notes. It breaks up the audio and allows you to pitch shift each portion independent from the rest of the track.

This can be done in Melodyne as well but I think this might be a little more convenient. 

I'm not sure if convenient is right word. Based on my experience so far it is less convenient if you already have melodyne and cakewalk or ST1.  The midi editing feature sounds better in theory than actual application at this time. The interface to do so is less than full featured and does much less in terms of midi editing than what you would have access to once you brought midi file  into DAW.

 

I think this has potential but felt very beta like in actual usage.

[dubdisciple]

I hope my replies are not coming across as contrarian or antagonistic. I think this has a lot of potential but in use it feels like a beta product . if I did not have other ways to do the same thing , I could certainly see use for it. I just attempted to test actual application and found it not quite ready.  I do encourage others to try it and give feedback.  The fact that there is a better quality setting that is currently not working tells me they are aware the current version needs accuracy improvement.  I suspect that might be a paid upgrade when it happens

[Doug Rintoul]

9 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

I'm not sure if convenient is right word. Based on my experience so far it is less convenient if you already have melodyne and cakewalk or ST1.  The midi editing feature sounds better in theory than actual application at this time. The interface to do so is less than full featured and does much less in terms of midi editing than what you would have access to once you brought midi file  into DAW.

I think this has potential but felt very beta like in actual usage.

Bringing the MIDI file into the DAW does not allow you to change the pitch of the original audio. The MIDI editing in SampLab is very rudimentary because it only has one purpose, changing the pitch of the original audio, not the length, or the velocity or the start time.  

This software is very beta; I might even say alpha. In fact clicking on certain things brings up a dialog box stating that the feature is not implemented yet and suggests you subscribe to their email list to be informed when the feature does get implemented. 

[dubdisciple]

1 hour ago, Doug Rintoul said:

Bringing the MIDI file into the DAW does not allow you to change the pitch of the original audio. The MIDI editing in SampLab is very rudimentary because it only has one purpose, changing the pitch of the original audio, not the length, or the velocity or the start time.  

This software is very beta; I might even say alpha. In fact clicking on certain things brings up a dialog box stating that the feature is not implemented yet and suggests you subscribe to their email list to be informed when the feature does get implemented. 

Maybe I am misinterpreting what I am seeing. Isn't that what meoldyne does? Change the pitch of the audio, as well as other aspects of audio and then converts to midi. From what I am seeing this is that but at an earlier stage of development. I could be wrong.

[paulo]

17 hours ago, Doug Rintoul said:

This can be done in Melodyne as well but I think this might be a little more convenient. 

More convenient than right there on a track within the project ?