Best 'Sample Manager' plugin?

[woodsdenis]

viewtopic.php?t=628507
Started a separate thread for Soniksearch

[wadamek]

Interested in checking out a newer option? (Dev here)

Been building it for about 2 years (started before the AI hype). It's a desktop app sample browser that does more on auto-organisation than most: tags, genres, sample packs, creators
all detected for you, plus natural language search, similarity search, and a lot of other features including those for power-users (search, filter, audition, copy samples with keyboard only). Handles libraries of any size (benchmarked on 1 million samples). Offline-first, free to use fully locally with any library size.

https://samplevault.ai — feedback genuinely welcome! App gets updated weekly.

[dolomick]

looks good, waiting for perpetual key update...

[Morty-C-137]

Interested in checking out a newer option? (Dev here)

Been building it for about 2 years (started before the AI hype). It's a desktop app sample browser that does more on auto-organisation than most: tags, genres, sample packs, creators
all detected for you, plus natural language search, similarity search, and a lot of other features including those for power-users (search, filter, audition, copy samples with keyboard only). Handles libraries of any size (benchmarked on 1 million samples). Offline-first, free to use fully locally with any library size.

https://samplevault.ai — feedback genuinely welcome! App gets updated weekly.

I have been giving this a go since yesterday and I like the basic functionality!

The only thing I can think of in terms of wishlist is having more of a themed GUI where sections and elements are better distinguished from each other. Now it’s a whole lot of white text on black background no matter what column or GUI element.
Which becomes tiresome to the eyes.

[pekbro]

Not actually a plugin, but I’m impressed at how well Resonic still works for me, though it seems like it’s dead, sadly.

[SampleSorterAI]

Dev here — I hope it’s okay to mention this since it’s directly related to the topic.

I’m building SampleSorter AI, a sample manager plugin focused on visual browsing rather than mainly digging through folders.
It analyzes your sample library and places similar sounds close together on a 2D map, so you can explore loops, one-shots and related sounds by similarity. It also lets you preview samples in sync with the DAW before dragging them into the project.

Not claiming it’s the “best” sample manager, but since this thread is about sample manager options, I thought it might be relevant.

Happy to answer any questions — and if anyone here gives it a try, I’d genuinely appreciate feedback.

It’s also listed here on KVR:
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/sample ... de/details

[zeph]

Dev here — I hope it’s okay to mention this since it’s directly related to the topic.

I’m building SampleSorter AI, a sample manager plugin focused on visual browsing rather than mainly digging through folders.
It analyzes your sample library and places similar sounds close together on a 2D map, so you can explore loops, one-shots and related sounds by similarity. It also lets you preview samples in sync with the DAW before dragging them into the project.

Not claiming it’s the “best” sample manager, but since this thread is about sample manager options, I thought it might be relevant.

Happy to answer any questions — and if anyone here gives it a try, I’d genuinely appreciate feedback.

It’s also listed here on KVR:
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/sample ... de/details

Busy testing your vst. Please can you tell me 1. Will you implement mouse hover play in sample map 2. Filter only certain folders in sample map

[SampleSorterAI]

Busy testing your vst. Please can you tell me 1. Will you implement mouse hover play in sample map 2. Filter only certain folders in sample map

Thanks for testing it — really appreciate it.
1. Mouse-hover preview on the map makes sense. I’d need to be careful with the UX so it doesn’t accidentally trigger samples while navigating around the map, but I like the idea. It would probably need to be optional or controlled in some way.
2. Filtering the map by specific folders also makes a lot of sense, especially for larger libraries. I’m noting that as a feature request — folder/subfolder filtering in the map would fit the workflow well.

I can’t promise an exact timeline yet, but both are useful suggestions and this kind of feedback helps a lot with deciding what to prioritize next.
For the folder filter: would you expect it to hide all other samples from the map, or mainly highlight the selected folder while keeping the rest visible?

[zeph]

Busy testing your vst. Please can you tell me 1. Will you implement mouse hover play in sample map 2. Filter only certain folders in sample map

Thanks for testing it — really appreciate it.
1. Mouse-hover preview on the map makes sense. I’d need to be careful with the UX so it doesn’t accidentally trigger samples while navigating around the map, but I like the idea. It would probably need to be optional or controlled in some way.
2. Filtering the map by specific folders also makes a lot of sense, especially for larger libraries. I’m noting that as a feature request — folder/subfolder filtering in the map would fit the workflow well.

I can’t promise an exact timeline yet, but both are useful suggestions and this kind of feedback helps a lot with deciding what to prioritize next.
For the folder filter: would you expect it to hide all other samples from the map, or mainly highlight the selected folder while keeping the rest visible?

Thanks a lot for replying.

"I would you expect it to hide all other samples from the map"

[Morty-C-137]

Interested in checking out a newer option? (Dev here)

Been building it for about 2 years (started before the AI hype). It's a desktop app sample browser that does more on auto-organisation than most: tags, genres, sample packs, creators
all detected for you, plus natural language search, similarity search, and a lot of other features including those for power-users (search, filter, audition, copy samples with keyboard only). Handles libraries of any size (benchmarked on 1 million samples). Offline-first, free to use fully locally with any library size.

https://samplevault.ai — feedback genuinely welcome! App gets updated weekly.

Hi Wojciech, I have a question about Sample Vault that I can not find the answer for in the online documentation:

Once I have manually created a sample pack or collection (so a custom named collection) can I delete that later on and how?

[wadamek]

Interested in checking out a newer option? (Dev here)

Been building it for about 2 years (started before the AI hype). It's a desktop app sample browser that does more on auto-organisation than most: tags, genres, sample packs, creators
all detected for you, plus natural language search, similarity search, and a lot of other features including those for power-users (search, filter, audition, copy samples with keyboard only). Handles libraries of any size (benchmarked on 1 million samples). Offline-first, free to use fully locally with any library size.

https://samplevault.ai — feedback genuinely welcome! App gets updated weekly.

Hi Wojciech, I have a question about Sample Vault that I can not find the answer for in the online documentation:

Once I have manually created a sample pack or collection (so a custom named collection) can I delete that later on and how?

Hey, thanks for testing the app! Sorry I missed your comments completely. Renaming/deleting collections was missing due to an oversight but I added that feature in an update last week.

Also, one of the recent features shipped additional themes in the app so you can customize the colors of the app to your preferences Glad you're enjoying the app! Happy to hear any feedback about it!

[Morty-C-137]

Thanks! Some good updates. Quite CPU intensive though on an M1 Mac. Don't know what others are experiencing.

[wadamek]

Thanks! Some good updates. Quite CPU intensive though on an M1 Mac. Don't know what others are experiencing.

Yeah that's going to be the case while samples are processing. After that it should use very little resources. The usage during processing can be tweaked though in the settings, and the thread priority by default is low to give space to DAWs and other apps. If you feel like there's anything wrong, click the question mark button in the bottom left corner and send me a bug report with diagnostics so I can investigate it!

[Phlangeez]

Sample Vault on the samplevault.ai homepage seems to be on it's way to outdoing Atlas 2 and XO in features except interface wise.

[wadamek]

Sample Vault on the samplevault.ai homepage seems to be on it's way to outdoing Atlas 2 and XO in features except interface wise.

Anything in particular you don't like about the UI? I'm hearing that a lot and constantly trying to improve it so feedback would be welcome!

Probably won't beat XO in terms of sequencer capabilities but at least Sample Vault has a basic one now with some unique features!