Bunka

Bunka — Beat-Slicer Sampler Instrument

Load a loop. It slices itself, plays back the original faithfully, and hands you 11 more variations to shuffle, randomize, and lock in — all synced to your groove.

Bunka is the one XNULLX plugin that's a true instrument, not an effect: drop in a drum loop and it detects transients, slices at the attacks, and loads the original arrangement onto Pad 1 exactly as-is — while Pads 2–12 auto-populate with shuffled reimaginings of the same material. An internal, host-synced sequencer plays whichever pad is active, phase-locked to the bar so switching patterns mid-groove never loses sync. Everything plays through one 16-voice engine, whether it's the sequencer firing or you finger-drumming slices over MIDI — so a knob change always behaves the same way, no matter what triggered the note.

Core Signal Path

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• Transient or Grid Slicing — automatic onset detection with adjustable threshold, or a straight grid division fallback for loops without clear transients.
  
• Draggable Waveform Editor — slice markers can be dragged, added, or deleted by hand, with zero-crossing snap and an optional snap grid, plus one-click audition of the raw file.
  • 12-Pad Pattern Bank — Pad 1 is always the untouched original order; Pads 2–12 hold independent arrangements you can shuffle, randomize, lock, and switch between (MIDI 36–47 or click), phase-locked to the bar on every switch.
  • Musically-Aware Shuffle vs. Wild Randomize — SHUFFLE biases bass-heavy slices toward strong beats and thinner material toward the off-beats, so reordered results stay musical; RANDOMIZE adds rests and stutter-repeats for glitchier, re-imagined beats. Either way, only the active pad is touched — locked and other pads stay untouched.
    
  • Two Tempo Modes — Pitch Preserve (transient-preserving time-stretch to host tempo, pitch independent) or Repitch (classic MPC-style resampling, pitch rides with tempo) — plus an independent ±24 semitone Pitch control that works in both.

  Built to Stay in the Pocket

  Every pattern switch is phase-locked to the bar, and slices fire back-to-back rather than at their original fixed timestamps — so even a wildly shuffled arrangement of uneven transient-length slices tiles gaplessly into exactly one bar, instead of leaving gaps or overlaps where a short slice lands in a long slot.

  Highlights

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  • Per-pad Lock protects a curated groove from Shuffle, Randomize, new sample loads, and re-slicing — build a bank once and keep it.
    
  • Chance knob (0–100%) — a global per-step probability that thins out and evolves a held pattern over repeats, without touching the underlying arrangement.
    
  • Reverse playback and full Attack/Release envelope shaping per engine, independent of tempo mode.
    
  • MIDI-mappable throughout: pattern launch on 36–47, finger-drum slice triggering on 48 and up.

  What It's For

  Beat-slicing and rearranging drum loops and breaks, MPC-style resampled chops, tempo-independent groove variations from a single sample, glitchy stutter/rest re-edits, and building a bank of curated pattern variations you can switch between live or in the arrangement.

  Bunka is donation-ware — free to use, no strings attached. If it earns a place in your workflow, a tip is always appreciated: buymeacoffee.com/brittnell

  Format: VST3 (Windows & macOS) | Current version: 1.0.0.