Sampled instruments

The web app doesn’t download sounds, so it has no sampled instruments. A song that uses one plays that track with its built-in sound here (Stab Strings, the SoundFont or the Synth), and keeps the instrument for the devices that have it.

Choosing one

Open the track’s sound chooser from its sound button: on its strip in the Mixer, or on its Source in the Sound pane. It lists:

• On this device: the built-in sounds that fit the track, Stab Strings (on a fretted track), SoundFont and Stab Synth › (its presets on a page of their own), then the instruments installed here that fit it; Other sounds on this device › has the rest;
• Fits the track · to get: two or three from the Sound Library that suit the track, each with its demo; Get downloads it and puts it on the track in one step, and All › opens the library at the ones that fit;
• Your files, in a dashed box marked third-party: an instrument of your own the song plays, and your own SFZ instruments (below);
• Sound Library… and Load from Disk… (below).

The one the track plays is checked. Choosing one is one undo step, and the track keeps its notes, its mixer settings and its devices.

What there is

The Sound Library’s instruments: a Grand Piano (a concert grand, streamed, about 110 MB to download), and an orchestra of 22: violins, violas, cellos, double bass, two pizzicatos, harp, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, flute, piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, timpani, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba, tubular bells and church organ. Each is downloaded on its own, from under a megabyte to 30 MB.

And three sampled electric guitars, all the same Fender recorded note by note on its own strings:

• Fender, Sampled: the guitar’s own output, for a guitar track’s amp to shape as it shapes Stab Strings (about 17 MB).
• Fender, Clean Amp: recorded through a clean amp (about 29 MB).
• Fender, Driven: recorded through a distorted amp (about 25 MB).

The Piano Ballad and Film Cue demos play them. So do a few other demos, which play their built-in sounds on a device that hasn’t installed them.

How they play

• Each note plays the recording nearest in pitch and strength, with its own release when you let go.
• The sustain pedal, bends and pitch bend, and the volume and expression controllers all play.
• An instrument with a short articulation (spiccato strings, say) plays it on staccato notes.
• Long recordings, such as a piano’s, stream from the device’s storage as they play rather than all being held in memory.
• A track on a sampled instrument has a chain, as every track does: add a room, an EQ or a compressor after it in the Sound pane.

Sampled guitars

Stab Strings stays every guitar track’s sound until you choose another. A sampled guitar plays the tab as written:

• A fret plays the recording made on its own string where there is one close to it, so a note on the A string sounds like the A string.
• Bends, slides, vibrato and the whammy bar move the pitch of the note as it rings.
• A hammer-on, a pull-off or a legato slide carries on the note still ringing on that string, without a new pick.
• Palm mutes are darker and shorter; natural harmonics are purer and start softer.
• Dead notes, and the fretting hand’s squeak when Fret Noise is on, are Stab Strings’ own.
• Fender, Sampled goes through the track’s amp like Stab Strings; the amp leaves its Pickup setting aside, since the guitar’s pickup is already in the recording.
• Fender, Clean Amp and Fender, Driven already went through an amp, so choosing one turns the track’s amp off (in the same undo step). Turn it back on in the Sound pane if you want both. Choosing another sound turns the amp back on.

While an instrument loads, the track plays its built-in sound, and its sound button says Loading…. On a device that hasn’t the instrument, the button says Not installed; the Sounds button appears in the toolbar, lists what the song uses and offers to get it (The Sound Library).

An instrument of your own

Load from Disk… in the sound chooser plays an SFZ instrument or a Stab instrument (its folder, its kit.json or its .sfz file).

The track reads it where it lies, so keep the folder where it is. A folder of your own files added in Settings › Plugins & Files lists its SFZ instruments under Your files in every chooser. Instruments you imported into the old Sound Library are under Your files too.

Your own instruments are third-party: never in the Sound Library or its search. A song that uses one refers to it, as it would a plugin; on another device, the track plays its built-in sound until that device has the same instrument. Turning off Use plugins and your files in Settings › Plugins & Files leaves them out.