The Sound Library
The Sound Library holds the sounds Stab offers: what’s built in (Stab Strings, Stab Synth and its presets, the Drum Synth, the SoundFont), the sampled kits and instruments we host, and the models Stab listens with. Everything in it is made or chosen by Stab, and credited. A sound you get is downloaded once, kept on this device and read where it lies; a song names the sounds it uses, so on another device it plays that device’s own copy.
Your own .nam captures, impulse responses and SFZ files are never in the library: they’re Your files, apart, in a track’s sound chooser (below).
The Sound Library
Available on Mac and Windows. Not on Web.
This isn’t on Web.
Open the Sound Library
- From a track: its sound button opens the sound chooser (below); its Sound Library… opens the library at Fits that track.
- Choose Sound Library (⌃⌘L)Sound LibrarySound Library (not on Web), from the Window menuSettings—: it opens at what’s on this device.
From a track’s sound button: the sound chooser’s Sound Library… (below) opens it over the song. On the web it’s for browsing and hearing: a song plays the sounds built into Stab here, and getting a bank into this browser isn’t possible yet.
Find a sound
The sidebar has:
- Fits the track it was opened from: what suits its kind, strings, tuning, technique and style, worked out on this device from each sound’s tags (nothing is sent anywhere), the best first.
- On this device, Favourites, Recent and Updates.
- What you’re making: guitar tone, bass, drums and percussion, keys, orchestral, synth, rooms and effects.
- Kinds: instruments, drum kits, cabinets and rooms, presets, listening models.
Search looks across everything at once: names, makers, styles, tags and descriptions; the results are grouped by kind. Just type while the library is open; Delete takes a letter back and Esc clears it. All, On this device and To Get narrow what’s shown.
Each card has a ▶ that plays a 12-second demo, streamed before anything is downloaded (one at a time; another, or closing the library, stops it), its maker and style, its licence, its size, and the one action that helps: Get, Use on the track, Update, Cancel while it downloads, Resume after it stopped, Try Again if it was damaged, or Update Stab… for a sound that needs a newer Stab.
Get and use it
Choose a card to see its detail: what it is, its version and download, its licence, who made it, its credit, where it plays. Then:
- Get and Use on the track downloads it and puts it on the track in one step, as soon as it’s here; Get Only downloads it. Use on the track, for what’s built in.
- Try in the Song, once it’s here: the song plays with the track on that sound, and a pill over the song says so with Back and Keep. Keep is one undo step; Back (or Esc) puts the track’s sound back.
- Remove deletes a sound from this device. If songs here use it, it asks first and says what they’ll play meanwhile; nothing in them changes. Built-in sounds have no Remove.
Downloads run in a strip at the foot of the library, never in the way; a download is checked before it’s installed, so a damaged one is never used. With no connection, Get When Online waits for one, and the list is the one from your last visit.
On a connection Windows calls metered (Settings › Network & internet, Metered connection), anything above 50 MB asks first: Get Now, or Wait, which downloads it once Stab is on a connection that isn’t metered.
If there isn’t room, the library says how much it needs and offers the sounds you haven’t played in three months, largest first: Remove Unused and Get, or Manage Storage…. Nothing is ever removed without asking.
The sound chooser
A track’s sound button (on its strip in the Mixer, or on its Source in the Sound pane) opens a small card:
- what’s on this device that fits the track, the one it plays checked; Stab Synth and the Drum Synth have a page each (› ) for their presets and kinds;
- a drum track’s kit presets;
- two or three sounds that fit the track to get, each with its demo and Get (got and used in one step); All › opens the library at Fits;
- Your files, in a dashed box marked third-party;
- Sound Library… and Load from Disk….
Your files
Your own .nam captures, impulse responses and SFZ instruments and kits are third-party: made by others and not checked by Stab. They show in a track’s chooser under Your files, never in the library or its search. Like a plugin, a file of yours stays where it is and the song refers to it; on another device it’s missing until that device has it too, unless the file says it’s CC0 or CC-BY, in which case it travels inside the song with its credit.
Settings › Sounds
- What the sounds take on this device, by kind, and Open Sound Library.
- Where they’re kept. Check for new sounds and updates, and the updates waiting, with Update All.
- New Songs Play: what new songs’ drums, guitar, bass and keys play on this device. Imported songs follow it too; a song keeps what it was made with. At first the drums are the Stab Kit on the Mac (and on Windows when it’s installed) and the SoundFont Kit elsewhere.
- The sounds here by size, each with the songs that use it and when it last played, and Remove.
- Credits and Licences: every sound built in and on this device, each credited as its licence asks.
| Command | Keys | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sound Library | ⌃⌘L | the Window menu |
| Command | Keys | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sound Library | Settings |
Not on Web: Sound Library.