Octo Slample

8-channel virtual sampler for creating and organizing sample packs for the ALM Squid Salmple Eurorack sampler.

What is this for?

The Octo slample application can take a single json bank file or multiple json bank files and render them into the correct folder format, to be loaded onto the Squid Sample USB drive, without modification. This provides a straightforward way to create sample banks through configuration, linking arbitrary audio files on your system to specific slots in specific banks. With one command, a complete set of banks can be created with the correct folder structure, file name and audio format.

Iteratively adding to these configuration files allows you to build up banks and sets over time. JSON configuration files are greatly simplified approach to bank management as, otherwise, its necessary to manually note which samples are in which banks. This presents a problem of scale when you have dozens of banks.

With the octo slample application, bank management is distilled to a set of configuration files that can be copied and amended easily. This allows you to get the most out of the Squid Salmple module, easily managing dozens or potentially hundreds of banks.

Getting started

brew install pre-commit hadolint

pre-commit install --hook-type commit-msg

pre-commit run --all-files

Repository conventions

Commit messages

This repository uses the conventional commits commit message format. Formatting is checked upon commit.

CI/CD

Code formatting using black

poetry run black .

Linting

poetry run flake8

Testing

Run unit tests

poetry run pytest

View coverage report

open htmlcov/index.html

Build documentation

Build docs

poetry run sphinx-build -b html . _build

View documentation

open _build/index.html

Capabilities

Scaffold configuration files from existing sample directories

This is useful when using a sample manager such as XO. XO generates folders of processed samples, albeit without the correct sample rate, bit rate, folder name or file names.

The Slample CLI inspects folders of these samples to create a stub JSON configuration that can be augmented to map between these folders into the file structure required by Squid Salmple.

poetry run octo-slample init <folder containing samples>

If the folder does not contain WAV files it is ignored.

Upon successful traversal of a sample folder, a JSON file called bank.json is written into the folder with the following contents:

{
    "name": "<folder name>",
    "description": "",
    "samples": [
        { "name": "1", "path": "/fully/qualified/path/to/sample" },
        { "name": "2", "path": "/fully/qualified/path/to/sample" },
        { "name": "3", "path": "/fully/qualified/path/to/sample" },
}

The order of the samples is based on the natural ordering of the WAV files within the folder. If there are 6 WAV files in the folder, 6 sample entries are created.

Subsequent calls of poetry run octo-slample init on the folder will be ignored. To overwrite an existing bank.json, run:

poetry run octo-slample init <folder containing samples> -f

or

poetry run octo-slample init <folder containing samples> --force

The bank.json file can be edited in-place to update name, description and the name of each channel.

If there are channels with no sample, add { "path": null }, as a sample entry to make up the number of sample entries to the expected channel count (i.e. 8).

Play 8 samples based on keypress of 8 keys

poetry run octo-slample pads -b banks/tinlicker.voodoo.bank.json

Play samples in a loop, with pattern and sample bank defined in a txt file

poetry run octo-slample loop -p patterns/pattern.json -b banks/sample_bank.json

Play a 2-bar pattern

poetry run octo-slample loop --pattern patterns/organic_house.pattern.json --bank banks/sample_bank.json

Save samples in the correct format and location

Squid Sample requires WAV files to have the following spec:

• 16 bit
• 44.1 kHz
• Set {name} folder name (optional)
  • Bank {n} folder name
    • chan-00{x}.wav file format

In addition to creating wav sample banks, the name of the bank can be added to a file named info.txt, stored in the Bank {n} folder alongside the wav samples. This name is taken from the name attribute in the bank json definition.

Creating sample banks

When creating sample banks, the output directory is provided by the --output or -o command-line flag.

Save a bank in Squid Salmple format

poetry run octo-slample export -b banks/sample_bank.json -n 1 -o "tmp/Set 1"

Recursively save a directory of sample banks to a Set

To create a Set from multiple sample bank directories, use the export-set command:

poetry run octo-slample export-set ~/samples ~/tmp/Set\ 1

This command will create a folder that can be copied onto the Squid USB drive.

As well as containing correctly named WAV samples, each folder also contains info.txt with the first 8 ascii characters representing the name of the bank.

The file contains subsequent information for convenience, with the following format:

MelodicH

Description: PB - Melodic House

Samples:

0 | XO-1 KICK 1 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-1 KICK 1 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav
1 | XO-2 KICK 2 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-2 KICK 2 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav
2 | XO-3 SNARE (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-3 SNARE (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav
3 | XO-4 CLAP (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-4 CLAP (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav
4 | XO-5 CL HH (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-5 CL HH (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav
5 | XO-6 OP HH (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-6 OP HH (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav
6 | XO-7 FLEX 1 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-7 FLEX 1 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav
7 | XO-8 FLEX 2 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815: /Users/pete/Drum kits/XO/PB - Melodic House/XO-8 FLEX 2 (processed) 2023-02-23_121815.wav

Created with Octo Slample on 2023-02-27

Set the volume on a channel for loop playback

Loop playback volume can be set, per channel, within pattern.json files. This setting only affects loop playback and does not impact the exported sample banks / Squid Salmple module.

To set the pattern channel volume, add the volume attribute to pattern entries. Volume is defined in decibels so, for example, a ~50% gain reduction on a channel can be achieved with "volume": -3. Both integer and float values are accepted.

{
    "name": "My Pattern",
    "pattern": [
        { "name": "header", "steps": "1234123412341234" },
        { "name": "kick",   "steps": "x   x   x   x   " },
        { "name": "tom",    "steps": "   x  x    x  x " , "volume": -3 },
}

TODO

Set the channel swing for loop playback

Simple UI to play 8 samples

Drop samples onto the UI

One shots and loops

16th matrix for sample trigger

Project built with github actions

• Documentation available:
• Package available:

Maintenance

To build the dockerfile locally:

docker build . -t octo_slample -f Dockerfile

To find the specific versions of packages installed in a Dockerfile, needed to ensure that the Dockerfile passes hadolint:

docker run -t octo_slample apt list

Licence (MIT License)

Copyright © 2023 Pete Baker peteb4ker@gmail.com

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.