SeyerSampler logo: an amber zigzag V In Development

SeyerSampler

A multi-timbral sample-player instrument built around a simple dissatisfaction: samplers switch between an instrument's dynamic layers, and you can hear the switch.

The Idea

A well-sampled instrument is recorded at several dynamic levels — soft, medium, hard — because a real instrument does not merely get louder as it is played harder. It changes character. The bow bites, the string rings differently, the hammer strikes with a different spectrum.

Every sampler I have used handles this the same way: it stores those layers and picks one. Play between two of them and the instrument crossfades, which mixes two different moments rather than producing the moment in between. The seam is audible, and players learn to work around it.

SeyerSampler is being built to produce the tone that genuinely belongs at that dynamic, rather than a mixture of the two nearest recordings. That is the design goal the instrument exists to pursue, and the part still under active development.

The engine that does it is SeyerMorph, described on its own page.

Where It Comes From

I have been making sample libraries since the Gigasampler days, and I recorded GigaPiano I and II. Decades of building libraries is decades of running into the same wall from the library side, working around a limitation that lives in the player rather than the recordings. This instrument is an attempt to fix it at the source.

Design

  • Multi-timbralMultiple independent instruments in one instance, each with its own output
  • SFZ playbackReads the open SFZ format, so existing libraries load directly
  • Continuous layer morphingThe core research, built on the SeyerMorph engine: deriving the tone between sampled dynamic layers rather than crossfading them
  • Real-time safeBuilt to the same strict audio-thread rules as Larry Seyer Drums and IDA: no allocation, locking, or file access while sound is playing
  • Standalone and pluginPlanned as VST3, AU, AUv3, and CLAP alongside a standalone application

Screenshots

Captured from a running build over OSC.

SeyerSampler Rack page: slot 1 loaded with the SFZ drum kit 03-kit-complete on MIDI channel 1, key range C#1 to B5, running the SPECTRAL morph engine, with the engine status bar and an on-screen keyboard with pitch, mod and pedal controls along the bottom
Rack — an SFZ drum kit loaded on the Spectral morph engine, captured from the current build
SeyerSampler Instrument page: the Dynamics and Morph panel with a live spectrum display, a morph position readout at 67 percent between layers, a mod-wheel morph-ride control, and the unison multi-voice detune controls below
Instrument — morphing between the recorded dynamic layers
SeyerSampler Mixer page: an insert row of EQ, Distortion, Compressor, Tape, Filter, Modulation, Reverb and Delay across the channel, with a four-band parametric EQ drawn over the piano's live frequency spectrum and the shared return and master buttons below
Mixer — the Seyer engines as inserts
SeyerSampler Return page: the Reverb A editor, with a room source panel, a preset selector, and decay, predelay, HF decay, room width, depth, warmth, diffusion and clarity controls
Return — one of four shared effect buses
SeyerSampler Mixer page in a full session: eight inserts on the channel and all four shared returns active
Mixer — a full session, eight inserts and four returns

Included: Larry Seyer Upright Acoustic Bass

When SeyerSampler is released, it will include the full version of the Larry Seyer Upright Acoustic Bass library — not the stripped-down free edition, but the complete original library I first recorded in the mid-1990s.

  • The bassA classic Italian-style three-quarter-size upright made in 1817 by Guiseppe Del-Serra, set up for jazz
  • The playerSpencer Starnes, a premier Austin bassist, engineer, producer and arranger
  • Every note, every stringSampled in stereo at four velocities, with no loops — over 500 MB devoted to one instrument
  • Release and bodyFinger-damped staccato release resonance samples on note-up, plus controllable body resonance
  • Slides, riffs and moreFast and slow slides up and down all four strings from each note, plus riffs, harmonics, effects and noises
  • Played through SeyerMorphThe same bass that proved morphing between dynamic layers on a pitched instrument, now continuous instead of stepped

Development Status

SeyerSampler is in active development as a standalone application. Work began in July 2026, and the project’s own build roadmap puts the remaining work in the musician-facing app rather than the sound engine: the morph and audio processing are settled, and what is left is wiring the rest of the interface to it. The plugin formats and other platforms are a later packaging stage.

Underway now: microtuning, with Scala scale and keyboard-mapping files per instrument slot. Still to come after that: in-app SFZ/Lua editing, a preset manager with bank and program changes, MIDI Learn, and host automation.

What’s Been Done So Far

  • Multi-timbral rackUp to 128 instrument slots, each loading its own instrument, with a freely assignable MIDI channel per slot so several slots can play together as a stack
  • Output routing and bussesUp to 16 user busses, with slots routed to busses and busses to the master
  • UnisonStacked, detuned voices per slot with voice count, detune, blend and stereo width
  • Insert effectsThe Seyer engines as inserts on every channel: EQ, distortion, compression, tape, filter, modulation, reverb and delay
  • Reverb and sendsFour shared effect returns fed from each channel’s sends
  • Modulation and macrosA modulation matrix and macro knobs per instrument
  • ArticulationsArticulations kept separate and switched, never morphed across
  • MeteringPeak and LUFS metering
  • Morphing on pitched instrumentsMorphing between recorded dynamic layers verified clean on a real melodic instrument, an upright acoustic bass, after first being proven on drums in Larry Seyer Drums

Part of the Family

SeyerSampler is the instrument in the LOUIS suite, sharing its morphing approach with the effects plugins and its real-time architecture with Larry Seyer Drums and IDA.

LOUIS SeyerAmp Larry Seyer Drums

Licensing

SeyerSampler will be commercial, proprietary software — licensed, not sold. Its source is not publicly available. Music you make with it will be yours, with no royalty owed on it.