Sound Synthesis and Sampling, 2nd Edition

4  Sampling

A sampler is the name given to a piece of electronic musical equipment which records a sound, stores it and then replays it on demand. There are thus three important functions:

•  record the sound

•  store the recording on some sort of storage medium

•  replay the stored sound.

A sampler combines all of these functions into one unit, and this makes it very different from almost all of the other examples of synthesizers described in this book. Most synthesizers can fulfil the last two functions: store and replay, but the distinguishing feature of a sampler is its ability to record sounds.

This definition of a sampler in terms of its functionality is important because it enables a wide range of equipment to be classified as being samplers, ...