Bobona Just A Sample is a free, open-source sampler plugin for macOS, Linux, and Windows. It features live recording and effects.
In electronic music, synthesizers are used to create sounds. But synthesizers can’t do everything. For example, acoustic sounds or real voices, etc. For this, you need a sampler to make samples playable chromatically.
Bobona has released an impressive open-source sampler called Just a Sample that will probably generate a lot of interest among free plugin lovers.
Bobona Just a Sample
Just a Sample is a new, open-source modern sampler plugin for macOS, Linux, and Windows. Its workflow is smooth and straightforward. You can import your samples using drag-and-drop. Lovely, Bobona also added a real-time sampling function, allowing you to record samples directly in the plugin.
Once imported, you can customize and manipulate your samples in different ways. First, you can smoothly zoom in to the level of individual samples to set bounds as accurately as you need. A waveform drawing function was also developed for larger samples.
Then, Just a Sample offers a neat waveform mode, which turns it into a pseudo-synthesizer. You can set small bounds and loop the waveform to achieve wavetable-like sounds. Pitch bend, fine-tuning, looping, and attack and release envelope cure control are also onboard.
Bobona Just a Sample features a unique second playback mode called Bungee. It’s a time stretcher algorithm, allowing you to modulate time and pitch independently and freely. Use extreme slow-downs to get unique sounds.
On top of that, you get an equal power cross-fade looping option with separate attack and release sample portions.
Effects
The developer did not stop there. Bobona also added a routable multi-FX processor with tweakable distortion, chorus, reverb, and equalizer. Additionally, you can disable the built-in antialiasing algorithm for more gritty LoFi effects.
Nice, the plugin stores samples directly in the plugin state to remove dependencies. You can disable this function at any time. Bobona Just a Sample also has an auto-tune function to A440.
First Impression
Just a Sample looks like a very exciting, cross-platform free sampler plugin. The unique bungee mode and the built-in effects make it a great release. I hope that the plugin will be significantly expanded due to its open-source nature. If you don’t have a sampler plugin, don’t miss it.
Bobona Just a Sample is now available for free download. It runs as a VST3 and AU plugin on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
More information here: Bobona
I’m curious about its capabilities WRT sample mapping across key & velocity ranges; and how it might handle layering of sounds.
Developer here. Just a Sample has no sample mapping. The focus is making playable instruments out of single samples. However, the next patch will include a simple control for filtering MIDI notes, to allow a person to achieve that functionality with multiple instances of the plugin (in DAWS that don’t already support MIDI filtering).
Thanks for the reply! Best wishes!
Looks great. So I bought it. But I cannot get it to install on my mac OS 15 laptop. Waiting to hear from the company about how to fix this.
Hey, Brian. Thanks for the support! Please open up an issue on https://github.com/BOBONA/Just-a-Sample/issues so I can look into this and get more details.