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Chopping samples

One of life’s great pleasures is taking existing audio and cleverly rearranging and recontextualizing it into brand new music. Chopping turns one long source into many playable moments. We hope chopping samples in Meiji Sampler brings you great joy, truly.

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When to use it

  • breakbeats
  • melodic phrases
  • vocal snippets
  • resampled textures

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Why it matters

Chops let you keep the character of a source recording while rearranging it like an instrument. You can also use chops to adjust audio to fit your needs, for example extending a section you like, or adjusting timing to fit your song.

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Core idea

The original file stays intact. Meiji Sampler stores chop and trim behavior as session metadata rather than destructively rewriting the source file.

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Basic flow

  1. assign a longer sample to a pad
  2. enter chop mode
  3. place or adjust markers
  4. trigger the segments from pad keys
  5. record the result into a loop
Closing an assigned sample’s trim editor stops its preview while other pad voices keep playing.

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Commit a crop

Use a committed crop when you want a new sample containing only the selected trim region. In an assigned pad’s trim editor, press [SHIFT+C], review the confirmation, and choose Crop. The selected pad receives a new Float32 WAV; other pads and the shared source file stay intact. Bounds use audio frames, including both stereo channels. Chop markers inside the crop move with it; markers outside it are removed. On MPC Sample, [SHIFT+PAD 13] opens trim. Hold [SHIFT] and press [B3] to request the same confirmation. [B1] cancels preparation. Preparing or cancelling must finish before another sample edit starts. Failure or cancellation keeps the old pad.

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Change duration with WARP

Open an assigned pad’s trim editor and press [W], or use MPC Sample [SHIFT+PAD 15]. Choose Mode and Duration with [↑/↓] and [←/→]; [ENTER] applies and [ESC] cancels. On MPC, [DATA] selects the field, [−/+] changes its value, [B3/DATA] applies, and [B1] closes or cancels.
  • Stretch changes duration while preserving pitch with the existing stretch engine.
  • Repitch changes speed and pitch together. A 200% duration lasts twice as long and plays one octave lower; 50% lasts half as long and plays one octave higher.
  • Duration ranges from 25–400%, in 5% steps. Each apply creates a new asset from the retained original source and trim, so switching modes does not repeatedly process the previous output. Later trim bounds and chop edits are mapped back to that source.
Applying WARP disables that pad’s Loop Sync to prevent a second automatic stretch. The separate Loop Sync controls remain reachable with [B2] in the native WARP editor. This is rendered sample processing; it does not reproduce a proprietary stock WARP algorithm. Channel gate/release controls remain separate; this workflow adds no sample ADSR envelope.

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Undo and keep edited assets

In a selected pad’s mixer/detail or trim view, [CTRL+Z] restores its previous sample edit; MPC uses [SHIFT+−] in the pad/trim context or WARP editor. Up to 20 sample edits are retained in session/project history, separately from sequence and SONG undo. Restoring the first external sample uses an owned copy of its prior sound/settings. Edits and undo affect the selected pad only. Named projects bundle live edited samples, retained WARP sources, and undo sources in a sibling <project>.assets directory. Move that directory together with the .meiji file. Unedited external samples keep their existing external references. The running session retains its original absolute managed paths until the project is reloaded; reload the saved project before removing the app’s sample-edit storage. Published assets are retained rather than automatically deleted, including assets no longer reachable after undo/history eviction. Physical MPC controls and audio quality still require device acceptance.

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Lazy chopping

Meiji Sampler encourages a “lazy chop” workflow. Lazy chopping is when audio is playing, and markers are entered as the audio is playing based on the location of the playhead when the key is pressed. This is in contrast to other ways to chop, for example entering a numerical offset when the sample begins, or starting with a fixed number of chops across the whole audio file and adjusting the markers. Lazy chopping is an intuitive and musical way to make quick work of any slicing task.

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Intelligent Transient Snap

Intelligent Transient Snap helps you trim and chop at the sounds you can actually hear: kicks, snares, hats, vocal syllables, bass notes, and phrase edges. Instead of nudging the playhead by hand until a hit looks right, you can jump between likely cut points, preview them visually, and then set the trim or chop marker. Use it when you want a slice to start on the first usable hit, when a trim point clicks, or when a long sample has too many possible cut points to scan manually. The navigation feel is inspired by Cool Edit Pro’s fast bracket-key playhead snapping: keep your hand near [ and ], move quickly between hits, and make edit decisions by ear. The marker workflow is inspired by ReCycle’s sensitivity-based transient detection. Raise sensitivity to reveal softer hits, lower it to focus on stronger slice candidates, then use the visible markers as your navigation map.
When Meiji Sampler snaps to a transient, it refines the target to a nearby zero crossing when possible. That gives you the musical timing of the hit while avoiding clicks from cutting through a loud part of the waveform.

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Quick controls

Higher sensitivity shows more possible snap points. Lower sensitivity keeps the list stricter. The initial sensitivity is chosen from 0.5x through 4.0x, aiming for roughly ten distinct attacks in the trimmed region. Tap [>] to reveal softer hits or [<] to remove small details. Your adjustments stay in effect until you close the trim view.

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Reading ghost markers

Ghost markers are subtle vertical lines behind the waveform. They show where the current snap settings can land before you press Shift+[ or Shift+].
  • red markers are low-frequency hits, useful for kicks, bass notes, and low drums
  • yellow markers are midrange hits, useful for snares, claps, keys, guitars, and vocal body
  • blue markers are high-frequency hits, useful for hats, shakers, consonants, and bright attacks
Press b when the sample is busy and you only care about one part of the sound. For example, choose Lows to move between kick hits in a full drum break, or Highs to find hat and sibilant edges without stopping on every low drum.

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Autochop from markers

When the ghost markers match the slices you want, press [A]. Autochop uses the current sensitivity and band inside the trim start and end, treating attacks less than 120 ms apart as one candidate. With ten or fewer candidates, all are assigned immediately. With eleven or more, a dialog offers First 10, Loudest, and Random. Use [TAB] or [←/→] to choose and [ENTER] to apply; [ESC] cancels. Loudest ranks the RMS level of the 500 ms following each candidate, stopping at the trim end. Every strategy assigns its chosen chops to 1-9,0 in timeline order. Sixteen-slot builds use the same rules with a sixteen-chop limit. An audible file or explicit trim start can become the first chop. Untrimmed recordings do not get an invented start chop, and an empty detection result leaves existing chops unchanged. Replacing existing chops requires confirmation before applying or choosing a strategy. Use autochop as a starting point, not a final obligation. If the sensitivity is too low, you may miss useful quiet hits. If it is too high, you may get extra slices. Adjust with [<] and [>], cycle the band with [B] if needed, then press [A] again. If the status says analyzing transients, wait for analysis and retry. If no markers remain at maximum sensitivity, place chops manually rather than forcing slices into silence or steady noise.

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A practical trim workflow

  1. Open the trim view for the sample.
  2. Zoom until the waveform shows the musical region you want to edit.
  3. Press Shift+] to jump to the next useful hit, or Shift+[ to go backward.
  4. If the markers feel too sparse or too busy, adjust with Alt+[ or Alt+].
  5. Press b if you want to isolate lows, mids, or highs.
  6. Press a to autochop the first ten useful markers, or place individual chop markers with 0 through 9.
  7. Set the trim start with s and set the trim end with e if you want to narrow the playable region.
If no transient marker is available near the playhead, Meiji Sampler falls back to zero-crossing seek. If there is still no useful target nearby, the status line reports that none was found and leaves the playhead in place. Some terminals report shifted brackets as { and }. Meiji Sampler accepts those keys as the same snap commands.

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Good chopping habits

  • place as many markers as you need, but remember you only have 10.
  • favour musically meaningful cuts over evenly spaced cuts
  • audition chops in rhythm before recording them
  • if a chop isn’t perfectly placed on a transient, don’t worry, it might give you a creative swing or groove anyway
  • since chops are non-destructive, you can always come back and replace a chop marker later if it’s slightly early or late

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Per-channel chop overrides

When the same file is assigned to multiple channels, each channel can have its own chop markers. Edits made in chop mode or the trim view from a pad context write to that channel’s overrides, not to the shared file defaults. See Per-Channel Playback for details.