A software sampler is a piece of software which allows a computer to emulate the functionality of a sampler.

In the same way that a sampler has much in common with a synthesizer, software samplers are in many ways similar to software synthesizers and there is great deal of overlap between the two, but whereas a software synthesizer generates sounds algorithmically from mathematically-described tones or short-term waveforms (i.e., less than 100ms in length), a software sampler always reproduces samples, often much longer than a second, as the first step of its algorithm.

See also:

• software synthesizer
• sampler (musical instrument)

Links

• Software Architecture for Software-Intensive Systems The Software Engineering Institute's "Software Architecture for Software-Intensive Systems" Web site is a leading source of software architecture
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