Looking for a sampler/looper/track recorder for OSX.

July 3, 2007 11:41 PM

Looking for a sampler/looper/track recorder for OSX.

I want to make my own version of Jay-Z's The Black Album using the Jay-Z construction set (yes I know we've had enough versions of TBA...) so I am looking for a program for OSX that i can feed MP3's into and grab segments, then loop, speed up/down, layer tracks, etc.

I don't think Garage Band works with MP3's and this sort of sampling, and I don't want something as heavy as Pro Tools.

posted by Chuck Cheeze to computers & internet (7 comments total)

PS, looking for free sofware
posted by Chuck Cheeze at 11:41 PM on July 3, 2007

You're probably not going to find something free, but if you want to play around you could look at a demo of Ableton Live.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:03 AM on July 4, 2007

What about Audacity?
It's free, seems to do a lot, and people recommend it all the time.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
posted by willmize at 2:41 AM on July 4, 2007

Here is a decent list of free Mac audio software.

Ableton Live would really be best for what you want to do, but it's not free (they do have decent working demos but you can't save; you might be able to rig some way to externally record the audio stream from the demo??)

Audacity alone would not work for multi-channel looping, but you might be able to use it's VST hosting, and then find a free looper/sampler type VSTi (check popular VST sites like KVR).
posted by p3t3 at 3:37 AM on July 4, 2007

I would visit I Use This and see what is around. You can search by tag.
posted by sneakin at 7:43 AM on July 4, 2007

For what you want to do free is a bit of a tall order in my experience, but Rogue Amoeba's "Fission" has a great interface and is worth looking into for the basic editing. It won't do all that you want to do but there is a demo and I have found it more stable (and prettier ;-) than Audacity.

Maybe Fission with something like "Amazing Slow Downer" and bring it all together in Garageband?

Good luck and be sure to share the results in MeFi music. :-)
posted by St Urbain's Horseman at 4:36 PM on July 4, 2007

Ableton Live combined with this: http://plasq.com/musolomo/
posted by 6am at 3:34 PM on July 5, 2007