Ingenious plugin: Muxer Instant Sampler

Often, when musicians make plugins, they do without the gloss and bristling feature sets that characterise commercially developed devices and instead deliver something that solves a very particular problem in an ingenious way, like Muxer's Instant Sampler. It has no frills and a bargain basement GUI, but the potential to alter significantly the way you approach certain sequencing and performance tasks.

It's a midi triggered insert effect. It quietly sits on a track (perhaps on a bus) passing through audio untouched until it receives a midi note. While the note plays it records the incoming audio. On subsequent detection of that same note, the recorded audio is played back and the dry signal is muted until the note is released. Each note can hold its own recording.

The device has the capability of playing back from its buffer in reverse (reverse mode is activated by notes below a given velocity) and at altered speeds (via pitch bend).

With some thought and experimentation Instant Sampler can be effectively employed as part of a sequencing workflow as well as in a performance context.