Linux is an attractive platform for professional audio production. It is an extremely stable operating system that has good support for audio hardware. Using a Linux machine as the focus of your recording setup opens a world of possibilities for an affordable price.
Software that creates music can often be expensive. The heavyweight Cubase, Apple LogicPro, FL Studio, Adobe Audition, and Sony ACID Pro are all impressive software music production environments. Unfortunately, they cost hundreds of dollars and are released under a proprietary software license. Fortunately, there is a good range of open source software that lets you produce professional quality recordings.
A sampler is an electronic or digital musical instrument which uses sound recordings (or “samples”) of real instrument sounds (e.g., a piano, violin or trumpet), excerpts from recorded songs (e.g., a five-second bass guitar riff from a funk song) or found sounds (e.g., sirens and ocean waves).
Here’s our recommended audio samplers captured in a legendary ratings chart. Only free and open source software are featured here.
Let’s explore the 6 audio samplers. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, a screenshot of the software in action together with links to relevant resources.
| Audio Samplers | |
|---|---|
| LinuxSampler | Professional grade software audio sampler |
| samplv1 | Old-school polyphonic sampler |
| LMMS | Produce music with your computer |
| SooperLooper | Live looping sampler capable of immediate loop recording, and more |
| Qsampler | Official GUI frontend for LinuxSampler |
| Just a Sample | Modern audio sampler plugin |
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 Explore our carefully curated directory of recommended free and open source software, covering every major software category.The directory forms part of our extensive collection of articles for Linux enthusiasts. It includes hundreds of detailed reviews, together with free and open source alternatives to proprietary software from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. LinuxLinks also covers interesting projects worth exploring, Linux-compatible hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application that we haven’t covered? Tell us about it using our submission form. |
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