How to Auto-Sample a Synth for the EP-40 with EP-PatchStudio

Capturing a synth by hand is tedious: play a note, record it, trim it, move up, repeat. The Auto-Sampler in EP-PatchStudio automates the whole thing. You point it at a hardware synth or a VST, tell it what notes to sample, and it sends the MIDI and records each note’s audio for you. You end up with an evenly spaced set of samples ready to build into an EP-40 multisample.

The Auto-Sampler is part of Pro, and the 14-day trial includes it. It runs on the desktop app (macOS, Windows and Linux) only.

The two connections you need

Auto-sampling needs a loop. EP-PatchStudio has to send MIDI to play the instrument and receive audio to record it. So you set up two connections.

For a hardware synth, you need MIDI out from your computer to the synth’s MIDI in, so EP-PatchStudio can trigger notes, and audio in from the synth’s audio output into your computer’s audio interface, so it can record the result.

For a software synth (VST), you need a virtual MIDI port, something like IAC on Mac or loopMIDI on Windows, so EP-PatchStudio can send notes to the VST in your DAW, and audio loopback, a tool like BlackHole on Mac or VB-Cable on Windows, to route your DAW’s audio back into EP-PatchStudio.

In the Auto-Sampler, you then select the right MIDI output and audio input for whichever setup you’re using.

Set the note range and timing

Once it’s connected, tell the Auto-Sampler what to capture. Set the note range, the span you want to sample across, and the interval, how many semitones apart each note is. It records between 2 and 8 evenly spaced notes, so your zones come out tidy. Then set the timing: Sustain Time is how long each note is held, and Post-Note Time is how much it keeps recording after the note ends. Leave enough that the release tail is captured, especially with reverb or long releases.

Set your synth to a fixed, medium velocity first. EP multisamples have no velocity layers, so you want every note captured at the same dynamic.

Run it, then build the multisample

Select Start Recording and it works through the range, triggering and recording each note, then trimming and normalising it. When it’s done you’ve got a clean, evenly spaced sample set.

Select Open in Sample Editor to build the multisample. It switches the Sample Editor to Multisample mode and loads every take with its root note already set to the note it recorded, so there’s nothing to download and import again. Check the mapping, then send it to the EP-40.

For sustained sounds, loop each sample by hand so notes hold: place the loop markers on a steady part of the sound and use Snap to Zero to tidy each one. (Export ZIP is there too if you want the WAV files, named by note, for somewhere else.)

The mapping and looping steps are the same as any multisample. See How to Make Multisamples for the EP-40 Riddim and the synth-specific tips in Multisampling a Synth for the EP-40.

If something’s not working

If notes aren’t triggering the synth, check the MIDI channel matches between EP-PatchStudio and the instrument, and that the MIDI connection is selected correctly. If nothing’s being recorded, verify the audio input is set to your interface (hardware) or loopback device (software), and check the input level. If the release tail gets cut off, increase the Post-Note Time. And if you hear a short gap before each note (common with VSTs going through loopback), raise the Trim Silence threshold from -60 towards -40 dBFS.

Get started

EP-PatchStudio is free to download. The Auto-Sampler is part of Pro, and the 14-day trial includes it.