I heard that Sample Wrench used to be a commercial product. Is it really free now and why?
Yes, Wrench used to be a commercial product and it did have an appropriate list price. For a variety of reasons, we decided to make all of our titles freeware. This decision was influenced by our academic and athletic offerings. Our athletic software has always been free, partly in an effort to help people get healtier. And while the developer of Sample Wrench is also a published author of commercial college engineering texts, the recent trend toward open educational resources (i.e., freely redistributable textbooks and other materials) has been heartening to see. Several open, freely redistributable titles aimed at college electrical engineering and technology students are now available on our site, all authored here (the very small amount of money made on the sale of print textbooks goes to offset the costs of maintaining this website). In spite of loud voices to the contrary, not everything has to be done in the name of profit. And in keeping with that spirit, it was decided that Sample Wrench would become freeware. After all, it would be the dissident thing to do. Some might also suggest that's an appropriately subversive maneuver designed to undermine growing corporatism in society. Some might, anyway.
XE is an easy-to-use editor that stores sounds using 16 bit resolution. Its big brother stores all sound data internally using a 32 bit floating point format.This yields 24 bit resolution with over 190 dB dynamic range for the highest possible audio quality. With XE, you still get great effects with real-time preview, presets and adjustable parameters. You still get Wrench's highly accurate and flexible graphing capabilities. You still get support for a wide range of file formats and MIDI/SMDI samplers. You still get integrated on-line help. What do you get with the full Sample Wrench system? Well, you get a bunch more effects and functions (like Pitch Shift, Time Compression, Resynthesis, Spectral Warp, FM, Parametric EQ, dedicated Loop Window, Flange, Level Compressor, the Interactive Keyboard Window, etc.) You get the ability to open up to 99 editors instead of one. You get the really neat Multi-Clip clipboard- you can create an unlimited number of sound clips and trade them freely among all of the open editors. You get functions and effects which can be aborted mid-stream, and progress bars.You get a bunch of ways of defining edit areas. You get tons of conveniences like floating toolbars, waveform view memories, automatic startup configurations, directory control, etc. And to top it off, you get the Visual Basic compatible script/macro language. You can do all kinds of things with this, from automating repetitive taks to creating your own custom DSP functions. Need to translate an entire directory of sounds from one format to another? Want to create your own user interface for an existing effect? Need to string together a complex chain of effects for several different sounds? You can do them all! We even include example scripts that show you exactly how!
I like to use a file format that Sample Wrench doesn't support.
Simple! To import/export files to/from Wrench in other formats, consider using fre:ac, a free audio converter. Nice stuff.
I'm having some trouble with Sample Wrench's online
help system.
There are two issues which sometimes arise in this area. First, Windows might not be able to find the Wrench.hlp file. If this error pops up you can direct Windows to it manually. It is located in Sample Wrench's Program folder. For example, if you did a standard install of Sample Wrench on Windows 8, the location will be C:\Program Files (x86)\dissidents\Sample Wrench 2496\Program. The second issue revolves around the more recent versions of Windows. For whatever reason, Microsoft decided not to include the help system application which they used on many prior versions of Windows. Not a problem though; you can download this application (WinHlp32.exe) from microsoft.com. Of course, you can always download the Wrench Users Manual PDF.
Are there any tutorial videos covering Sample Wrench?
Most certainly! You can either view them on the Sample Wrench Playlist on Electronics With Professor Fiore at YouTube, or you can just head over to the Books page on this site and download them in MP4 format. Your choice!
Must I use Sample Wrench only with MIDI samplers?
Absolutely not! Sample Wrench works great with your computer's audio. You don't have to have a MIDI sampler to enjoy its editing and analysis prowess!
Do your products support SMDI?
Yep. Sample Wrench can communicate via SMDI (SCSI Musical Data Interchange) for a 50 to 100 fold speed improvement over MIDI. Besides a SMDI sampler, you need a SCSI card in your computer. The card must be ASPI compliant (ASPI was developed by Adaptec and is supported by most cards).
Which MIDI samplers
do you support?
First, if you're concerned about MIDI samplers, contact us first! Unfortunately, due to the fact that samplers are somewhat of a "retro" device these days and are not generally manufactured anymore, we are no longer developing or expanding support for them. All MIDI and SCSI based sample transfer is offered "as is". We can, however, help you determine if the sample transfers will work on your system. Just contact us with the hardware details and we'll go from there. In any event...
There are two sample transfer standards: SDS (Sample Dump Standard) for MIDI, and SMDI (SCSI Musical Data Interchange) for SCSI. SMDI is about 50 to 100 times faster than SDS. Most second-generation and later vintage samplers support either SDS or SMDI. Sample Wrench supports SDS in both 12 and 16 bit modes, and SMDI. Many older 8 or 12 bit samplers use proprietary protocols. Sample Wrench supports some of these.
Warning: Some MIDI interfaces do not support the long System Exclusive (SYSEX) messages that are required in order to transfer sound samples between the sampler and computer. Please check your MIDI interface owner's manual to make sure that it supports SYSEX. Also, MIDI sample dumps are rather slow as they are limited by the speed of MIDI itself. To transfer a few seconds of sound to a vintage sampler may require a few minutes.
A word of caution about SMDI; just because a sampler has a SCSI port doesn't mean that it supports SMDI. When in doubt, contact the manufacturer. To take advantage of SMDI, your computer's SCSI controller must be ASPI compliant if you're running Windows. Finally, many samplers have had operating system updates over the years to correct bugs. Without these updates a given sampler may not transfer data properly. If you have any questions about a specific sampler, contact us. Please note that we do not offer technical support for the samplers themselves, or software updates for them. For that, see the manufacturer.
Below is a list of older SDS and SMDI samplers. It is not an
exhaustive list. Not all of these samplers have been verified
by dissidents as adhering to the SDS/SMDI standards, but are advertised
by the manufacturer as such. At the bottom is a list of proprietary
samplers that are supported by Sample Wrench.
Our site policy is very simple. This site exists so that interested
folk can find out more about us and the neat stuff we
make. Further, it exists so that users of our neat stuff
can find out about the latest updates, download freebies, or get
technical support. It is not designed as some bizarre cyber art-deco
palace or marketing data-mining tool, and we avoid rabid capitalist
trickery. We want it to be fast and easy to use. Thus, this site
doesn't require a bunch of plug-ins. It's also cookie-free and
ad-free. We don't share your registration info with other developers
or companies unless you specifically request that we do so. We've
tried to make it look nice no matter what browser you're using,
and we've also avoided huge JPEG and GIF files which can really
bog down surfing. Finally, there are no background sounds or MIDI
files playing for similar reasons. That's it. Nice. Simple. Efficient.
OK, so it's not sexy, but is sexy really a word you want to use
in describing your relationship with a computer anyway?