Musician Aphex Twin, together with developer Dave Griffiths, has released the sound editing software Samplebrain. This software translates input sounds into similar samples to create a new track. Samplebrain is free to download from GitLab.
Of the software allows the user to use one sample as the ‘target sound’ and several samples as the ‘brain content’. Samplebrain then uses the so-called brain content to recreate the target sound.
“Imagine being able to reconstruct source audio from a selection of other MP3 or audio files on your computer. Or you could build a 303 riff from just a cappella songs or bubbling mud sounds. Or what if you were singing a silly tune and rebuild it from classical music files? You can with Samplebrain”, writes Aphex Twin in the announcement of the software.
Aphex Twin, whose real name is Richard James, says he came up with the idea for Samplebrain twenty years ago. He remembers storing “a bunch” of MP3 files and that the music search service Shazam had just come out. “I had collected all that music and thought I could use it for something else besides playing it or mixing the files. I had initially reached out to the founders of Shazam to discuss further creative uses of their genius idea, but they were already making an automatic DJ show,” said James.
Then the musician teamed up with Griffiths to flesh out his idea. “Richard had an idea at the time about a kind of giant brain that you can give samples to,” Griffiths writes in a statement on the SoundCloud page of Aphex Twin. “If you give it enough, it would be able to take all the right bits to create a new sound.”
Samplebrain is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.