Sample Manager 3 Review

There has been quite a lot of head scratching going on about Sony’s decision to not include batch processing with Sound Forge Pro Mac. Everyone should be aware of a great OS X batch processor that has already been around for a while: Sample Manager. From Audiofile Engineering:

Sample Manager is the quintessential batch audio file processor for Mac OS X. Designed in Cocoa from the ground up, Sample Manager proudly takes advantage of CoreAudio, Quartz, and other solid OS X features.

Sample Manager is hands-down the most powerful and full-featured audio batch processor available today — sort files by any parameter, view detailed waveforms down to the sample, change file names, gain, fade, trim and process to your heart’s content. There are over 50 process actions available. You can chain your process actions together as Workflows, and with one click you can apply complex processes to as many audio files as you like.

Sample Manager seems able to do everything you’d ever require from a batch processor: Fades, Trims, Convert/Export, Labels, Extract, Mix, Append , as well as Changing Speed, Length, Tempo and Pitch (just to name a few). In addition it has built-in Workflows and allows you to create your own sequence of processes. AU and VST support, Applescript and Automator support and even some iZotope stuff running under the hood makes $79 a bargain.

I really enjoy being able to see which file is currently being worked on and how many have left to go (bright yellow image, and yes my highlight color is yellow). I grabbed a whole bunch of sounds from one of my The Recordist libraries and tested out converting and trimming them and all went well. I did run into a crash or two while playing around, but the restart and report process was super-quick and painless, and I never lost any work along the way.

Some of the cool iZotope stuff like dither and actions like “Add to Pro Tools Session” require purchasing an additional Action Pack! but the app is certainly not incomplete without those actions.  Sample Manager has other cool goodies like the ability to send to SoundCloud, Audio First Aid (very cool) and even split-file naming support.

Most importantly the app works and does its job well. There is only so many ways I can tell you how awesome it was that the program converted my .wav into an .OGG and that I was blown away. So go check out the demo for yourself!

On a scale of 1 to 10: I give Sample Manager Two Thumbs Yes.