Sample Library

The Sample Library is where Gridshift keeps the samples and MIDI patterns you have imported. Importing copies the files into a folder Gridshift owns, so the library is one thing you can back up, sync and offload — the folders you imported from are sources, not homes. Three ways in, all keyboard-first:

• The Sample Library window on ⇧⌘2 — the full list, with columns, collections, tags, and a Trash.
• The sample picker on ⌥S — find a sample and load it onto the selected track without leaving the keyboard.
• Smart Search (optional) — an on-device audio model sorts the library by how close each sample sounds to the one you are working with.

While playback is running, the picker’s arrow keys step through results and each candidate is heard in place on the current track. Clip offsets, lengths, and positions do not change.

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Fill the library

Manage the library under Gridshift → Settings → Library. Your samples live in ~/Music/Gridshift/Samples; the index itself is at ~/Library/Application Support/Gridshift/library.db. Import Samples and MIDI Files… — in Settings and in the library window’s toolbar — copies a folder’s audio and patterns into the library. The originals stay where they are, and every folder name below the one you picked becomes a tag: import Splice and a file at Splice/Drums/Kicks/Distorted keeps Drums, Kicks and Distorted. The folder you pointed at is left out, because it would land on every sample alike. You can also drop files onto the library window, or onto a collection in its sidebar, to import them there.

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Supported formats

Gridshift imports .mid and .midi files alongside audio. Patterns are browsed from their own picker — press ⌥P for Command Palette → Stamp MIDI Shapes and Patterns…, which arms a pattern you then click into place. See Timeline shortcuts.

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Content-hash identification

Every file is identified by a content hash, not by its path. Import the same audio twice, from two folders or two Macs, and it is one sample with one set of tags. Because the library plays its own copy, moving or deleting the folder you imported from changes nothing. Manual tempo corrections are stored against the content hash too. When you set a source BPM or move the downbeat in the Sample Editor, Gridshift writes the correction to the library and syncs it, so the next project — on any Mac — picks it up unless it already has its own value. Resetting both clears the stored correction.

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The Sample Library window

⇧⌘2, File → Sample Library..., or Command Palette → Sample Library. (⌘2 is a different thing — it shows the Browser tab in the Inspector.) The sidebar lists All Samples and All Patterns, an Unsorted scope for each, your collections, and the Trash. Right-click the table header to choose columns: Name, Waveform, Status, a star for the favorite, Tags, BPM, Key, and Length. Every one of them sorts except the waveform. Status is one glyph saying where the sample’s bytes are: on this Mac only, on this Mac and backed up, backed up with only the small copy kept here, or missing — the file is no longer where the library left it. Sorting on that column gathers the missing ones into a block you can select at once. A missing sample keeps its row, its favorite and its tags; only playing it and revealing it in Finder are refused. Drag a row out of the window onto the arrangement to place it. A multi-row selection drags as one drop.

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Collections, tags and the favorite

A collection is a hand-made list — “Kicks that work”, “Album: Nightdrive”. A sample is in at most one, and the collection carries a color that everything in it shows; a sample in no collection has no color of its own. Collections hold samples or patterns, never both, and they sync. Tags cut across collections and stack. They come from three places: what you type, the folder names an import wrote, and what Gridshift reads off the file name. Remove one from a sample with the x on its row, or library-wide with Manage Tags…, the first item in the toolbar’s Filter by Tag menu — the samples stay, only the tag goes. One favorite mark, on ⌘D, in the window and in the sample picker alike. Favorites lead the picker’s results.

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Trash

⌫ moves the selection to the Trash and asks nothing — library hygiene means removing hundreds of samples, and a dialog per sample is what stops that happening. A sample waits there 30 days, keeping its file, its favorite, its tags and its collection, and Put Back restores all of it. It is the same Trash on every device.

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What Gridshift hears on import

Gridshift listens to each sample once, in the background, and everything it can learn comes out of that single pass: the waveform drawing, the transient markers, the tempo, the key, whether the file is a loop or a one-shot, and any melody it can transcribe. There is no switch — it costs some local CPU once, then keeps up with imports. A sample also remembers how you play it. Plays As in the inspector is Slices (one key per transient marker) or Instrument (the sample played up and down the keyboard). That choice, and the sampler tuning beside it, follow the sample into the next project and onto your other Macs.

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Cross-device sync

With iCloud on, what you do to a sample follows it to your other Macs and to the iOS Companion: the favorite mark, your tags and the folder tags an import wrote, which collection it is filed in, how it plays, its sampler tuning, its detected BPM and key, its waveform drawing, transient markers you placed by hand, and whether it is in the Trash. Because samples are identified by content, these annotations follow the file rather than its location — favorite a sample on one Mac and it is a favorite on every other Mac that has the same file. The audio itself does not, until you say so. Two switches under Settings → Library back the library up to iCloud and then let Gridshift keep only a small copy of what you have not reached for lately — both off by default, and the second only available once the first is on. See Back up sample audio for what each one costs.

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Sample search via Command Palette

Open the picker with ⌥S — Command Palette → Add or Change Sample… — while a sample or instrument track is selected. Step through results with ↑ / ↓, commit with Return, or cancel and revert with Escape. On an instrument track the pick loads the built-in sampler. The list re-ranks as you type. Ranking combines several signals:

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Narrow the list

Type a word and the picker offers matching collections and tags at the top of the results. Pick one and it becomes a chip in the search line; pick it again to invert it, and ⌫ on an empty field takes the last chip back off. Chips of the same kind are OR, different kinds are AND. The older : notation still works for anyone who knows it: Categories are inferred from the file name. A file called 808-deep-kick.wav picks up drums and kick on its own; the folders it was imported from arrive as tags instead, and are searched as tags.

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Smart Search

Smart Search extends filename matching with acoustic similarity. Instead of relying on how files are named, Gridshift compares how they actually sound — using an on-device audio model.

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Enable Smart Search

Smart Search is off by default. Switch on Smart sample search under Settings → Library → Smart Search. Gridshift downloads the audio and text models on first enable (around 170 MB combined), then runs a one-time indexing pass over your library in the background — Settings shows the progress for both. All processing runs on-device — no audio leaves your Mac.

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Search by sound

Smart Search activates automatically once enabled. The sample picker picks the right mode based on what you do:

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Turn it off

Switching the toggle off returns the picker to pure name-based search. If you re-enable Smart Search later, it picks up where it left off without re-downloading the model or re-indexing your library.

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Swap samples during playback

The picker is designed for live, performative sample replacement. Clips keep their positions; only the underlying audio changes. Gridshift only creates a fresh waveform when you commit with Return; preview steps reuse the existing track in place.

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Edge cases

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Change a sample without preview

When you already know which file you want, two non-performative paths are also available: Both create a fresh sound source immediately, with waveform and transients generated up front — no preview / commit loop.

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Shortcuts

The keys that drive the library and the sample picker. The Global Shortcuts reference has the complete grid of track and file operations.