Music & Audio

Samplitude Tips & Tricks

Samplitude remains my favorite DAW of all time, and I have tried quite a few. However there are a few things that'll make it a more smooth ride, so I'll share a few things that I hope will help.

Hotkeys

As an old SoundForge user, I have certain expecations to certain things being following that standard, e.g. cursor up = zoom in, cursor down = zoom out. You see this in CoolED and Wavosaur too. The defaults that Samplitude ships with are obscure and seem inefficient for fast operation, so there's a suggestion that makes it resemble those classic .wav editors much more.

Samplitude_hotkeys.zip

If you want to try out Samplitude, I strongly recommend loading these. Click Y and do this:

screenshot

Make each new record take become a separate .wav file

By default Samplitude puts all recordings into one big .wav file. If you think this behavior is confusing, simply enable this checkbox:

screenshot

Avoid leaving .HDP and .H2 files everywhere

Edit the file %ProgramData%\BorisFX\Samplitude Suite\2026\Sam_x64.ini
Find the [Setup] section and make sure these two keys are there with the following values:

[Setup] AllHdpFilesInSubDirectory=0 AllHdpFilesInOneDirectory=1

The temp files will be generated in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\MAGIX\Samplitude Pro 2026 Suite\Project Files\
If the [Setup] section is missing, it must be added below the [Recent File List] section to work.

Three Digit Track Numbers

In the Sam_x64.ini file, in the [Factors] section, this will switch from 2 to 3 digit numbers:

[Factors] Force3DigitsForRecordTrackNumber=1

Hardware Controller

Tool to auto generate Hardware Controller setup.

Envelope Color

You may have noticed that Options / Design / Colors / "Sample Envelope" doesn't work. To fix this, edit the file "C:\Program Files\MAGIX\Samplitude Pro 2026 Suite\bitmaps\Carbon\VIP.ini" and change the line that says usev11coloring=1 into usev11coloring=0

For inspiration, here's the color scheme that I use.

Docking

When dragging around windows like the object editor and such, Samplitude's docking may feel a bit out of control. There's a way to make it only suggest docking when you hold down the Ctrl key. Disabling that check box makes the general UI experience feel less flimsy and more predictable.

disable this

Possible alternative locations of Sam_x64.ini:

C:\ProgramData\MAGIX\Samplitude Pro X8 Suite\Sam_x64.ini
D:\Program Files\Samplitude\FX\Sam_x64.ini

Website by Joachim Michaelis