SOLUTION: Correctly Importing SampleRobot instruments to Waldorf Quantum and Iridium

 As a long-time user of SampleRobot and a recent owner of a Waldorf Iridium Core synthesizer, I was excited to learn that SampleRobot 6 has explicit support for the Waldorf Iridium and Quantum instruments. After working with the synth for several days, however, I encountered a number of unexpected roadblocks when attempting to import my own SampleRobot recordings into my Iridium Core that the existing documentation and tutorial videos didn't cover. After a couple days of research and experimentation, I have finally figured it out, and wanted to share my findings for future users.

Recent developments

So far I have only found one video describing the process of importing SampleRobot instruments, and it's the one Waldorf published to their YouTube channel, however that video glosses over a very important fact: If you follow their steps exactly as described, it will work at first- but only if you leave your USB drive or SD card inserted in the synthesizer. If you try to load any instruments you created without the original storage device connected, the synth will complain that it can't find the samples!

If you want to permanently import your SampleRobot instrument without having to leave the USB/SD storage connected, you must import the samples into flash memory, and create the instrument from there. But that leads us to another problem: YouTuber Tim Shoebridge has the most popular video that covers the process of importing samples into a Quantum or Iridium, and it is very good, but it was recorded before the 3.0 update to the Iridium system software, which changed how sample storage works. His steps involve using an "Import" action which no longer exists in current Iridium/Quantum software. That functionality has been combined with the pre-existing "Add" action, but the workflow is different from what you'll see in Tim's video.

My steps below will show you how to correctly (and permanently) import your SampleRobot instruments into your instrument, as of the 3.2.0 version of Iridium Core OS (January 16, 2024).

Importing the samples

These steps assume you have already recorded your instrument in SampleRobot and exported the project in "Waldorf Quantum and Iridium (*.map)" format. I am a heavy SampleRobot user, and have already written some guides on working with it. If you'd like to see some more info on using it to make instruments for Quantum/Iridium, let me know.

First off, after you export your instrument to Waldorf format, make sure that you copy the resulting files to your USB drive or SD card exactly as follows: The USB drive/SD card must have a directory named "samples" at the root, and that directory must contain one or more instrument directories, each one containing the instrument's samples and MAP file. There can be other stuff on the drive/card, but all your Waldorf files must follow the above directory structure.

In this image you can see we have a USB drive named "IRIDIUM" and it contains a folder named "samples" with a subfolder named "The Giant Piano" which contains all necessary samples, plus the MAP file.

Note: Because some physical buttons on these devices have the same text as some on-screen buttons on the touch screen, I will try to use the word "press" for physical buttons and "touch" for on-screen controls.

1. Insert your USB drive or SD card into your synthesizer.
2. Press the physical Load button on the synth.
3. On the Load Patch screen, touch Init to create an empty patch.
4. Press OSC 1.
5. Touch Wavetable and then touch Particle to select the standard sampler engine.
6. Touch Actions, and then touch Add.
7. In the upper-left corner of the touchscreen, toggle to the correct storage device for your samples (USB Drive or SD Card).
8. In the left pane of the touchscreen, touch samples.
9. In the right pane of the touchscreen, touch the directory name of the instrument you want to import (for the instrument in my screenshot above, I'd touch "The Giant Piano").
10. Leave the directory name selected (don't select any individual files), and then touch Add.
11. An "Add Samples" dialog will appear, asking if you want to copy the files to internal flash memory. Touch Copy.
12. The samples will be copied into the "samples" directory on the synth's internal "Samples" storage. (For example, my "The Giant Piano" directory now appears between the factory "Tanya Samples" and "Vocal chika" directories in my internal storage.)

Loading the instrument map

The MAP file contains all the information your Waldorf synth needs in order to place each sample in the correct pitch and velocity ranges.

1. With your USB/SD storage still connected, press the physical Load button.
2. On the Load Patch screen, touch Init to create an empty patch.
3. Press OSC 1.
4. Touch Wavetable and then touch Particle to select the standard sampler engine.
5. Touch Actions, and then touch Load Map.
6. Use the touchscreen to navigate inside the original directory that contained your samples on your USB stick or SD card, and touch the name of the MAP file. (In my example, I'd navigate to "USB Drive > samples > The Giant Piano > The Giant Piano.map".)
7. Touch Load.

Your samples should now be mapped the way you set them up in SampleRobot.

Testing and saving the instrument

You should now have a very basic sample-mapped instrument. Use the pads or fire up your DAW to play around with it to make sure your velocity layers are mapped properly (if you used more than one layer) and the pitches are mapped across the keyboard as you expected. You can make the necessary changes in the Timbre page of OSC 1, on a per-sample basis if only minor changes are needed. If you find massive changes are required, it might be best to go back to SampleRobot and re-record. (Again, if anyone needs tips here, let me know.)

Your freshly-imported instrument has a "gated" envelope (extremely fast attack and release) and does not adjust volume in response to velocity changes. It WILL trigger the appropriate samples if you imported multiple velocity layers, but it won't adjust their playback volume without some modifications.

To change the amp envelope to attack/release like you want, press the Envelopes button, and then make the appropriate adjustments on the Amp tab. (For example, I increased the Release to 1.54 seconds for my piano instrument.)

To make the instrument adjust volume in response to different velocities, touch Mod Targets on the Amp tab and then dial in the appropriate "Amp VeloAmt" value. In my case, 80% gave me the best velocity curve for my MIDI controller and playing style.

When your instrument is ready to save, do the following:

1. Press the physical Save button.
2. Enter a name for your patch and fill out the appropriate attributes. (I put all my patches into an "ultimateoutsider" bank so I can find everything I've created quickly by just selecting that bank in the preset browser.)
3. Touch the blank space beneath the Save and Cancel buttons on the touchscreen to bring up the patch number entry dialog.
4. Type in a patch slot number as a starting point to find where to save your patch. At least on my unit, the first available patch slot was 164. You can use the selector dial to scroll through existing patch slots until you find a blank one.
5. Touch the red Save button to store the patch in the current slot.

And that's it! I do hope I save some future Waldorf-owning SampleRobot fiends some time with these updated steps!