Squidbrain - The connected sampling system for producers

(Signal path)

However you record it, it lands in one folder on your desktop.

Phonerecord anywhere Web editorrecord / trim / denoise Desktop recorderwhat's playing

→ Cloudin transit → Your folderready to use

And it flows back: any capture reopens in the editor from your phone, from the library, or with a right-click on the file itself.

How it works

Four steps, and only the first one needs you. Delivery is one of them, not the whole story.

(01)

Capture

Record on a phone, off your computer, or straight into the browser.

(02)

It arrives

It lands in your Squidbrain folder by itself, named and tagged. No exporting, no AirDrop.

(03)

Prepare

Trim, clean, filter, pitch and slice it in the editor, on the big screen.

(04)

Reuse

Drop it into your DAW, and reopen it any time for another pass.

(Capture)

Record wherever you hear it.

Three ways in, one clean WAV out. Whatever made the sound, the capture is the same lossless file, up to 180 seconds a clip.

(On your phone)

A recorder that is always one tap away.

On iPhone you can start a recording from the Lock Screen or Control Centre, so a passing car or a broken tannoy doesn't need you to unlock the phone and find an app first. When you press stop, the capture sends itself.

Android works too, but it's earlier days: recording and sending are solid, while the Lock Screen shortcuts and the deeper editing are iPhone-only for now. If you're on Android, know you're a little ahead of where it's fully polished.

The Squidbrain menu-bar recorder on macOS

(Off your computer)

Sample anything your computer plays.

A break in a YouTube video, a pattern from a drum-machine app, a synth on your line-in. One click in the menu bar records the system audio straight to a WAV, no routing tools, no ripper sites.

On Mac and Windows both — recording your computer's audio and delivering captures works on either. The bigger Studio, your Library and the editor on the desktop, is on Mac today, with Windows in final testing right behind it.

The Squidbrain web editor with a waveform open

(In the browser)

Record straight into the editor.

Hit record in the web editor and it captures right onto the waveform, ready to trim and shape on the spot. Or import a file you already have.

(Prepare · the editor)

A real editor, not a trimmer.

The full editor lives in the desktop app, right beside your Library — and it runs in your browser too, if that's where you are. The phone carries the same core tools for when you're away from a desk. They share one audio engine, so an edit sounds the same wherever you make it.

On your desktop

Cut: trim to selection, cut, copy, paste at the playhead, delete
Silence: trim the ends, tighten gaps, adjustable threshold
Level: normalise, gain, fade in, fade out
Filter: lowpass, bandpass, highpass, notch, focus. 12 or 24 dB slope, live response graph, preview and bypass before you apply
Pitch: repitch by semitone, or tune to a note
Clean: denoise at light, medium or strong
Shape: reverse, fold to mono
Slice: auto slice at silence, then send every slice as its own file
Auto-prep: one action: light denoise, trim the silence off both ends, level the peak
Session: undo and redo, zoom, loop, keyboard shortcuts
Files: record from any input, import a file, export WAV, or replace the file in your folder

On the phone

Cut: trim start and end, paste
Silence: tighten gaps at three thresholds
Level: normalise, gain in 3 and 6 dB steps, fade in, fade out
Pitch: repitch by semitone or octave, or tune to a note
Clean: denoise at light, medium or strong
Shape: reverse
Auto-prep: the same one action as the browser
Filter: not on the phone yet

(Prepare · your hardware)

Send a sample straight to your hardware.

Pick your device and Squidbrain formats the WAV the way it needs it — sample rate, bit depth, mono or stereo, splice or slice markers — so it just loads. Your captures, ready for the gear you already own — formatted right where you record, edit and keep them.

In the beta: Make Noise Morphagene · Elektron Digitakt
Coming soon: Roland SP-404 MKII · Teenage Engineering EP-133 · ALM Squid Salmple · 1010music Bitbox

Rolling out through the beta — tell us what you run and we’ll move it up the list.

(Organise & find · the library)

Finding a sound you recorded months ago.

Every capture is described as it arrives, so you can search in words instead of remembering what you called the file.

Names: files arrive named by origin and date, with a short origin tag that fits a narrow DAW column
Sounds: the Mac app listens to each delivered file with Apple's on-device Sound Analysis and stores suggested tags
Place: optional. Switch it on and a recording carries where it was made, rounded to about 110 metres
Place names: coordinates become a hierarchy on the server, so a capture in east London answers to hackney, london, greater london, england and uk
Your words: add your own tags to anything
Search: one box across filenames, your tags, suggested tags, place, origin, folder and dates
Privacy: place tagging stays off until you turn it on, coordinates are rounded before they leave the phone, and nothing is looked up on device

Sound tagging runs in the Mac app for now, so tags appear once a capture has been delivered to a Mac.

(Deliver & keep)

Everything lands in one folder on your desktop.

The desktop app is the quiet courier. It runs in the background, watches your account for new captures from any device, and files each one into a single folder. Point your DAW, sampler or hardware at that folder once, and every new sample is just there.

One folder for everything

Every capture, from every device, lands in the same place, ready to drop into a track. No importing, no hunting.

The cloud is only a courier

Copies pass through in transit and are cleared after delivery. Your library lives on your own machines, never ours.

Safe for your sessions

Once a file settles in your folder its name on disk stays put, so nothing changes underneath a project that already uses it.

Yours to keep

These are plain WAVs in a normal folder. If you stopped using Squidbrain tomorrow, every sample you have would still be right there.

(Spec sheet)

Formats, retention, and what runs where.

Capture: phone app · Mac menu bar · web editor
Format: 48 kHz PCM WAV, in and out, with no lossy round-trips
Transit: encrypted upload · the cloud copy is temporary
Retention: cloud copies clear 7 days after delivery, 30 days at the latest, then deleted for good
Destination: one folder, visible to any DAW, sampler, or file browser
Library: suggested sound tags · optional place tags · one search box over the lot
Geocoding: GeoNames gazetteer in our own D1, no third-party lookup
Editing: trim · slice · fade · normalise · denoise · repitch · multimode filter (LP/BP/HP/notch) with live preview
Platforms: macOS · Windows · iOS · Android · any modern browser
Beta status: macOS and iOS are the tested pair · Windows delivers, recording in testing · Android experimental
Max clip: 180 seconds, every capture route

Does not improve your taste in samples.