Sound Sampler

Hold a key, record what your PC is playing, release, and the clip is a WAV on disk. One Stream Deck + dial runs the whole plugin. Your recordings appear in the Key Sound picker of every Pathfinder Prototyping hotkeys plugin, so any key can play them. Sound Sampler is free.

HOW IT WORKS

Press and hold the Record key. Sound Sampler taps your playback device with WASAPI loopback and captures exactly what you are hearing: a song, a game, a video call, a notification, a line from a movie. Release the key and it trims the silence off both ends, normalizes the peak to -1 dBFS, and writes a 16-bit WAV at your device's own sample rate (usually 48 kHz stereo) into Documents\Pathfinder Sounds. Files are named by timestamp, like sample-20260724-193201.wav, so they sort in the order you made them. A recording that is never released stops on its own at 15 seconds.

Nothing to install, no virtual audio driver, no third-party audio library bundled. Capture runs on the Windows audio API through the 64-bit PowerShell that ships with Windows.

FOUR ACTIONS

Record: hold to capture, release to save.

Play Last: play the newest clip in the folder on your default playback device, so you can audition without leaving the deck.

Open Folder: opens Documents\Pathfinder Sounds in Explorer.

Sampler Dial (Stream Deck +): the whole plugin on one encoder. Tap the dial to play your newest clip. Hold it for about a third of a second and recording starts, release to stop and save, so a quick tap never turns into a recording. Turn it to set playback volume, 5 percent per click. Tap the left half of the touch strip for 10 percent quieter, the right half for 10 percent louder, and press and hold the strip to reset to 70 percent. The strip shows the volume art and the exact number.

PLAYBACK VOLUME

The dial, the property inspector slider and every Play Last key share one volume value, and it only turns clips down, never up. Volume is applied to a temporary copy at play time, so the WAV files you recorded are never modified.

THE KEY TELLS YOU WHAT HAPPENED

Idle, recording, saved, silent, and error each get their own key face. A capture that came back empty says silent instead of quietly leaving a dead file behind, and a device another app is holding in exclusive mode says so with the fix in the message: pick a different source.

PICK YOUR SOURCE

On most PCs, leave Capture Source on Default playback device and record what you hear. Running Voicemeeter or another virtual mixer? Pick the playback device your audio actually plays through, for example a VAIO channel. Voicemeeter capture inputs work too. Microphones and line inputs are in the same list, so Sound Sampler records those as well.

A CRAB, IF YOU WANT ONE

Optional key style. Switch it on and the Record key grows a small pixel-art crab who crouches, jumps, and clamps his claws while you record, then hands the key back when you release.

PLAYS WELL WITH THE REST OF THE LINE

Every Pathfinder Prototyping hotkeys plugin can play a sound when you press a key, and each one reads this same folder: your clips show up in its Key Sound picker under Your recordings, with no setup and no import step. Record a sound effect once and your deck becomes a soundboard of your own clips: fire the same one from a GIMP key, a KiCad key, or a Windows Terminal key. The full line is at pathfinderprototyping.com.

FREE

Sound Sampler is a free community offering. No trial, no locked features, no watermark, no nag screens.

REQUIREMENTS

Windows 10 or Windows 11. Stream Deck software 6.9 or newer. The keys work on any Stream Deck, including Mini and XL; the Sampler Dial needs a Stream Deck +. No profile is bundled: you place the actions wherever you want them. No admin rights and no extra download.

Stream Deck + support. The new Sampler Dial puts the whole plugin on one encoder.

Tap the dial to play your newest recording. Hold it for about a third of a second and recording starts, release to stop and save, so a quick tap never turns into a recording. The 15 second cap still applies.

Turn the dial to set playback volume, 5 percent per click. Tap the left half of the touch strip for 10 percent quieter, the right half for 10 percent louder, and press and hold the strip to reset to 70 percent. The touch strip shows the volume art and the exact number.

Playback volume is shared: the dial, the property inspector slider and every Play Last key read the same value, and it only turns clips down, never up. Volume is applied to a temporary copy at play time, so your saved WAV files are never modified.

The dial has its own property inspector with the same capture source picker as the Record key.

The keys are unchanged: Record, Play Last and Open Folder work exactly as in 1.0.0.0, on any Stream Deck. The Sampler Dial needs a Stream Deck +.