Soundplant is a self-contained digital audio performance program that turns your computer keyboard into a fully customizable sample-triggering device (yes, your QUERTY keyboard!). It allows the assignment of sound files of unlimited size to virtually any keyboard keys, with no external devices needed and no MIDI involved. It can be used as a drum pad, to add a live track to an already made song, to mix together tracks in realtime, to create music or loops from scratch, to quickly sketch sound designs, to give new life to old sounds, or as a performance, presentation, or installation tool. Because it is not a synthesizer and instead uses your own digital samples (it's a 'software sampler'), Soundplant is a virtually limitless electronic instrument. A simple graphic interface provides for drag-and-drop, point-and-click configuration of each key, including several options which control the way each sound is triggered, along with pitch, offsets, looping, volume, and panning. Sounds can be easily batch assigned across multiple keys at varying pitches and offsets, and keyboard configurations can be saved and loaded. Here is a list of features found in the latest public freeware release Soundplant 26.1 final:

• 72 keyboard keys can be used to trigger sounds, all with low latency
• drag and drop sound files on to keyboard keys for quick and easy key assignment
• samples can be loaded to RAM for instant cueing, or played from disk, allowing for minimal RAM usage and unlimited sound length; RAM management can be controlled by the user
• pitch adjust allows micro-tuning to the 100th of a semitone and a 10 octave range; easily batch assign the same sound to multiple keys at varying pitches with complete custom scale control
• auto-'splice' pieces of a sound across multiple keys (for example, use this function to extract individual drum sounds from a drum loop); precise sound start and end offset control to the 100,000th of a second
• memory-efficiently duplicate key configurations onto other keys using the same sample
• realtime volume and panning control for each key
• no MIDI needed or involved; only a sound card is required, preferably one compatible with DirectX
• customizable sound triggering, allowing for looping, sustains, restarts, muting, pausing, and off-triggering
• on-screen display of the keyboard can be color-coded to create visual metaphors; keys are highlighted as they play
• a true performance program in which sounds can be played and triggered even while configuring, multiple instances of the program can be opened, and program window size can be scaled up or down
• capable of playing 8 stereo or mono samples simultaneously (i.e., 8 * (L+R) = 16 channel polyphony) at 16-bit, 44.1 KHz mixed stereo output
• freeware version plays .wav, .aif, and .au files; those who support this freeware will get an .mp3-playing registered version
• saves and loads keyboard configurations as .keymap files; loads old keymaps from all previous versions of Soundplant

A Windows 9x/NT/ME/2000/XP/Vista machine and a sound card are required (an experimental Mac OS version is also available). The program runs optimally when using a 450MHz or better CPU, a full duplex PCI sound card supporting DirectSound (or Quicktime if DirectSound is unavailable), and at least 64 MB RAM; but it also runs acceptably on much lesser-configured systems.