I know this is very basic, maybe someone could direct me to the proper site where I can learn. I've never been exactly clear about samplers, what they are and how to use them. I play back midi files all the time but I think they're being played by software synthesizers or a combination of soft synth and samplers. That's where I'm not really clear. I use Cakewalk by bandlab by the way. My interest is in getting sample libraries with world music and exotic sounds like from Asia but they're quite expensive and I need to know what I'm doing before I lay out any money. Someone in another post mentioned that Logic has a great sample library but I don't think there's any way to get something like that for windows? Thanks for any help you have
I suppose you need to work out if you're buying a library of audio files, or an instrument bundle of some sort.
Usually when you buy some kind of virtual instrument it either comes with its own software or is designed to work with some existing software,
Like if you buy Addictive Keys or Steven Slate Drums, those are ready to go software that you can play with programmed midi or input from a keyboard or similar.
Some other libraries may be sold as 'compatible with...' - Kontakt, for example, is popular.
If you just have a library of samples that isn't sold with, or as compatible with, any particular software, you'd have to manually load and assign certain audio clips to certain midi inputs.
Often samplers are useful if you have a single sample, say of a bell, and you want to be able to play that bell back at various pitches with midi input,
or if you wanted to record your own percussion sounds and assign them to keys to make your own midi playable/programmable kit.
Hopefully something in that is useful.