Sampler (musical instrument) Sampler (musical instrument) A sampler is an electronic or digital musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer, but instead of generating new sounds with voltage-controlled oscillators, it uses sound recordings (or "samples") of real instrument sounds (e.g., a piano, violin or trumpet), excerpts from recorded songs (e.g., a five-second bass guitar riff from a funk song) or other sounds (e.g., sirens and ocean waves). The samples are loaded or recorded by the user or by a manufacturer. These sounds are then played back by means of the sampler program itself, a MIDI keyboard, sequencer or another triggering device
Celestaphone (instrument) Dallas, Texas. Celestaphone (instrument) The celestaphone was a musical instrument of the zither family, which was played by pressing spring-levers to cause small hammers to strike the strings of the instrument. The term "celestaphone" was also used for a glass-plate xylophone designed by Charles C. Weidman of Ohio State University around the 1930s. Yet another "celestaphone" was an instrument created by Clair Omar Musser, a glockenspiel-like instrument he constructed over the mid-20th century from meteorites. The gospel musician Washington Phillips was thought to have played the dolceola on several of his recordings, but he actually played a compound instrument he