Overview
Preferences
AI Assistant Instructions
A persistent prompt the AI reads on every conversation. Use it to describe your music style, sample library, and how you want the assistant to behave.
What to include:
- Your music style: “I mainly produce dark techno and industrial music”
- Your workflow: “I prefer one-shots over loops” or “I like to layer multiple percussion samples”
- Your sample library: “My ‘Dark Ambient’ folder contains atmospheric textures, while ‘Drums’ has acoustic and electronic percussion”
- How you want the assistant to behave: “Be concise in your responses” or “Always suggest 3-5 samples when I ask for recommendations”
Example instructions:
I'm a techno producer focused on underground, industrial sounds. I have separate folders for:
- Kicks (organized by sub-genre: Acid House, Hard Techno, Minimal)
- Percussion (acoustic drums, industrial hits, found sounds)
- Synths (bass patches, lead synths, pads)
When I ask for samples, prioritize darker, grittier sounds over clean commercial samples. I prefer building tracks from individual elements rather than using full loops.
Think about your typical music-making session. If you always start by looking
for kicks, and you always prefer dark, industrial sounds, telling the AI
assistant this information means it will immediately understand what you’re
looking for instead of giving you generic suggestions.
System Settings
Autostart on System Startup: When enabled, Sample Vault launches automatically when your computer starts up. This is handy if you use Sample Vault daily - your samples will already be indexed and ready when you sit down to make music.
Library Settings
Enable AI Sample Suggestions: When enabled, the Library shows AI-generated recommendations based on your search and listening history. These appear as “AI Suggestions” and help you discover samples in your library that you might have forgotten about.
Default Audio Volume: Sets the playback volume for all audio players throughout Sample Vault.
Display Settings
Theme: Choose the colour theme used across the app. Your choice is saved and applied every time Sample Vault opens. Each theme sets not just colours but its own corner radius — from sharp and utilitarian to softly rounded. Themes are grouped into Neutral, Accessibility, and Studio classics.
Neutral — daily drivers, darkest to lightest:
- Midnight — the deep-navy dark; the default
- Graphite — a clean neutral-charcoal dark
- True Black — pure black, easy on OLED screens
- Dim — a softer charcoal grey, easier on the eyes during long sessions
- Ember — a warm, low-blue-light dark for late nights
- Paper — a warm off-white light
- Daylight — a clean, bright light theme for daytime rooms
Accessibility — maximum contrast for low-vision use or bright environments:
- Contrast — black and white with a high-visibility yellow accent
- Contrast Light — white and black with a high-visibility blue accent
Studio classics — one bold accent each:
- Wavetable — near-black with a neon-green accent
- 808 — warm black with a burnt-orange accent
- Session — neutral grey with an amber accent
- Console — graphite with an electric-blue accent
- Pocket — a bone-white light theme with a punchy red accent
- Screen — dark olive with an acid-green accent
Font: Pick the typeface used throughout the interface.
UI Scale: Scale the entire interface from 50% to 200% to suit your display.
Sample Libraries
Manage which public sample collections appear in your library.
Public Sample Libraries
Sample Vault includes curated public sample collections. You can enable or disable individual collections to keep your library focused on what you actually use.
- Go to Settings → Sample Libraries
- Toggle collections on or off
- Disabled collections are hidden from the Library and search results
If your library feels cluttered with samples you don’t recognize, check Sample Libraries — you may have public collections enabled that don’t match your workflow.
Processing
The Processing tab gives you control over how the app uses your hardware during audio analysis and how AI-generated labels are managed.
Analysis Speed
A single slider with four presets — Battery, Balanced, Fast, Max — that controls how aggressively sample analysis uses your CPU and RAM. A live readout shows the estimated resource cost (e.g. ~3.0 GB RAM · ~75% CPU) so you can balance speed against whatever else you’re running.
- Battery — minimal resource usage, ideal when your DAW is open
- Balanced (default) — good speed without competing for resources
- Fast / Max — process large libraries quickly when your machine is free
Whichever preset you choose, analysis runs at a lower system priority than your other apps, so it gives way to your DAW and stays out of the way of live playback.
The same slider is also available in the Add Directory dialog and the System Status panel while analysis is running.
Enrichment Labels
After AI indexing, enrichment assigns labels to your samples. The Enrichment Labels section lets you manage which labels are allowed across four categories:
- Genres — AI-detected genre classifications
- Tags — Descriptive labels (dark, punchy, ambient, etc.)
- Creators — Detected sample pack creators or artists
- Sample Packs — Detected sample pack names
Toggle individual labels on or off. Disabled labels won’t be assigned to any samples, even if the AI detected them. See Sample Enrichment for more details.
Connections
The Connections section (formerly API Keys) covers external services Sample Vault talks to on your behalf.
Bring Your Own Key (OpenRouter)
Paste an OpenRouter API key to route AI calls through your own account. Two modes — Key only uses your key for everything; Pools first, then key falls through to your key only when your plan’s pools are exhausted. See Plans & Usage → BYOK.
Cloud storage
Connect a Dropbox account to route new sample uploads through your own Dropbox instead of Sample Vault’s built-in cloud. The panel shows account label and used / available storage once connected. See Cloud Storage for the full setup, file layout, and disconnect behavior.
App Data
The App Data section provides access to application data directories and maintenance tools.
- Reveal directories: Direct links to open cache, logs, and other app-related directories on your system
- Database backups: Create and restore backups of your local database
- Rebuild File Tree: Regenerate the virtual file tree if directories appear incorrect
- Repair Database: Run an integrity check on your local database and rebuild any indexes that have drifted out of sync. Use it when scans, deletes, or batch operations stall unexpectedly. Safe to run any time — no data loss.
Database backups are experimental and may not handle very large datasets yet.
Activity Log
The Activity Log records all background events in Sample Vault. Open it via Settings → Activity Log.
The log captures two categories of events:
- Sample processing — directory scans, analysis steps, feature extraction, errors, and retries
- Cloud sync — upload progress, sync completions, and connection issues
Each entry shows a timestamp, the sample or directory involved, and the outcome. Use the log to diagnose why a sample failed to process or confirm that a sync completed successfully.
Two actions sit above the list:
- Retry failed requeues every failed job with a fresh attempt count. If the type filter is set, only that type is retried. Updates run in batches so a queue with thousands of failures doesn’t lock up the local database.
- Clean up removes all completed and failed entries from the log. Pending and processing jobs are left alone.
Account
Your account settings cover basic profile information and session management.
Shows your registered email address - this is where you’ll receive important notifications about processing status, subscription changes, and feature updates.
Sign Out
Signs you out. You’ll need to sign back in to access your samples and preferences.