As seen in Hitsquad's Top 10 Free VST Virtual Instruments

Shortcircuit is a software sampler in the shape of a VSTi-plugin for the win32-platform.

Shortcircuit was created as a reaction against the ongoing trend where software samplers are being designed with the primary intent of library playback. It is intended for people who, like us, consider a sampler to be a musical instrument in its own right, and not just a way to emulate other instruments. It has been a very high priority to make sure that adding and editing individual samples is as fast and logical as possible.

The sample hierarchy in shortcircuit allow you to place samples directly at the highest level of the multi, without having to deal with instrument hierarchies and patches. Want to add a sample to your song? Just drag & drop the sample into shortcircuit and you're ready to go. Samples can be put in groups for multi-sampling and kit-building, but the complexity is only there when you need it.

Sound quality is another concern, and shorcircuit is using high-quality sinc-interpolation, together with oversampling when upsampling, to provide pitch-shifting without audible artefacts. What this means in plain english is that a sample played back at another pitch sounds like a sample played back at another pitch, without any additional muck.

Features:

• Streamlined user interface for fast sample management & editing.
• Splendid audio quality while resampling.
• Flexible selection of filters & effects.
• Powerful modulation system, with the ability to modulate itself as well as
  loop-points in addition to the usual destinations.

• Envelope follower.
• Stepsequencer/LFO combo.
• Imports wav-files, AKAI S5000/S6000/Z4/Z8 .akp banks and NI battery kits.

Related Music Production Equipment:
Check out these inexpensive USB Mics which are great for recording samples