Play SDS files in your browser
A sampler's sound as it travels down a MIDI cable, from the samplers and drum machines of the late 1980s on. Play one right here and keep it as a WAV. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your sound starts playing the moment it opens, its whole waveform across your screen.
- Its whole waveform • Press or drag to jump
- Back and ahead 10 seconds • Half, 1.5× or double speed
- Show tags • Title, artist, album and cover
- Export • Save as MP3 or WAV
About SDS
The MIDI Manufacturers Association added the Sample Dump Standard to MIDI in 1986, so samplers from different makers could send each other their sounds over a MIDI cable. Akai's, Ensoniq's, Kurzweil's and Elektron's machines send and take them, and a librarian on a computer saves what arrives as a file.
The file is the SysEx stream itself: a dump header with the sample's bits, its period in nanoseconds, its length and its loop, then packets of 120 bytes, each with a running count and a checksum. Every sample is cut into 7 bit bytes, so a 16 bit sound takes three bytes a sample and the file is about one and a half times its WAV's size.
Filepeek reads the dump header and its packets and plays the sound at the rate and depth it was sampled at, from 8 to 28 bits, with its waveform. Export saves it as WAV or MP3.
MIDI Sample Dump Standard
.sds
Format
- MIME type
- application/octet-stream
- Made by
- MIDI Manufacturers Association
- Released
- 1986
Inside the file
- Holds
- One sampled sound
- Bit depth
- 8 to 28 bits
- Channels
- Mono
- Made for
- Samplers over MIDI
Opens in every browser
Filepeek plays SDS files in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. No browser plays them by itself.
- YouChromePlays through Filepeek
- YouEdgePlays through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxPlays through Filepeek
- YouSafariPlays through Filepeek
Apps that open SDS
- WindowsAudacity imports it • MIDI-OX sends it to a sampler
- MacAudacity imports it • SysEx Librarian sends it to a sampler
- iPhone and iPadNo app plays it
- AndroidNo app plays it
Questions
Why won't my .sds file play?
It may not be a sound. Applied Biosystems' real-time PCR machines save their runs as .sds too, and Filepeek names one on its card rather than playing it.
Does a sample dump saved as .syx play?
Yes. A MIDI librarian such as MIDI-OX saves any SysEx it receives as .syx, and Filepeek plays a sample dump by its first bytes, whatever its name.
Can I turn an SDS into a WAV?
Yes. Choose Export, then Save as WAV or MP3, and the sound is saved as it plays here.