discoDSP's Bliss Sampler has arrived on iPadOS, and it received a further free update for existing users on 8 September 2026. For MPE players, the combination it offers is unusual: an advanced multi-sampler with native MIDI Polyphonic Expression support that can also build its own instruments by automatically sampling other plugins.
Bliss has existed on desktop since 2015, where its distinguishing trick was always sampling VST plugins with a handful of clicks. Eleven years on, that same idea has been ported to tablet — where the sampling target is now AUv3 plugins.
The Workflow Nobody Else Quite Offers
Here is the loop the app enables. Pick an AUv3 synth installed on your iPad. Open Bliss's sampling menu, choose it as a source, set a key range, a velocity range and a note length. Wait a moment. You now have a multi-sampled instrument built from that synth, mapped across the keyboard, running inside Bliss.
Then play it with per-note pitch bend, timbre on CC 74, and pressure, because Bliss speaks MPE natively.
That last step is the point. Plenty of iOS synths sound superb and have no MPE implementation at all — the developer never got to it, or the architecture does not allow it. Sampling one into Bliss will not give you the per-note timbral response of a truly MPE-native engine, but it does give you per-note pitch and per-note filter and amplitude control over a sound that previously offered none. It is a workaround, and a surprisingly practical one.
The same auto-sampling applies to external hardware. Bliss can drive a hardware synth over MIDI output, record the results, and map them automatically — turning an old rack module into an MPE-playable AUv3 instrument on an iPad.
What Is Actually Inside
Bliss is not a rompler. The iPadOS build carries the desktop feature set plus mobile-specific work:
- An ARM-optimised DSP engine using NEON vector instructions, supporting high polyphony, low latency and interpolation up to 512-point SINC with 4x oversampling.
- A Visual Key Mapper — a piano-style grid where key ranges, velocity layers and root keys are dragged into place with immediate feedback.
- A wave editor with full undo history, sub-sample zoom and seven looping algorithms.
- Dual state-variable filters, plus stereo rotation, chorus, delay, reverb, bit-crusher and more.
- A modulation engine with morphing, eight assignable macros, amp and mod ADSRs, and two tempo-synced multi-wave LFOs.
- SFZ import and export, including full ADSR envelope mapping.
That SFZ support deserves a note of its own. It means instruments built on the iPad are not trapped there — export as SFZ and they open in sfizz, Decent Sampler or any other SFZ-aware host on the desktop. Sampling on the sofa, editing at the workstation.
Routing MPE Sensibly Into a Sampled Instrument
If you take this route, a few things are worth planning before you sample rather than after.
Sample more velocity layers than feels necessary. MPE playing produces a wide dynamic range through pressure and strike velocity together, and thin velocity mapping shows up faster under an expressive controller than under a keyboard.
Decide what timbre should do. CC 74 mapped to a state-variable filter is the safe default and works on almost any material. Mapping it to a morph between two sampled layers — a soft-struck and hard-struck version of the same sound — is far more convincing, but it doubles your sampling time.
Keep pressure off amplitude alone. Pressure controlling volume only tends to produce swelling pads and little else. Split it: some to volume, some to filter, a little to an effect send. That combination is what makes a static sample feel alive under the finger.
Availability
discoDSP Bliss Sampler is available on the App Store for $19.99, running as both a standalone app and an AUv3 plugin on iPadOS and Apple Silicon macOS. A 1GB factory library downloads from inside the app. The September update is free to existing owners. More on the developer's other instruments at discoDSP.
It is a deep application, and not one you will fully understand in five minutes. But if you play MPE on an iPad and have been frustrated by how few AUv3 instruments respond properly to per-note expression, Bliss offers a way to stop waiting for developers and build the instruments yourself.