Crates
Pull samples straight from the source.
A desktop sample digger for music producers. Grab audio from a link, sort it into crates, audition it in the built-in player, and drag it straight onto a track.
See it in action
Your library as a wall of records — cover art pulled from every file — with a built-in deck to audition, time-stretch, and flip the next sample.
What you get
🔗
Download from a linkPaste a URL, get a clean audio file. yt-dlp + ffmpeg ship inside the app, so there is nothing else to install.
🗂️
Dig through cratesOrganize everything into crates and rooms, the way you would flip through a record bin.
🎧
Audition before you commitA built-in player with waveform scrubbing and time-stretch, so you can vibe-check every sample.
🎛️
Drag into your DAWDrag any sample out of Crates and drop it straight onto an Ableton track or into Finder.
SETUP Install in 3 steps
- Download & open the .dmg, then drag Crates into your Applications folder.
-
Clear the quarantine flag. Crates is not yet signed by Apple, so macOS will block the first launch (“Crates is damaged” or “unidentified developer”). Open Terminal and run this once:
$xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Crates.appThis just removes the “downloaded from the internet” tag. It does not change the app. - Open Crates from Applications (or Launchpad). It opens normally from now on.
No Terminal? Right-click (or Control-click) Crates in Applications → Open → Open in the dialog. On recent macOS the command above is the reliable route.
Why the extra step? A signed, Apple-notarized build needs a paid Developer ID — that is on the roadmap. Until then, Crates is fully open source: read every line or build it yourself at github.com/Mparker25/Crates.