Quota Mini Is Now Quota DS (Dialogue Sampler) — Same App, New Name
Quota Mini isn't discontinued — it's now Quota DS, the Dialogue Sampler. Same app, same features, and your Mini license carries over free. Here's the story behind the rename and what the 1.4 update adds.
Quota Mini has a new name: Quota DS, the Dialogue Sampler. It is the same app you already know, doing the same job, and if you own Mini you already own DS. The move to 1.4 is the rebrand, a fresh set of icons, and one real new thing under the hood: Quota Voice can now run it hands-free. Here is the whole story of how it got here.
Where it started
The whole thing started about two years ago as one idea I couldn't shake. I called it the Intelligent Phrase Chopper, IPC, a little play on the MPC. I wanted a sampler that looked like the gear I already used, sixteen pads like an SP or an MPC, but with a twist. Instead of scrubbing a waveform trying to find the exact moment someone says a word, you would just read the transcript, highlight the line you wanted, and it would chop that phrase straight to a pad.
That was the problem I kept hitting as a producer. You want one quote from one movie, or one line from an interview, and getting it means dragging the whole thing into some heavy video editor and hunting for it by ear. It felt like way too much effort for one phrase. IPC was the fix for that.
From one idea to a whole plan
It stayed an idea for a while, then really came together about a year ago. Along the way it outgrew its name. IPC became Quota, and Quota became a plan for three tiers: Quota Mini, the simple utility; Quota VS, a video sampler built for performing; and Quota Suite, the big one.
Mini was always the calculator-simple version. Pull in a video or audio file from a link, a drag and drop, or a folder, and it starts transcribing right away. You grab your chops by assigning them to pads, then export to your DAW, or just drag a single pad out when that is all you need. Audio and video, it handles both the same. That is exactly what Quota DS is today.
I released Mini in December of 2025. VS and Suite kept growing in the background. VS was Mini built to perform: trigger clips live from the pads, run effects, put on an actual set. Building those effects is where QuotaFX came from. Suite was going to be the full thing, a timeline and arrangement view like a DAW crossed with a video editor, all built around the same core. That is a big endeavor, and for now it is on the shelf.
Why the rename
Somewhere in there the plan changed. Instead of stacking everything into three tiers of one app, I broke the vision into a family of focused apps, one job each. That is where Quota Stems came from, free forever, the stem separator I always wanted with none of the bloat. Then Quota Kits for building sampler kits, QuotaFX pulled out into its own plugin for Mac, Windows, and iOS, and Quota Voice to run the whole line by talking.
So the lineup today is five apps plus a free hub that keeps them all updated: DS, Stems, Kits, FX, and Voice, tied together by Quota HQ. Each one stands on its own. Put them together, especially with Voice, and you can build workflows the original three-tier plan never could.
Once it grew into all that, the name "Mini" stopped fitting. It is the dialogue sampler this whole thing started from, so it gets a name that says exactly that: Quota DS. The rest of the line got the same clean, single-word treatment along with it: QuotaStems, QuotaKits, QuotaFX, QuotaVoice, and QuotaDS.
What 1.4 brings
This update is mostly the rebrand and the new icons. The one real addition under the hood is that DS now runs through Quota Voice. You can drive the whole thing by talking, and it runs in the background with no window open at all. You say what you want and the chops land in your folder while you keep working. Once you are not waiting on the app to open, the whole process moves a lot faster.
The live and performance features I built into VS are going to start showing up inside DS in the updates ahead. 1.5 is coming in the next couple of months, and that is where those features start landing.
Try it
If you own Quota Mini, you already own Quota DS. Grab the latest build from Quota HQ and you are on 1.4, new name and all. If you are new to it, DS is $39 one time on Mac and Windows with a 30-day free trial. No subscription, no account, and your audio never leaves your machine.
FAQ
Is Quota Mini discontinued? No. Quota Mini was renamed to Quota DS. It is the same app with the same features, and your Quota Mini license carries over for free.
What does DS stand for? DS stands for Dialogue Sampler. Quota DS transcribes any video or audio locally, and you highlight lines of dialogue to turn them into playable, chopped pads.
Do I have to pay again for Quota DS? No. If you own Quota Mini, Quota DS is a free update. Download the latest build from Quota HQ.
What happened to Quota VS and Quota Suite? Quota VS was the performance-focused video sampler and Quota Suite was a larger timeline-based app. Suite is shelved for now, and the performance features from VS are being folded into Quota DS over time.
How much is Quota DS? Quota DS is $39 one time on macOS and Windows, with a 30-day free trial. No subscription.