Sequencing samples is usually handled through MIDI; most drum machine emus are synthesizing the sounds, or the samples are hardwired/not replaceable. I would recommend you do some searching for MIDI files/grooves that are "CR78" or "LinnDrum"; there's files for machines from Akai to Zoom out there.
So what free drum sampler to play these through? I'd go with Sitala or Grace.
EDIT: IDK if you can run 32-bit, but for some old-school drum-machine goodness with save/load sample slots, there's OCET- the GUI makes it fun to program!
Slicex does most of that, except keytracking, because its aimed at drum loops mostly
I have this free sampler called Grace and its pretty nice but the GUI could be better
I also bought Polygon by Glitchmachines (original price $69, i got it on sale for $5 on PluginBoutique), its great if you have used and understand/like glitchmachines' GUI and workflow
TAL Sampler is also real nice, but its $60
Back when I just used Reaper I looooovveeed Poise. Shit just worked exactly how you wanted it to. It says percussion sampler, but it's literally whatever you want. It makes layering just a simple matter of drag and drop, idk it was just so genius to me. It's a real unique sampler and I've never come across anything quite like it.
If you want more of an indepth multisampler type thing Grace by the same company is also pretty good. But there are tons of options in that category.
The ultimate answer from me though: Ableton.
Lustmord works practically completely in the box. So I'd suggest using Kontakt and/or a free sampler like Grace.
Also, you can find a good community with like-minded artists at Ambient Online.
Doesn't Cubase's sampler track save the files? Not sure how versatile you need your sampler to be, but there's always Kontakt. Oh, and there's this little sampler called Grace, I think it's even free
There are many different ways that software can alter the pitch of an audio clip without changing anything else about it. That's actually how a lot of old digital keyboards would make sounds like a piano or a guitar or a trumpet. They would have a small set of samples (or maybe even just one sample) that they would pitch up or down depending on the keys being played.
There are VST plugins that can take samples that you provide and map them across the keyboard. You could burp into a microphone and play that burp like an instrument. Or if you find a good clean sample of a barrel organ you could chop one note out of it and load that into the sampler, and the plugin will handle pitching it up and down for you.
Grace is a free sampler VST plugin that will work with Ableton.
I think Ableton's 'Sampler' plugin will also do this, but I don't have experience with it.
A more direct route would be to find a plugin that has samples for a barrel organ already setup and packaged into a simple instrument plugin.
So, quick question. Do you want to play a different instruments or different samples? If it is the latter, you can use the Grace plugin (its free).
Here is a link to the website to download it: http://www.onesmallclue.com/plugin/grace/
And here is a link to a youtube video showing how to use it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYaAh7RL2sE (At about 1:20, the person shows how to map samples to the pads/keys.)
However, if you mean the former, I am not sure that you can have the keys playing one instrument and the pad playing something else. I have the Akai LPD8 (Pads and Knobs) and I can assign the pads to the grace plugin and assign the knobs to control something else like the volume of another instrument. But if I link my LPD8 to two different instruments, such triple oscillator and futurebass, is plays them at the same time.
I hope that's a little helpful.