Goldbaby Samples
Goldbaby is a legend among drum sample pack providers. His Cassette 808 samples are still some of the best 808 sounds you can download, and the MPC drums perfectly capture the old-school sampler’s lo-fi grit.
It inspired me to make my own free cassette-flavored drum kits, namely the BPB Cassette 808, BPB Cassette 909, and BPB Cassette 606.
There are dozens of drum packs on Goldbaby’s website, and the entire lineup is worth downloading. You’ll find classic Roland drum machines recorded to tape, drums sampled from rare synthesizers, vintage gear, and more.
The difference between Goldbaby’s drum samples and most others on the market is that the processing quality is top-notch. These samples are ready to be dropped in any project and will instantly sound amazing.
99 Drum Samples
99 Drum Samples consists of two free kits: 99 Drum Samples I and 99 Drum Samples II. The bundle contains 219 royalty-free samples in 24-bit WAV format.
The samples are royalty-free and suitable for various music styles. They include hip-hop drums, punchy techno kicks, heavy dubstep snares, and crunchy lo-fi drum samples.
99Sounds captured the drum samples from analog and digital synthesizers, acoustic drum kits, and field recordings.
These resulting drum samples sound unique thanks to various sound design techniques, such as resampling to tape, transient shaping, layering, pitch shifting, and more.
Black Octopus Sound
Black Octopus Sound is a sound design label that crafts royalty-free sound libraries for modern electronic music.
The label’s most popular release to date is the Leviathan series. Its unrivaled sound quality, versatility, and organization make it a go-to sample library for numerous music producers and beatmakers.
The good news is that Black Octopus Sound offers a free 1.5 GB sample library containing various percussion sounds, loops, and, you guessed it… drum kits.
You’ll find a wide selection of electronic drums, including Tuned Kicks, Snares, Electronic Percussion, Hihats, Drum Fills, etc.
Gratis
Gratis is a free acoustic drum kit by That Sound. It focuses on providing production-ready drum sounds that sound fat and punchy out of the box.
The library contains 500 drums from That Sound’s commercial sound libraries, but the main focus is acoustic drums.
That doesn’t mean the library is only suited for rock and pop music. You’ll also find some great drum hits for electronic music.
Samples From Mars
Samples From Mars offers one of the largest online repositories of drum machine kits. They deeply sampled dozens of popular drum machines, from Roland’s classic TR series to Drumtrax, DMX, and more exotic instruments.
Most of their products are reasonably priced, but the website also offers a free downloads section, which we focus on in this article.
The freebies section offers six high-quality free drum kits, including the Free 808 From Mars sample library, one of the best free 808 kits available.
Drumdrops
Drumdrops offers affordable drum kits for Kontakt. Their free offering, Modern Funk Kit, is a fantastic source of punchy acoustic drum samples.
You can download the “One Shots Sample Pack” version of the product for free.
If you’d like some bass sounds to accompany your free drum kit, check out Drumdrops’ 1960s Precision Bass sound library.
LABS Vintage Drums
LABS Vintage Drums is a free drum instrument from Spitfire Audio. It is one of the best-sounding acoustic drum instruments available for free.
The pack features a 1975 Ludwig with a 26″ bass drum (a la Jon Bonham) and a 1940 Slingerland kit with calfskin heads. The sounds were recorded in Kerwax Studio in Brittany, with rare microphones/gear and a handmade console.
Sampled gear aside, the actual kit sounds fantastic. It suits various music styles, from pop to indie and heavy rock.
The Creative ToolboX: Drums and Percussion
The Creative ToolboX: Drums and Percussion is a free Kontakt library featuring drums and percussion.
The free drum kit was crafted by Strezov Sampling, a company specializing in orchestral and cinematic sounds. It includes drum machines, an acoustic drum kit, and a percussion section.
The included drums can be customized using EQ, compression, reverb, and transient shaping. The library also provides a drum mixer with volume, pitch, pan, and reverb controls for each channel.
PRISM Drums – Lite Edition
PRISM Drums – Lite Edition is a free drum library for Kontakt Player.
The collection includes five drum kits: Modern Pop, Retro Pop, Trailer, Indie Pop, and Hip-hop. Each preset is tailored to a different genre and includes ready-to-play kits and effects.
Each kit has eight elements: Kick, Snare, Clap, Close HiHat, Open HiHat, Hi Tom, Low Tom, and Crash. Users can blend and shape individual drum sounds to create unique combinations within PRISM Drums.
PRISM Drums Lite is NKS compatible for seamless integration with Komplete Kontrol keyboards and Maschine.
ModeAudio Drum Kits
ModeAudio offers free versions of each premium drum kit. With dozens of drum sample libraries on their website, you can download hundreds of premium-quality drum sounds for free.
The available drum libraries accommodate a variety of music styles, including hip-hop, electronic, lo-fi, 80s, trap, and more.
If you’re looking for inspiration on the drum kit front – ModeAudio should definitely be your next stop. Each product page on ModeAudio’s website has a free version, so simply find some drums you like and download the freebie.
Abletunes Analog Drums
Abletunes Analog Drums is the ultimate free drum bundle for Ableton. The collection includes over 1,000 classic drums formatted as an Ableton drum rack.
The source samples were captured from classic drum machines and analog synths such as the Vermona Mono Lancet and Elektron Analog Rytm.
There are 40 pre-configured kits, but users can generate custom kits with a random button. You can tweak the included drum samples using modulation controls, including FM and pitch modulation.
The great thing about Analog Drums is that they provide convenient access to various electronic drum sounds.
Instead of downloading dozens of drum kits from different sources, you can quickly integrate this collection with Ableton Live and have hundreds of drum hits ready to load in seconds.