Samples are the backbone of music production and have been a vital part of almost every producer’s workflow for most of their lives. There are various free drum kits that can be downloaded and used in music production – whether chopping up the samples, altering them, or keeping them as is.
Free acoustic drum samples are invaluable for musicians and producers, offering a unique sound to a usual digital production style. They allow beginners to experiment and create music without the financial investment of getting a drum set and learning to play, lowering the entry barrier to entry with production.
However, everyone uses samples! Most samples come from industry professionals, adding a polished, high-quality touch to tracks. For seasoned producers, free samples serve as a resourceful way to enrich compositions with unique elements, layer over live drums, or create a beat from scratch digitally inside your DAW. Most of the drum samples mentioned here are royalty-free.
Free drum samples
1. Cymatics. FM
The percussion one-shots hit hard, making them a staple of genres such as G-House and Riddim for years. They are quick to use and require little processing. Their quality is a blessing and a curse, seeing as how 90% of all bass-music producers were using these samples heavily. And their distinctive punch and weight make them even more easily recognizable.
These free drum samples are great when you can find ways to make them not as recognizable. By layering more textured samples over the top (foley hits or gritty hip-hop percussions), you can add uniqueness to them while still maintaining their power, weight, and quality. A lot of free drum kits download can also be done here.
2. RealDrumSamples
A superlative quality drum sample put together by Jay Fisher (drummer, audio engineer and beat maker/producer). He has built a massive collection of the best drum sounds and acoustic percussion samples out there for any modern professional quality genre. Years in development, these sounds record everything from vinyl records to vintage drum machines and a gigantic amount of his live recordings as a drummer and percussionist. In regards to drawbacks, If you are going to pack a lot of punch into your sound, so if you make more laidback styles and don’t want your drums forward then these might not be for you.
3. ThatSound – Gratis Pack
This pack offers a wide range of different drum samples, all of varying tempos and genres, which is a great way to introduce wildly different sounds to your sonic pallet. They have interesting textures, surprising loops, and many options to choose from. The only drawback is that it can take some processing, manipulation, and experimentation to get these drums fitting correctly and hitting properly. The hip-hop-oriented loops offered in this pack have some incredible energy to them.
Dropping loops that range from 70-90 BPM into your dance-friendly tracks that are 120 BPM or higher can keep your music driving forward. Take this a step further by extracting the groove template for ThatSound’s loops to create something unique. ThatSound has a free demo pack of 500 of their samples.
4. Black Octopus – Ultimate Free Sample Collection
This pack is huge and filled with some incredibly high-quality samples. They have very heavy and legendary percussion sounds that dominate the mix, and can instantly grab a listener’s attention with little processing.
These tracks can be good for drum-forward tracks but might need a fair amount of EQing and compression if you want to push these sounds further back in the mix. The tracks work great for grabbing the listener’s attention momentarily, which keeps the transitions between sections sounding fresh and interesting.
With 1.5GB of free samples, this pack spans many EDM genres and styles of samples and has high quality.
5. Echo Sound Works
It has great 808 samples but also includes a few free presets for popular synths like Massive and Serum. Echo Sound Works hosts a massive library of paid samples. It can be easy to get lost in all of the possibilities.
The presets in this pack are truly phenomenal. Try reverse-engineering the patches they provide and gain a deeper overview of what makes these popular synths work. I recently discovered that Seeb used his kick for their hit remix of Mike Posner’s “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”!
6. Slate Audio
Dance music producers can never have a big enough bank of these iconic drum machine hits, and this free pack of drums is a great starter kit for new producers and an even better addition to seasoned producers’ libraries. 808 kicks are so iconic in the dance music world that you can use them in almost any track of almost any genre.
While mainly a plugin company, Slate Digital started releasing free sample packs available to email subscribers for a short time, before they became exclusive to All-Access Pass members.
7. 99 Sounds
There are some great hits in here, especially when it comes to the more acoustic-sounding and real-life hits. Besides having quality samples, 99 Sounds also have fantastic sample plugins. There aren’t many drawbacks regarding this drum sample.
8. GhostHack
This company specializes in more bass-heavy genres, which means their sounds often fit into a certain niche stylistically. The crispy, clean, and digital punch that many of these sounds possess removes much of the guesswork out of what you’re getting in this pack.
Because they are so focused on bass-heavy genres, it can be hard to get them to fit in anything outside of the mold. Specializing in dubstep and trap, GhostHack offers 3000+ free samples downloadable from their website.
9. WA Production
If you’re just starting in music production, these are the packs for you. The wide range of genres and styles allows you to get your feet wet with all of them. But these packs can leave you with a ton of unorganized, and rather cluttered up your library and can get chaotic fairly quickly.
10. Sample Phonics
Samplephonics is a go-to in the music industry and offers an incredibly wide variety of different genres, styles, and tones. These samples are great, but can often take a bit of work and processing to have them fit right in your track. Complete with loops, samples, and textures, SamplePhonics offers genre-specific packs and packs that are more category-based.
FAQs
Is it legal to sample drum hits?
Sampling drum hits can be legal if done carefully. Using drum sounds from royalty-free libraries or creating original drum sounds is usually safe, as these don’t require copyright clearance. However, if you sample a drum sound from a copyrighted track, you’ll typically need permission from the copyright owner, which may involve licensing fees or royalties.
Altering a sample can sometimes reduce recognition, but if it’s still identifiable, it may be subject to copyright claims. When in doubt, use cleared or royalty-free samples to avoid legal issues.
What is the most sampled drum?
The most sampled drum sound in music history is the Amen Break, a six-second drum solo performed by drummer Gregory Coleman in the song “Amen, Brother” by The Winstons, released in 1969. This breakbeat became iconic in hip-hop, jungle, drum and bass, and many other genres, due to its distinctive rhythm and punchy sound.
Its widespread use and versatility made it foundational for many tracks, and it’s been sampled thousands of times since the 1980s, even though The Winstons were never compensated for its use.
Who is the most sampled drummer of all time?
The most sampled drummer of all time is Clyde Stubblefield, famously known as James Brown’s “Funky Drummer.” His 1970 drum break in Brown’s track “Funky Drummer” is legendary, appearing in thousands of hip-hop, R&B, and pop songs.
Stubblefield’s distinctive, groovy style and improvisational skill made this breakbeat one of the most iconic sounds in music, shaping countless tracks by artists across genres.