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The Best FREE Drum Kits (2024)

By 70 Comments8 Mins Read
FREE Drum Kits

Every music producer needs high-quality quality drum kits in their sample arsenal. I feature new sample packs weekly in BPB’s news section and handpicked only the best free drums in this article.

It’s easy to download dozens of drum sample packs that add nothing but clutter to your music production workflow. Browsing through hundreds of similar drum sounds while searching for the “perfect snare” is a guaranteed creativity killer.

The solution is to download only a select few drum kits and have them ready to go in your DAW or sampler of choice when your inspiration kicks in.

Since starting BPB in 2009, I have downloaded and tested hundreds (literally) of drum kits and listed only the best ones on this page.

Here’s my honest advice: download only a few sample packs that fit your style of music and stop downloading. You don’t need thousands of drum kits on your computer to make good music.

Check out the list below, download some free drums, and go make music!

Free Drum Kits (2024 Update)

These are the best free drum samples of 2024:

  • Free Sample Packs by Goldbaby Samples
  • 99 Drum Samples by 99Sounds
  • Free Samples by Black Octopus Sound
  • Gratis by That Sound
  • Free Drum Kits by Samples From Mars
  • Modern Funk Kit by Drumdrops
  • LABS Vintage Drums by Spitfire Audio
  • The Creative ToolboX: Drums and Percussion by Strezov Sampling
  • PRISM Drums – Lite Edition by AVA Music Group
  • ModeAudio Drums by ModeAudio
  • Analog Drums by Abletunes

Goldbaby Samples

Goldbaby Samples

Goldbaby is a living 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.

I remember downloading the free Cassette 808 drum kit for the first time many years ago. I was blown away by the gritty character Goldbaby imprinted on these samples using a cheap cassette recorder.

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 free drum kits on Goldbaby’s website, and the entire lineup is worth downloading. You’ll find classic Roland drum machines recorded to tape, drum hits sampled from rare synthesizers, vintage drum machines, and more.

The difference between Goldbaby’s drum samples and many other drum packs on the market is that the processing quality is top-notch. These drum hits are ready to be dropped in any project and will instantly sound amazing.

Goldbaby’s Free Sample Packs page should be your next stop if you produce hip-hop or electronic music.

Download: Goldbaby Samples

99 Drum Samples

99 Drum Samples II by 99Sounds

99 Drum Samples is a free drum collection with two drum kits: 99 Drum Samples I and 99 Drum Samples II. The bundle contains 219 royalty-free drum samples in 24-bit WAV format.

The included drum sounds are royalty-free and suitable for various music styles. You will find hip-hop drums, punchy techno kicks, heavy dubstep snares, and crunchy lo-fi drum samples.

99Sounds captured the source drum samples from analog and digital synthesizers, acoustic drum kits, and field recordings.

These drum hits sound unique thanks to various sound design techniques, such as resampling to tape, transient shaping, layering, pitch shifting, and more.

Download: 99 Drum Samples

Black Octopus Sound

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 drum sounds, including Tuned Kicks, Snares, Electronic Percussion, Hihats, Drum Fills, etc.

You must submit a valid email address to download the free Black Octopus Sound sample collection. It’s well worth the effort, though.

Download: Black Octopus Sound

Gratis

Gratis by That Sound

Gratis is a free drum kit by That Sound. I’m a big fan of That Sound’s sound design work, which focuses on providing production-ready drum sounds that sound fat and punchy out of the box.

Gratis, a free acoustic drum kit containing 500 drums, offers a free taste of That Sound’s stellar sound libraries.

The free drum library contains a selection of sounds from the label’s commercial releases. You’ll find hip-hop drum kits, acoustic drums, and electronic drum hits.

Download: Gratis

Samples From Mars

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.

By the way, we also covered the best free 808 plugins in a recent article.

Thanks to BPB reader Max Eibel for suggesting Samples From Mars in the comments section.

Download: Samples From Mars

Drumdrops

Free Drum Kits Drumdrops

Drumdrops offers affordable drum kits for Kontakt. Their free offering is called Modern Funk Kit, and it’s a fantastic source of punchy acoustic drum samples.

Be sure to opt for the “One Shots Sample Pack” version of the product, which is free to download.

If you’d like some free bass sounds to accompany your free drum kit, check out Drumdrops’ 1960s Precision Bass sound library.

Thanks to BPB reader K-Dot for suggesting Drumdrops.

Download: Modern Funk Kit

LABS Vintage Drums

LABS Vintage Drums

LABS Vintage Drums is a free drum kit from Spitfire Audio. It is one of the best-sounding acoustic drum kits you can download for free.

The library 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.

The sampled drum kit sounds fantastic. It suits various music styles, from pop to indie and heavy rock.

LABS Vintage Drums is fully compatible with the free LABS plugin.

More info: LABS Vintage Drums

The Creative ToolboX: Drums and Percussion

Strezov Sampling Offers FREE Drums And Percussion Toolbox

The Creative ToolboX: Drums and Percussion is a free Kontakt library featuring drums and percussion.

The 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 user can customize the included drums using effects like EQ, compression, reverb, and transient shaping. The library also includes a drum mixer with volume, pitch, pan, and reverb controls for each channel.

More info: The Creative ToolboX: Drums and Percussion

PRISM Drums – Lite Edition

AVA Music Group Releases FREE PRISM Drums Lite For Kontakt Player

PRISM Drums – Lite Edition is a drum sample library for Kontakt Player. It is one of the best drum libraries available for free.

The instrument offers 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 drum kit comprises 8 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.

More info: PRISM Drums – Lite Edition

ModeAudio Drum Kits

ModeAudio Drum Samples

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 will fit a variety of music styles, from hip-hop to electronic, lo-fi, 80s, trap, and more.

I’ve always loved ModeAudio’s attention to detail in its soundware products, and their drum sample packs are no different. You can expect expertly crafted drum sounds, innovative sound design, and neat audio editing.

If you’re looking for inspiration on the drum kit front – ModeAudio should definitely be your next stop!

Download: ModeAudio Drum Samples (each product page offers free drum kits)

Abletunes Analog Drums

Abletunes Analog Drums is a FREE Virtual Drum Rack for Ableton Live

Analog Drums is the ultimate free drum kit bundle for Ableton. The collection includes over 1,000 classic drum sounds 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 it provides access to a variety of electronic drum sounds in a convenient package.

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.

Download: Abletunes Analog Drums

Free Drum Kits – What are Your Favorites?

What are your favorite free drum kits? Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below.

If you prefer using VST plugins, check out our article about free drum plugins.

More articles:

Tomislav is a music producer and sound designer from Belgrade, Serbia. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief at Bedroom Producers Blog.

70 Comments

    • Tomislav Zlatic

       on

      Slate Digital samples are amazing, but they’re freely available for a limited time only AFAIK.

      Reply

  4. K-Dot

     on

    MusicMachines has some really high-quality sample packs of vintage drum machines as well, it’s my go-to for 606, 707, 727, 808, and 909 one-shots.

    My favorite free acoustic one-shot kits are Drumdrops Modern Funk One-Shots and Studio Sampled Sounds Hitsville by Ian Ballard.

    There’s a really good/large collection of vinyl drum break loops on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Drumkits/comments/hbg2r7/vinyl_drum_vault_500mb_of_drum_breaks_drum_kits/

    Samplified has a bunch of $1 sample packs that are chock-full with different high-quality drums and other sounds.
    And of course, if you produce phonk, check out Candy Boy Phonk Kit.

    Reply

    • dominique

       on

      Could anyone clarify the tons of different folders and files?
      There’s an image on the miking of the drums, but I really can figure out a very few things here.
      I’m not a drummer…
      eg. “dry” vs. “open”?
      I would undestand dry and wet
      and it goes on… L – M – OFF – CS – HO – RB etc.

      Reply

  12. Michal Ochedowski

     on

    Off topic, but I would like to share the news. Audioplugin(dot)deals offers W.A.Production Electro Stampede worth 19 USD for free. It’s listed on the first page. Standard ordering process, but there is 1.2 GB of material inside.

    Reply

  13. Matthew

     on

    Solid State Digital has a free service, also check out DrumGizmo!
    Thanks for the resources as always, Tomislav!

    Reply

  14. Jhonathan

     on

    Thank you for another great post/hint.

    I have a suggestion for you:
    Separate the “Free Sampler VST Plugins” Into “Normal Samplers” and “Drum Samplers” with Decomposer’s Sitala, Apisonic Labs Speedrum Lite, One Small Clue’s Poise, SoundBridge’s RitMix…

    Reply

  15. Steffen Yokai

     on

    Naughty Seal’s Perfect Drums has the free PD Player. It is basically the sampler section of the full version. you can use your own samples to create your own drumkit or you can download their free demokit with the sampler. It’s great for rock and metal.

    Reply

  16. Max Lake

     on

    Riemann Kollektion: https://riemannkollektion.com/collections/free-sample-packs

    Xenos Soundworks: https://www.xenossoundworks.com/free_presets.html

    W.A.Production: https://www.waproduction.com/sounds/items/free

    Spartan Sounds: https://www.reveal-sound.com/store/free

    Samplephonics: https://www.samplephonics.com/products/free

    Resonance Sound: https://www.resonance-sound.com/free-samples-sounds/

    Abletunes: https://abletunes.com/blog/category/freebie/

    Wave Alchemy: https://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/free-samples/

    (some links removed by moderator)

    Reply

  18. Amir Hidayatullah

     on

    Please take a look at MONSTER Drum VST, it is FREE Drum ROMpler with various music genre ranging from Pop, Rock, Metal to Jazz. It started as personal project of Agus Hardiman, a legendary Indonesian music producer. But nowadays there are 16 kits from various producers and genres, and it’s still growing! You should review it as a single post and put it in this list.

    Link:
    https://monsterdaw.com/monster-drum-the-best-free-drum-vst-plugin-with-multi-kit-genre/

    Thanks

    Reply

  21. proaudiostar

     on

    Hi! many thanks for the useful recompilation, I´d wish to share with you an honest music instruments . I hope assist you to seek out Good Music instrument.
    Acoustic Guitars

    Reply

    • Mr. Cockroach

       on

      I got a bunch of these for free, like $0 what are talking about?
      What is “woke” about flat-earth or even what the heck has this do do with anything? You sound confused and probably are so you’ve misunderstood something. Anyway have fun in Brownwood I guess

      Reply

  51. Chris

     on

    There’s an awful lot of sample packs in this list. What about VST Instruments, SFZ, DecentSampler or Kontakt libraries?

    inMusic Brands BFD Player (plus Core Library)

    Bogren Digital KRIMH Drums Free

    IKM MODO Drum CS

    MLSoundLab ML Drums Free

    Fracture Sounds Blueprint: Drum Kit

    Pepto Audio DR-84

    Electronik Sound Lab RT-7070

    Electronik Sound Lab RVK-808

    SampleScience 606 Koncept

    Reply

    • Chris

       on

      …If this was all just meant to be sample pack based, perhaps the Title should reflect this.

      E.g. “The Best FREE Drum Sample Packs (2024)”

      Reply
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