Whether you’re an electronic music producer making use of drum samples to build your rhythm sections, or you’re an engineer in search of quality drum samples for drum replacement, I’ve got you unequivocally covered in this article! With the wonders of modern production techniques, availability, and that beautiful thing we call the internet, you are completely spoiled for choice regardless of genre or purpose. Today I want to show you some of the best places to pick up drum samples. Some of these will be free, some paid, and some on subscription. Regardless of price, they are all fantastic quality and perfect for use in your productions. Let’s get stuck in and see if we can’t fill your hard drives by the end of this article.

Free Drum Samples

So, when it comes to free drum samples, you may not have had much luck in the past. There’s plenty of free kits out there but they’re usually just samplers with hand-picked drum samples inside. These are normally hand-picked because it means they can give you 2 or 3 quality samples and 20-30 ones you’d probably never use to entice you to buy the entire sample pack. It’s the oldest trick in the book. However, community engagement and that wonderful platform known as Reddit has birthed a brilliant place for you people to head when looking for free drum samples. Make your way over to the drumkits subreddit where you’ll find a seemingly endless list of drum sample packs to choose from.

/r/Drumkits

I should forewarn you about a couple of things, though. Firstly, this subreddit primarily features hip-hop and trap style drum kits. However, you can find drum samples suited to other genres if you do some serious sifting and make expert use of the search bar. The other thing to mention is that the subreddit has become a popular place for users to re-post sample packs that you would normally have to pay for. If you don’t support pirating, you may want to avoid downloading some items. However, many users regularly upload unique and interesting sample packs. I remember downloading a sample pack of sounds that a user recorded while working in a FedEx depot. It included lots of clicking and packing peanuts, which made for some great percussive layers. Have a hunt and see what comes up!

Looperman

Another great community-led place to grab drum samples (and other samples for that matter) is Looperman. Working more like a typical search archive, Looperman allows you to search by keyword and specify things like genre, tempo, key, and instrument. Users create content and upload it to the site for you to use in your productions. Annoyingly, you do need an account to download samples, but it’s worth it. It’s a very comprehensive library, and unlike the drumkits subreddit, you’re likely to find a much more balanced and diverse collection of samples to pick from. In the past, I have found that some of the stuff uploaded to Looperman can lack quality somewhat, but more often than not, it isn’t an issue. A good dig will almost always turn up something you can use.

Purchasing Drum Samples

For every free drum sample kit, there are at least five paid ones. In fact, there may even be more. However, quality and content are always a big concern for me when it comes to purchasing sample packs. You never get to have a really good rummage through the sounds before you purchase, and this has stung me in the past. Sure, they provide demos, and you get a general understanding of what to expect, but sometimes this only shows 5% of the kit, and the other 95% is utter trash. I’m always wary of packs that offer 20,000 samples as well. The old adage of quality over quantity has never been more prevalent than when it comes to drum samples. Below, I have three suggestions of some drum sample producers that you can trust in terms of both quality and quantity.

Drumdrops

Drumdrops serves those of you engaged in more acoustic work, as well as engineers seeking solid samples for drum replacement or enhancement. They meticulously record vintage drum kits, offering them in the form of a Kontakt sampler or as single file archives. Drumdrops never disappoints. They provide a variety of kits, including rock kits, jazz kits, soul kits, and afrobeat kits—the list goes on!

Now for the exciting part: not only do their drum samples boast super high quality, but their Kontakt samplers also feature an intuitive design, making them beautifully and undeniably handy. The interface allows you to balance each kit element interactively and route them back to separate channels in your DAW, giving you as much control as you would have with a real drum kit. Additionally, each channel includes tools like EQ for mixing and a transient shaper. The master channel features a built-in bus compressor and a tape saturator, making these kits an incredible value for the cost and perfect for any mixing scenario—even complete with convolution.

Producers Choice

Leaping back into the world of hip-hop and trap drum samples, The Producers Choice is a veritable feast. I signed up with this producer years ago when most of the stuff being put out was free or incredibly cheap. Since then, I have seen the quality and diversity of the product grow exponentially, making it one of the best drum sample sites online right now. Producer-tailored kits, as well as instrument-tailored kits, mean that you can seek out specific sounds that you’re searching for. Looking to master that OVO sound? They’ve got you covered. Maybe your 808s just don’t hit hard enough? They’ve got you there as well. Serious quality and fantastic choice mean you can pick a pack and trust that 95% of what’s inside will be worth the money.

pATCHES

The last site that I want to provide you with is pATCHES. Relatively new, pATCHES is marketing to an area of quirkiness within the music industry. Their sample library is fairly small at the moment but what they have put forth is fantastic. Hi-Hat loops, egg shakers loops, analogue drums and 1001 other hip-hop samples. This is one of those times where quantity and quality have been taken with equal levels of concern. pATCHES gives you bang for your buck and provides stuff you might struggle to find elsewhere. This is definitely one to watch.

Subscription Drum Samples Services

In recent years, subscription services have become the norm for any new company. From the gym to Spotify, many people’s lives are a mixed web of microtransactions and subscription services. This model is strong in the music industry, especially in the drum sample world.

Splice

I’ve mentioned Splice a few times now in various articles. If you haven’t signed up yet, you’re seriously missing out. A quick look at their site reveals that in the drums category, there are currently 759,885 drum samples! Any genre, any style. Splice lives and breathes drum samples and offers the best user experience of any audio site, in my opinion. Simple searching and filtering always help me find what I’m looking for within a minute. The ability to quickly distinguish between loops and one-shots is one of its best features and saves even more time. Splice’s pricing bands perfectly match what they offer, and the ability to easily subscribe and unsubscribe when you want is very helpful.

Splice allows you to keep every sample you download, regardless of whether you renew your subscription. This means that if you just want to grab a few bits and don’t do it often, you’ll only need to pay a few bucks to get what you need. The only con I have with Splice is that when you cancel, you lose your remaining credits instead of using them at your own pace. If you’re looking to trial it, make sure you use them all up before unsubscribing, or you’ll waste money.

Sounds

Much like our previous subscription service, Sounds provides a credit system with access to download samples. From Native Instruments, Sounds isn’t quite as vast as Splice just yet, but it’s still in beta at the moment. From press releases, I truly believe they have the potential to take over the entire subscription sample market. Undercutting Splice, Sounds provides you with unlimited credits for just $9.99/month. The service is conservatively capped at 3000 samples per month but can be surpassed if needed.

The premise for Sounds is very similar to Splice. However, it’s the plans that they have that really separate it from all of its current competition. The plan is to integrate and sync Sounds with all other NI products such as Maschine and Traktor. This’ll allow you to pull samples directly into your hardware and software applications. Not only this, but they intend to develop an API that’ll allow other manufacturers to integrate Sounds into their products. This means that in the future, your Sounds account could be directly loaded into your DAW via a plugin. Very handy for simple drag and drop usage of your samples. Also, it means that companies that create other pieces of audio equipment like samplers and sequencers will be able to have Sounds sync directly into their products, vastly improving their usability and experience. Keep an eye out for developments with this one.

TL;DR

Millions of drum samples exist out there. You can find libraries of quality free samples on platforms like Reddit and Looperman. If you want to buy samples for more specific sounds, plenty of options are available as well. I recommend checking out Drumdrops for acoustic drum sounds that pack a punch. For electronic samples suited for hip-hop and trap, explore The Producers Choice. If you’re looking for quirky drum samples that are a little different, try out pATCHES.

If you regularly use drum samples and want to stay updated, consider a subscription service. Splice offers nearly a million drum samples for you to choose from. Sounds by NI is currently in beta and aims to dominate the market in the coming year. If you seek unlimited samples at a low price that can integrate with your existing gear, this might be your best option. If you prefer the old school approach and don’t like the internet, head to the record store. Start digging for breaks and hits on old records. This remains my favorite way to find drum samples!