Back again for our regular feature, on the best free instruments and production tools for producers on a budget. Today we’re looking at drums. Whether you’re in need of a beefy kick for a house track, or a snappy snare for your next rock number, we’ve got you covered.
First up, the BPB Cassette Drums plug-in bundle includes three digital drum machines, using sounds sampled from BPB’s Cassette 606, Cassette 808 and Cassette 909 drum sample packs. You get RolandTR-606, TR-808 and TR-909 replicas that sound pretty convincing. Not bad, considering you’re not paying a penny for them.
Each of these lovely-looking and easy-to-use plug-ins have three modes, effectively giving you nine separate drum machines to play with. The clean original sounds of each drum machine are available, while the Warm and Hot modes give you saturated recordings and have been re-sampled from an audio cassette deck, giving each engine a slightly different feel.
Grab it here: https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2016/11/23/drum-machine-vst/
Next up, Here’s a great free drum VST from Steven Slate.
This plugin is excellent for re-creating the sound of a real acoustic kit in your DAW.
With the free version you get access to a few different kits and each kit comes with a lot of options to customize, tweak and hone your ideal drum sound.
From tuning, to mic placement, tom size and cymbal type—you get a remarkable amount of options for a free VST.
It also works well when played using MIDI via an electronic drumkit with its ability to choose sensitivity and velocity curves.
Spitfire’s free VST platform LABS now comes with a great drum sample library that sounds great. The overall sound of the kit can be best described as hip hop inspired with some lofi qualities. Not quite as versatile as others on the list as it is quite a specific sound, but it is still useful.
The kit has a chunky snare sound, fat acoustic bass and roomy toms that make it a great kit to use when writing hip hop, soul and funk music.
If you haven’t downloaded the LABS plugin platform, you really should—this sample library and the dozens of other ones that come with it are incredible and totally worth having around.
