Here are the best free drum VST plugins that will give you professional sounds quickly. Producing music is not only time consuming, but sometimes it can be downright expensive. In an effort to save both time and money, music producers will often turn to working with drum samples and synthesized instruments in.
The drum machine changed music. There’s no getting around it.
Best Sidechain Plugin: Kickstart is the speediest approach to get that mark sidechain impact in your own tracks. Nicky Romero and Cableguys have everything laid out for you. Disregard confounded compressor routings, essentially drop Kickstart on your channels—a major Mix control and hand-created adjustment bends kick you off. Best Free Vocal VST Plugins. It's well-known that dynamic sounds are much harder to mix – and the vocals are super dynamic. Luckily, there is no need to stress out every time you get to the mixer and start working on getting the “perfect vocals.” All you need to do is to know which free vocal mastering VST plugins to use. And best of all, they are free! SL Drums 2 by Beatmaker. SL Drums 2 is the newest version of Beatmaker‘s freeware drum VST, AU plugin available for Windows and MAC OS. Featuring over 450 drum samples, 118 new drum kits, new controls and new GUI design, SL Drums 2 is a great virtual drum machine to have into your DAW. Best partit’s free! The reason each snare hit, hi-hat, and kick sound so real is because they are. The makers of this plugin sampled real drummers in a real studio playing real drums. And now you can get those sounds in your song through this MIDI plugin. AD 2 offers a free trial, and then you can get a single drum sound for just $20. The costs involved are the main reasons behind the best free drum VST machines. However, even the digital route has its own costs and challenges. The first step always includes downloading, installing, and setting up a digital audio workstation (DAW) on your computer.
Every DAW software these days comes with some sort of sampler or drum machine built right in. They’ve become a pillar of modern music production.
But picking a sound can be tough when you have infinite possibilities at your fingertips.
That’s why these drum VST plugins are so great. They impose some limitations to help you corral the creative juices a bit.
So here’s the 10 best free drum VST plugins for making your drums pop.
1. T.REX 606
The name says it all. The T.REX 606 is a compact rompler modelled after the iconic Roland TR-606 drum machine.
The simple interface keeps things basic. Which is nice these days when so many VSTs are needlessly complicated.
It’s just volume, reverb and 7 classic sounds. Easy peasy.
Download it here for free
2. Djinndrum
The Linn LM-1 is a classic drum machine. It’s been used by everyone from Peter Gabriel, to Prince, to Michael Jackson.
But let’s face it, these days they’ve gotten a bit pricey for what they are.
No problem, The Djinndrum has you set for all that classic sound that the LM-1 packs in.
Download it here for free
3. Drum PRO
Drum Pro has 20 built in drum kits, 12 pads and global effects, what more do you need from a drum machine plugin?
The Drum Pro has you covered no matter what you’re making. Big EDM? Check. Techno? Check. Everything else you need for sweet drums? Check that too.
Download it here for free
4. Line of Legends
This plugin may not look as technical as others. But don’t let the looks of Line of Legends fool you.
This plugin boasts 47 high quality samples, 8 individual output channels, and punch, release & attack knobs for some serious tweakage.
Heads up: you may have to set up the output channels in your DAW if it’s only showing one channel. So check your DAW manual to figure out how.
Download it here for free
5. Sean Pandy Drums
Sean Pandy Drums is based on a sample pack made by heavy metal drummer Sean Pandy. So if you’re looking for a heavier drum sound on your mix, this VST will definitely give you it.
The ‘Sub Blower’ is especially good and certainly lives up to its name…
Download it here for free
6. KickMaker
2 of the most important elements in any track that thumps is the kick and bass. So they deserve some serious attention.
That’s what makes KickMaker so great. It’s a plugin built for crafting the perfect kick. So what’re you waiting for? Get kickin’.
Download it here for free
7. Beat Factory Drums
Beat Factory Drums is easy to use, sounds great, and packs a serious punch.
It has fully tweakable ADSR parameters so you can customize each and every kit to your sound. Not bad for a FREE plugin.
All you have to do is enter your email and that’s it.
Download it here for free
8. MT Power Drum Kit 2
MT Power Drum Kit 2 isn’t just a plugin for drums. In addition to top notch drum sounds that cut through any mix, it also has a fully pre-programmed groove library.
It’s wicked for composing your own patterns, or stringing together grooves for the drum accompaniment you need.
Download it here for free
9. Dub Turbo DrumTROOP
The DrumTROOP drum machine is big both in its sound and what it offers. It’s a powerful tool for everything from EDM to house and back again.
Their website calls it a “weapon of mass production.” I can’t really disagree with that. It’s definitely massive is every respect.
Download it here for free
10. Single Cycle Vintage Drum Elements
Vintage Drum Elements has a nice, warm analogue sound that so many vintage drum machines have.
The 12 pad interface is easy to use and tweak, and the preloaded samples are all top notch.
Name your price or enter your email to grab it on the Single Cycle Bandcamp.
Download it here for free
Drumming up the perfect sound
Nothing beats a banging drum track. They’re the backbone of tons of top notch songs.
And the drum machine is a superb way to hone in on a specific sound for your tracks.
So grab these sweet plugs and program away! Top 5 vst plugins.
Already set for drums? Grab some of our other favourite free VSTs.
When it comes to hardcore techno, and style/genre like gabber, hardstyle, speedcore, new style hardcore, oldschool gabber, etc. the kick drum is the more important part of the production:
the kick drum has to be ridiculously strong, and/or distorted, mangled to death, strong solid fat devastating and incredible.
For me the best combo is drum synth or sample + distortion (and couple of other effects like compression, distortion, EQ, and more distortion).
But sometimes it’s nice to have a dedicated plugin ! Here we go with the freeware plugins :
1. Gabber Master! VST by John Merrik
direct dl : Gabber Master VST download!
It’s a Windows-only VST, it seems it has been created with Synthmaker, and should work well in 32 bit VST hosts sequencers.
The GabberMaster VST is sample based with a nice variety of samples, and some parameters for destroying the sound.
Instant gabber hardcore breakcore speedcore terrorcore !
2. Bassdrum::Murda VST by Distocore
Distocore Bassdrum::Murdaaaaaa
Information and download : http://www.distocore.net/
Concept by I:GOR , this free plugin is more sophisticated and is a powerful drum synthesizer:
You have 3 oscillators with many waveforms to choose from, envelope sections for the pitch and the volume.
The audio signal goes to filter + distorsion + bit crusher + eq.
Now you can create powerful hardcore kick drums from scratch.
3. Hardcore Kicks Lite VST by the CoreStylerz
Information and download : http://www.thecorestylerz.net/vst/hardcore-kicks-vsti-2/hardcore-kicks-vsti-2-lite
This one lets you make some noise too.
It is “facebook-like-ware”, not really freeware, but it’s nice and deserves some supports.
some agressive ear-destroying presets show the potential of this hard kick generator.
4. Synth1 by Ichiro Toda !
Synth1 VST !
Or any synth with at least one or two oscillator, a pitch envelope and some saturation / distorsion / filter / EQ effect.
– turn off all effects
– start with OSC2 (mix 100% to the right), choose the triangle waveform,
– activate the Modulation ENVelope for Osc2 : set Attack to zero and turn up the Decay and AMounT
that’s a basic kick drum
Now you can destroy it with the effect section :
– choose analogic distorsion (A.D) or DECImator.
– for more funkyness, you can also add a filter lowpass (or bandpass) + filter envelope, crank up the resonance to add screaming.
Or choose a square waveform instead of the triange.
now you can mix with a kick sample, layer it, resample, do anything you want
Only Synth1 audio examples :
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/synth1-corekick.mp3
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/synth1-kick.mp3
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/synth1-brainwashkick.mp3
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/synth1-badboyyy.mp3
5. Virtual KickLab XL by Angular Momentum
Best Free Kick Taker
it’s here : http://www.amvst.com/kicklab-xl
Best Free Drum Vst 2018
A kick dedicated free plugin for Windows, you can create bass drum from scratch.
It’s not as ferocious as the other plugins in this list, but it can do some solid kicks.
It’s more clean, the saturator and distortion aren’t dirty enough.
But you can produce nice kicks out of it.