That’s why these free plugins are great alternatives and can still provide pro-level drum sounds. Next up: 6 of the Most Useful Free VST Instruments and Plugins Caleb J. Murphy is a songwriter and producer based in Austin, TX., and the founder of Musician With A Day Job, a blog that helps part-time musicians succeed. Ever wondered what VST instruments are the most popular? Find it out here. Pettinhouse Audio. This site offers 5 stunning guitar libraries. There’s a beautiful acoustic guitar, electric guitar (labeled DG), classical guitar, jazz guitar and a bass. 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! Already set for drums? Grab some of our other favourite free VSTs. The 7 Best Free Synth VST Plugins; 8 Free VST Plugins that Will Inspire You In Strange Ways; Every Free VST Plugin You Need For Mixing Perfect Vocals.

The drum machine changed music. There’s no getting around it.

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? How to download apps from microsoft store without account. Get kickin’.

Best Free Acoustic Drum Vst

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

Best Free Acoustic Drum Vst

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!

Already set for drums? Grab some of our other favourite free VSTs.

Disclosure: When you buy through our links, we may get a commission at zero cost to you.

Have you ever wondered if you could create drum patterns yourself without scrolling through thousands of sample libraries? Yh!

With the advent of different drum VST plugins, it is possible to create percussion sounds, drum beats, rhythms, and even patterns without the need of buying any audio samples.

Basically, you would have different stock samples (Kick, Hats, Snare, Claps, Bongos and so on) in the drum VST plugin, and with that, it is possible to program your own rhythms and beats. Most of the time, I program my own loops and I export each and every loop created, this way, I can reuse it easily without opening my drum vst plugin every time plus this also saves your CPU load

That out of the way, let us look at some of the best free drum VST plugins for your music production toolbox.

Let’s dive in…

1.) Manda Audio – MTPower DrumKit 2

MT Power Drum Kit is a free drum sampler by Manda Audio that offers powerful, high-quality sounds of a real acoustic drum kit, one of the good thing about this free sampler is that samples have been specially recorded and carefully processed to make them suitable across genre of music such as pop, rock, metal music and more.

One of the tip I would give anyone utilizing this Drum VST is to carefully play with the varied collection of samples, and you could either save a preset of the one you like or if you are like me, you would render the collections you want, that way it would be reusable across multiple projects without pulling an instance of MT Power Drum Kit every time you wanna work on a project.

Another good thing about this plugin is that the samples are well compressed and Equalized to make them glue to your mix, moreover, you can choose from thousands of assorted rhythms in the comprehensive Groove Library and compose your own drum accompaniment. In particular, the innovative functions for creating fills generate very smooth and realistic drum tracks.

Lastly, On the right-hand side, you can listen to demo tracks to hear what you can make with it.

Video Walk-Through:

System Requirements:

• PC: Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP
• Mac: OS X 10.5 or higher, Intel processor
• Linux: Wine + VST bridge

2.) Audiosonic – DigiDrum Pro

DigiDrum looks a bit hard on the eye but it is more powerful than you thought, it contains a five-part drum and percussion VST plugin suitable for a diverse range of genres be it Afro beats, House Music, Pop and more.

I’ll say this again, the interface isn’t really intuitive but otherwise, it is packed with loads of sound editing parameters that can be processed as you see fit. I should also mention that you can use the Velocity section to give the sample some cool vibes.

Features:

• 5 separate DigiDrum parts with 5 user definable audio outputs
• 27 classic drum and percussion waveforms
• User wave file import
• Parts can easily be layered to create even more complex sounds
• easy sound preview ensures intuitive preset programming
• A Versatile filter setup capable of many different timbres
• Velocity modulation of the amp, pitch, and filter to ‘humanize’ the feel of the beat
• Full VST automation of every sound editing controls

Video Walk-Through:

3.) TromineGT

Tromine GT is a TR-808-style analog drum synthesizer. It features:

• 16 Analog drum synthesizers: Bass drum, Snare drum, Low tom / Low Conga, Mid tom / Mid conga, High tom / High tom, Claves, Rimshot, Maracas, Handclap, Cowbell, Crash cymbal, Closed hi-hat, Open hi-hat.
• 9 outputs.
• MIDI CC support.
• Automation support.

Video Walk-Through

4.) DrumTroop

DrumTROOP is a drum kit rompler coming with 20 free drum kits. It features:

• 20 free drum kits.
• 128 triggers on every kit.
• 16 outputs.
• Universal drum placement on the first 8 pads.
• Vol, Pan, Attack, Release per pad.

Video Walk-Through:

Download Win 32 VST / WIN 64 VST / Mac OSX VST / Mac AU

5.) Ugritone – Anarchy Drums

Anarchy Drums is a virtual drum sample library or an instrument that emulates the sound of the 1990’s California Punk. It was recorded with a handful of mics at a DIY environment on tape. According to Ugritone:

The idea was to capture nothing but the drums, the room and the preamp.We left the tweaking to a bare minimum so you could tweak more, or not tweak at all (insert a famous punk band name here, ha) Relive the golden days of never-ending skate parks with Anarchy Drums.

Video Walk-Through:

Download Ugritone – Anarchy Drums

6.) Rhytmus

If you’ve used an old rhythm machine before then you should definitely love this plugin, it is based on an old rhythm machine and features ten buttons. Each individual button can play two different rhythm sections, so basically you can play 20 different rhythmic loops such as samba, mambo, tango, waltz, rumba, tango, bossa, rock, etc.

When you click “open”, you can change the tune, volume, pan of each rhythm component such as snare, bongo, cowbell, hi-hat, etc. That’s not all – you can mix these rhythmic sections with Tambourine, Guiro, Quijada sounds.

7.) Junn

Junn is the virtual Linn drum machine and is only supports VST

8.) Arex2011

AREX 2011 is a free VSTi drum module based on a hardware drum machine from the early ’80s.

Features:

• 16 pads.
• 29 embedded drum samples of RX11.
• 12 individual/group outputs.
• Individual volume, pan, accent.
• Assignable MIDI note within 36 – 99 range.
• VST automation.
• MIDI automation of essential controls.
• Assignable MIDI CC#.
• 16 part multi-timbral MIDI Outflow.
• It can be used as a MIDI control surface of sorts.
  Bundled with RX11 MIDI swing templates and 55 demonstration patterns.

System Requirements:

• Windows XP SP2 and higher

9.) Lel UDS Drums

LEL UDS Drums is a free VSTi by Softrave that has 140 stunning samples of the famous vintage analog drum module Lel UDS. One thing I love about this plugin is the option to filter the high frequency of any bank and to also mix sounds to create the sample I want.

The idea behind this is to put all analog sounds together to save time for creativity and to have easy access to the best selection of LEL sounds, essential for techno production.

What really makes this instrument different from just samples is that you can tune individual analog drift to every snare. That makes snare lines less mechanical/repetitive and makes it more analog.

Video Walk-Through:

10.) AFX

AFX is a drum machine that is designed for 32/64-bits VST2/VST3 versions for Windows! It also supports .sf2 files.

According To beatassist:

We got some acoustic samples and we have transformed them in the digital world in order to create unique sounds for you to include in your productions.

The Drum Machine has 8 slots that load the soundbanks, such as:

• bassdrums
• clsHats
• cymbals
• digital snares
• opHats
• snares
• toms.

Each of these slots also has a distortion station and a state variable filter.