500 Free Pseudo-Acoustic Drum Samples Released By Dustyroom

Dustyroom has introduced Fake Acoustic Drum Kit, a freely downloadable sample pack containing over 500 pseudo-acoustic drum samples made with the Native Instruments FM8 virtual synthesizer.

The creators of the excellent Casual Game Sounds have nailed it again, this time with an excellent faux acoustic drum sample library made entirely with FM8, a virtual FM synthesizer developed by Native Instruments. Remember how I mentioned a few days ago that I totally suck at programming FM synthesizers? Well, it seems that these guys haven’t skipped any FM synth classes in sound design school.

Fake Acoustic Drum Kit contains 504 audio samples in total, provided in 24-bit WAV format. The included samples are categorized into six folders (kicks, snares, toms, percussion, cymbals, weird) and further grouped into smaller groups like shakers, cowbells, ride cymbals, hi-hats, etc. The pack also contains a set of patches for popular sampler formats like NI Kontakt, NI Maschine, EXS24, and Ableton Live Drum Rack. The patches don’t include all of the audio samples from the kit, but instead, provide a quick way to test some of the sounds with your MIDI keyboard or drum controller before making your own custom patches.

Sound-wise, these samples blew me away. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from an acoustic drum kit made with an FM synthesizer, as that simply didn’t seem like a terribly good idea. However, it turns out that I couldn’t have been more wrong in my expectations. These samples have tons of character and are perfectly suitable for use in boom bam beats, all sorts of shuffled drum grooves, and even the moodier side of electronica thanks to their unique and modern flavor. There are plenty of wonderful snares to choose from, ranging from modern snappy hits to retro 80s snares. Same goes for the kits and especially for the percussion sounds which cover a lot of ground. The processing (only using FM8’s built-in effects) was also done very well, with just the right amount of reverb that makes the samples sound thicker but also allows for additional processing in the DAW.

The sample pack can be downloaded completely free of charge from the product page linked below, with optional donations through PayPal. Enter any amount you want as your donation or enter $0 to complete the free checkout.

Fake Acoustic Drum Kit is available for free download via Dustyroom (159 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 504 audio samples in 24-bit WAV format, patches for NI Maschine, NI Kontakt, Ableton Live, EXS24).