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Free Sample Shootout #5: The Best Free Drum Machine Samples

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By // Updated on Free Sample Shootout

Free Drum Machine Samples!

Today’s edition of Free Sample Shootout covers free drum samples captured from various drum machines. You can always visit Samplephonics if you’re looking to find some high quality TR-808 and TR-909 sounds on the cheap, but we’re lucky enough to have thousands of high quality drum machine samples which we can download for free.

First of all, I must tell you that this list of free drum samples is special. If you’ve spent some time on virtually any popular music production message board, I’m sure you’ve seen at least one sample pack labeled 1000s Of Free Drum Samples, or something along those lines. But, the distributors of such sample packs often neglect the license of the included samples – it’s not unusual to find samples taken from commercial libraries, or samples which are given for free, but not supposed to be re-distributed without permission of the author.

So, what’s the problem with using such sample packs? It’s the fact that even if someone has given you a certain item for free, doesn’t necessarily mean that the item was actually free in the first place. If I took someone’s car and gave it to you for free, you’d still be using someone else’s car, essentially. In terms of drum samples, it’s still possible that you’re violating a copyright, even if the samples were given to you for free by someone else.

My intention with this article was to create a directory of 100% legally free drum machine samples, with links to the original sources. And it turned out to be a very long list, since there are so many awesome sound designers out there, offering some or all of their products for free! You’ll find some well known stuff in the list below (like Goldbaby and Wave Alchemy samples), but also a selection of great sounding drum machine sample packs which I’m almost sure you haven’t found before (the absolutely awesome Analog Industries 909 samples, for example).

Free Drum Machine Samples

TIP: To quickly find a specific drum machine, press CTRL+F in your browser (Command+L on Mac) and type the model name.

Analog Industries

A single TR-909 drum kit which captures all of the machine’s sounds. Groove templates are also included.

Boxed Ear

One fine free drum machine sample pack from Boxed Ear so far. Looking forward to more stuff from these guys in the future!

cl516

cl516 is a very interesting blog, I suggest you check it out if you’re into rare and unusual synth gear.

Dubsounds

These guys are sampling their favorite drum machines and are doing a damn good job at it. All the drum sample packs are reasonably priced, and the free ones are listed below.

dyLAB

Acid Box Blues (aka dyLAB) is a great blog dedicated to Acid music.

Francis Prève

We all value pristine 808 and 909 drum samples, but I also like having a folder stacked with lo-fi, cheap sounding drums. Francis Prève’s Mattel Synsonics samples are just like that, noisy, dirty, and awesome.

Goldbaby

Goldbaby and his signature analog tape treated drum machine samples have recieved numerous positive reviews all around the internet. You can have a part of that magic for free, thanks to this indie sound designer’s generosity. Below is the list of all the freebie drum machine samples available from Goldbaby:

  • Cassette 808 [Roland TR-808]
  • Cheetah MD16 [Cheetah MD16]
  • DMX606 [Oberheim Prommer]
  • MPC60 Free [Akai MPC-60]
  • Tape 606 [Roland TR-606]
  • Tape DP-50 [Technics PCM DP50]
  • Tape MR-16 [Korg MR-16]
  • Tape TR-66 [Roland TR-66]
  • Tape uTonic [Sonic Charge µTonic]
  • Tape Vermona DRM [Vermona DRM]
  • SP-1200 vs MBase 1 [E-mu SP-1200 vs Jomox MBase 01]
  • XmasGift 2010 [E-mu SP-1200]

Illuminated Sounds

Apart from the drum machine samples listed below, you will find some awesome circuit bent hardware samples on the Illuminated Sounds Website. For more glitchness & circuit bending samples, make sure you check out Free Sample Shootout #1.

MIDI Mechanics Showroom

The Rapman is not a drum machine, I know, I know… But I’m so softhearted towards Casio sounds that i had to include it here. A great little drum pack by the The MIDI Mechanics.

Music Machines

A classic collection of drum machine samples! Most of these samples were recorded back in the 90s and have been mirrored in numerous sites and drum machine packs all around the web. Here’s your chance to download them from the original source.

Progsounds

Two freebie drum machine kits available for download on the Progsounds website:

Rekkerd

Plenty of cool stuff to be found on rekkerd.org, make sure you check out the downloads section in case you haven’t done so already.

Sounds Outside The Lines

Sounds Outside The Lines have released a small but nice sounding pack as a freebie taster for their 9GB large commercial TR-909 drum sample library.

Synthslut

Classic Roland TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines, recorded for use in a round-robin patch. Originally posted on Gearslutz, now on their own download page.

Tape Death

Along with the JoMoX XBase sample pack listed below, make sure you also check out Tape Death’s Roland MC-202 pack, featuring some juicy sub bass samples.

ToneBuilder

A relatively new name in the sampling scene, Nathaniel aka Tonebuilder made a big boom with his somewhat controversial website and a drum library of undeniably high quality. There will only be 997 copies of Driven Machine Drums available for users all around the world, but all of us can enjoy these freebie drum samples listed below.

Trash Audio

The name doesn’t promise too much, but this website offers one of the most extensive 808 kits I’ve ever found.

Wave Alchemy

Another well-known name in the drum sampling world, Wave Alchemy also offers a number of freebie drum machine sample packs. No need to say it really, their samples are of the highest possible quality.

Waveformless

Waveformles is one of my favorite blogs, and their awesome Free Sample Friday series has been a source of some great freebie samples in the past. Here are the drum machine samples they’ve shared so far:

WaveShaper

WaveShaper is offering a set of drum sample kits recorded from some pretty unique analog drum machines and synthesizers. Every page listed below shows links to both commercial and free versions of each sample pack.

And that’s all for today’s Free Sample Shootout. Enjoy the free drum machine samples, subscribe to bpb and share this article on Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, or your favorite forums. Read the previous Shootouts by clicking here.

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About Author

Tomislav is a music producer and sound designer from Belgrade, Serbia. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief at Bedroom Producers Blog.

26 Comments

  1. Positif BCN on

    Ican’t believe no one has commented yet!

    Thanks for this post, i knew godbaby, wave-alchemy and some others but i didn’t knew the more obscure ones. Good taste and research here!

    You should do a best “non free” drum madhine sample post too!

    Reply

  10. Jonathan

     on

    I was under the impression that machines like the TR-707 contained samples that were under a SCMS license. Are the older Roland machines not protected under copyright laws or have their copyrights expired? I’ve searched across the web trying to find legal documentation and have come up empty handed. Thanks for your time.

    Reply

  12. bmovie

     on

    “Da Real 110 is an extensive BOSS® DR-110™ sample library that accurately reproduces the sounds of the drum machine’s synthesized instruments”.

    Comes in two versions: Kontakt and SFZ (my own mappings):

    http://synth.in/
    :)

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