FREE Drum VST Plugins

We’re taking a look at the best free drum VST plugins for digital audio workstations on Windows and macOS.

Drums are widely considered the foundation of most music, but I prefer to think of them as a framework for constructing songs.

Think about it.

You have the four-on-the-floor drums for rock, the classic “boots and cats” beat for EDM, the “Un-tz Un-tz” drums for trance, the train beat for country music, the swing beat for jazz, the surf beat for surf, the D-beat for punk, the blast beat for black metal, etc.

That’s obviously an oversimplification, but whatever drumbeat you end up playing, that’s the type of music you’re making. So you could say that drums are somewhat important.

As such, drum VST plugins are a fundamental component of your music production software collection.

Drum VST Plugins (2022 Update)

We listed the best drum plugins you can get for free. The list includes acoustic drum kits, drum synthesizers, drum samplers, and drum machine romplers.

• SSD Free
• MT Power Drum Kit 2
• LABS Drums
• MODO Drum Custom Shop
• Organic Calfskin Kit
• Monster Drum
• Jamstix Free
• Drumgizmo
• EXC!TE SNARE DRUM
• ChowKick
• Sitala
• Speedrum Lite
• MiniSpillage
• BPB Cassette Drums

All featured drum plugins are 100% free to use.

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SSD Free

Steven Slate Drums is a downright iconic drum plugin. If you were like me and wrote post-rock and punk rock back in the mid-’00s, this is the plugin you’d get recommended the most.

Nowadays, we have access to the SSD Free edition, and I’m happy to say that it sounds great.

You get one kit, the “Deluxe 2 Kit”, with three variations, but you also have complete control over the mix, can import your own samples, and the plugin even comes with a few MIDI grooves included. Perfect for a beginner if you want to really learn your way around one of these.

Highly recommended as a starter drum VST plugin for rock, metal, and pop.

More info: SSD Free

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MT Power Drum Kit 2

MT Power Drum Kit 2 was released in 2012 but has recently gone freeware. It’s yet another acoustic drum kit plugin.

I’ll be honest, MT Power Drum Kit 2 doesn’t sound as realistic as some of the other drum plugins on this list, but that’s not where its strengths lie.

To my ear, it always sounds like those classic 80s over-compressed drums you hear in rock and pop songs of that era.

If you want something that hits hard and pumps, this is it. It also comes with a massive library of MIDI grooves, which might be worth the price of admission alone.

More info: MT Power Drum Kit 2

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LABS Drums

I am a HUGE proponent of LABS and have already turned some of my friends onto the series. What do you care if a plugin isn’t in-depth when you have dozens of them?

LABS Drums is an acoustic drum library for the LABS plugin. It delivers mix-ready drum sounds for rock and pop.

I don’t know what it is about this one, but it sounds lovely. It also offers more than enough in the dynamics department and has more percussion sounds than you probably need. In fact, it’s specifically tailored to General MIDI specifications, so if that’s something you use, this is a fantastic option.

More info: LABS Drums

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MODO Drum Custom Shop

MODO Drum Custom Shop is the free edition of IK Multimedia’s flagship MODO Drum software. It comes with one free drum kit and offers the ability to upgrade your sound arsenal with expansion kits.

The included Studio kit sounds great and has been one of a few industry standards for many years. But the best thing about the free version is that you get the complete MODO Drum engine. Any tweaking you can do in MODO Drum 1.5, you can also do in the free Custom Shop plugin.

The instrument uses IK Multimedia’s modal synthesis technology to create authentic drum sounds. If you’re looking for a great-sounding starter drum kit, MODO Drum Custom Shop is a very good choice.

More info: MODO Drum Custom Shop

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Organic Calfskin Kit

Organic Calfskin Kit is a fairly realistic-sounding drum VST plugin. You can add additional drum kits from the developer’s website, and it’s one of the few offerings that cover different performance articulations, like brushes or mallets.

The controls are simple, but there’s also a pitch modulation effect labeled “Weirdness,” which I really appreciate. If you’ve ever used a Korg Volca Sample, then you know how much fun pitch modulating drum sounds can be.

More info: Organic Calfskin Kit

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Monster Drum

Monster Drum is a monstrously versatile drum plugin developed by Monster DAW. It features a huge collection of analog drums, with regular sound updates and new expansion kits.

All included drum kits are pre-mixed and ready to use in a project. That’s a convenient time-saver when starting a new jamming session in your DAW. Just load up the Monster Drum plugin and select a kit that works for your song. You can always fine-tune it later.

Another convenience is the multi-out feature that lets you route each drum element independently in your digital audio workstation’s mixer.

More info: Monster Drum

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Jamstix Free

Jamstix is another interesting take on the “virtual drummer” concept. It comes in a variety of differently priced editions, one of which is completely free to download and use.

The freebie version of Jamstix offers a limited amount of velocity layers and fewer drum kits than its paid counterparts. It also lacks MIDI export, kit customizations, and several other more advanced features.

However, it’s perfectly usable as a beginner-friendly drum VST plugin. It comes with eight drummer models, several playing styles, and 200 drum samples to help you get started with music production.

More info: Jamstix

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Drumgizmo

Drumgizmo is an open-source drum plugin. There are numerous acoustic drum kits that you can download. A tool for creating your own drum kits for Drumgizmo is also available.

The plugin itself is still a work in progress, but you can download a stable version for your DAW. Drumgizmo is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux.

More info: Drumgizmo

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EXC!TE SNARE DRUM

Yes, I’m excited about the snare drum. That’s the best type of drum!

On a more serious note, the EXC!TE SNARE DRUM is a niche drum plugin. It lets you model an acoustic snare drum and fully customize the sound to your liking.

You can also play the plugin directly if you have a snare pad or a piezoelectric disk. Not something you’d throw on every track, but definitely helpful to have.

It would be fantastic if the developer follows up with a similar plugin for kick drums and hi-hats.

More info: EXC!TE SNARE DRUM

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ChowKick

I reviewed Chowdhury DSP’s free ChowKick plugin back in July, and it left quite an impression.

It sounds fantastic, there’s tons of functionality built-in, and it’s fantastically laid out. I’ve used various paid kick modeling plugins before. While some offer more profound sound sculpting possibilities, I think ChowKick’s straightforward approach and carefully curated controls are more immediately tweakable.

Don’t miss this one.

More info: ChowKick

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Sitala

Sitala is my drum sampler of choice – it’s lightweight, simple, has all the controls you’re actually likely to use (unless you’re sampling your handmade cello or something weird like that). If you’re on Reaper, routing is done automatically.

It’s beyond intuitive, and while it looks deceptively simple, there’s actually a lot of functionality packed in.

Sample trimming, beat slicing, a pretty great-sounding compressor, and a Tone knob that actually adapts based on each individual sample’s pitch content.

If you already own a collection of drum kits in WAV format, a sampler like Sitala is the only drum VST plugin you’ll ever need.

More info: Sitala

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Speedrum Lite

Speedrum Lite is the other choice when it comes to the best freeware drum samplers.

There’s really not that much to say about Speedrum Lite that’s different from Sitala.

There’s a little more control over the Attack and Decay of each sample, as well as dedicated Lo-Pass and Hi-Pass filter knobs.

If you prefer this workflow over Sitala, however, you might want to check out the full version of Speedrum. It comes with more controls for sound shaping your samples, as well as a lot of really cool effects like distortion, compressor, transient shaper, humanizer, and more.

More info: Speedrum Lite

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AudioSpillage MiniSpillage

This is another free version of a more full-featured paid product, but I wouldn’t dare call MiniSpillage “stripped down.”

It’s actually a very impressive drum synth with more controls than I can reasonably get into here, but it’s a lot.

This free version comes with 3 of the 12 drum synth engines of its bigger brother, namely – Bass Drum, Hi-Hat, and Wood Drum. Somewhat disappointed they didn’t offer their snare engine instead of the Wood Drum to really round out the trio, but I guess you can’t give out the goods that easily.

More info: AudioSpillage MiniSpillage

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BPB Cassette Drums

Last but not least, our BPB Cassette Drums instrument bundle includes three different drum plugins – Cassette 606, Cassette 808, and Cassette 909.

The plugins were designed by Crimson Merry and based on drum machine sounds captured by Edgar Maguyon, Gregor Zemljic, and Reddit user Anderson303. BBPB’seditor Tomislav Zlatic resampled the source sounds from a tape recorder, adding saturation and grit.

Each drum plugin comes in three different flavors – Clean, Warm, and Hot. Clean gets you the completely unprocessed raw samples, whereas Warm and Hot offer varying degrees of saturation.

More info: BPB Cassette Drums

The Best FREE Drum VST Plugins – The Conclusion

So there you go, a curated selection of very different drum VST plugins for whatever type of music you might want to use them for.

We purposefully went in and selected plugins that would complement each other and fill in any potential blind spots in your productions.

You might not need all of them, but you should definitely try whichever catches your eye.

More articles:

• Free Autotune VST Plugins
• Free Saturation VST Plugins
• Free Compressor VST Plugins
• Best Free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)