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Whatever the genre, there’s a high chance drums are an integral part of each production, providing the signature rhythmic element to each track. There are many creative ways you can go about creating and building drum patterns in your DAW, however, sometimes the easiest and most convenient way is to just import a ready-made drum loop. This can serve as a compliment to a pre-existing track or the foundation for you to build off of.

 

Of course, you can also sample drum loops in various ways. Fancy time stretching them to a new BPM? How about just extracting the snare and kick and reworking them as individual samples? Or, slicing the loop up on your favourite drum machine and reworking the entire pattern–as is common with Hip-hop? Whatever you choose to do, chances are you’re going to need some drum loops at one point or another, so we’ve got you covered with this article of the best FREE drum loop sources available online. Let’s dive in!

 

 

If you prefer to work with real drum instruments over pre-made samples, perhaps you might find our How to Record Drums - Full Guide more suited to your needs.

 

 

Loopmasters’ Free Genre Packs

 

There’s a collection of valuable free sample packs (including drum loops) available on the Loopmasters website. The best part about these packs? They’re genre specific–meaning you can either go ahead and download them all, or find one specifically tailored to you, depending on your intended genre. This is great for saving HDD space. 

 

Each free genre pack on the Loopmasters store contains 100 handpicked samples from Loopmasters' leading brands and label partners. These neat little kits can serve as great starting points for producers to begin building their sample library from, or as an extra addition to an ever-growing sound bank. Either way, they’re a great introductory gateway into the high-definition samples available to you from the Loopmasters archive, which is full of many stellar drum loops.

 

 

Cheap or Free Label Samplers

 

Next up, we have a different type of free sample pack, also located within the deep sea of Loopmasters samples. But, instead of being genre specific, these are all label samplers–collections of chosen samples from specific labels. These can be great to harness a signature sound style, or to mesh with other packs to innovate a new sonic signature of your own.

 

Function Loops - 13 Year Anniversary - Label Sampler

First, we have the 13th Year Anniversary, celebratory pack by Function Loops. Function Loops have published a wide catalog of samples over their extensive lifespan as a label, and now, you can get your hands on some of their fine contributions completely free! These 107 samples have been plucked from across their catalog into a compilation bundle, giving you access to many different sample types (predominantly drums–including loops).

 

 

Tech House Taster

Next, we have a Tech House Taster kit by Mind Flux, built from the iconic sounds of artists like FISHER, Chris Lake, Dom Dolla, and John Summit. The pack is quite small, with only 55MB of overall file size. However, it does feature 29 pretty saucy drum loops, which happens to be the reason its earned a mention on this list. If you’re a Tech House producer looking for free drum loops, this is the pack for you.

 

 

Wavetick Label Sampler 01

Wavetick have a diverse range of sample packs available on the Loopmasters store, covering many genres. However, one thing their packs have in common, regardless of genre is they seem to resonate with the distinct, dreamy, mesmerising aura of the Wavetick label. This free label sampler has been curated specifically so you can dip your toes in that mesmerising aura now. With a range of different sounds, picked from across their catalog, and some elegant drum loops too, adding this free pack to your collection is a no-brainer.

 

 

EST Studios Label Sampler

Now we’re getting into non-free territory. The next few entries are coming in at $1.25 each, which is not bad at all considering the label-certified samples you’ll be getting your hands on. This specific sampler comes from Drum & Bass, Bass House and Hardcore label, EST Studios and comes tight-nitted with 27 loops and 12 One shots. It might not seem like much but EST Studios boast some of the most carefully-recorded samples published on the Loopmasters store. It’s quality over quantity here, with each HD, sharpened sample coming in at 24 bits.

 

 

Samplelife - Label Sampler 02

Another Techno-oriented pack on the list, this time from one of House of Loops’ children labels, Samplelife, provides you with an abundance of drum loops, combined with melodics and basslines too. The Label Sampler 2 pack is built from eight different packs published by Samplelife and gives you plenty to sink your teeth in as a beginner Techno enthusiast. Oh… we should mention, although it’s technically not free ($1.25), it does come with 342mbs of samples, which is significantly more than the other entries so far.

 

 

Thick Sounds Sampler 1

Consisting of sounds selected from a wide range of genres, from Dub to Drum & Bass, including Dubstep, House, Jungle, Dancehall, Bass House, Reggae and UK Garage, this is the most jam-packed pack so far, with a whopping 485mb of files, for only $1.25. The Thick Sounds Sampler 1 is a juicy sample pack taste-tester from the Thick Sounds library, with samples carefully chosen from seven different Thick Sounds packs. Of course, this label sampler has an array of drum sample loops for you to sink your teeth into also.

 

 

Abstract Sounds - Label Sampler 3

Last but definitely not least, we have a 400mb label sampler from Abstract Sounds. Again, for $1.25, you can gain access to a heap of signature Techno content from the Abstract Sounds collection, with plenty of drum loops included. Abstract Sounds have published a multitude of sample packs throughout their career and their Label Sampler 3 gives you access to samples pulled from 10. For such a reasonable price, and with a meaty collection of samples for you to flesh out your sound library with, we had to include this label sampler on this list.

 

 

 

Try Loopcloud for Free

 

If the mentions so far haven’t quite tickled your fancy, there’s another option available to you to get your hands on some professional-grade drum loop samples–this time with complete personal freedom to select from the entire Loopcloud library.

 

 

Loopcloud is a cloud-based sample library service available for an affordable price, however, there’s also the opportunity to trial the service for 14 days completely free. Here’s the kicker, if you sign up for the 14-day trial of Loopcloud, you’ll be granted 100 credits to spend at your own leisure on the Loopcloud store. Essentially, Loopcloud is a monthly/annual subscription service, giving you access to the entirety of the Loopmasters’ sound library. Each month, you’ll be granted a certain amount of credits to spend as you see fit.

 

Even if you don’t plan to use the service indefinitely, the free trial will allow you to download 100 credit’s worth of drum loop samples to add to your sound library forever, at the low price of… nothing at all. So, if the free sample packs don’t appeal to you, and you’d rather handpick each and every drum loop yourself, why not opt for this complete method of acquiring your drum loops. There are near-infinite samples for you to choose from with Loopcloud. And, if you find yourself well acquainted with the service, you might end up staying for the long term!

 

 

Looperman

 

Looperman is an excellent resource for acquiring free samples online (including drum loops). You can register with the service completely free and gain access to their (mostly-free) library of samples. Looperman is a reputable peer-to-peer sample sharing platform online, where users can upload their own recordings/samples into the Looperman aether for other users to download at their own will.

 

This type of online file-sharing leads to a vast expanse of free samples for anyone who’s registered to access, at a slight sacrifice of overall quality. However, the fact that not all samples need to be of professional quality is not such a big deal, seeing as you can preview all sounds before you download them. There are also some good paid samples available on Looperman too. Who knows? Maybe you’ll become acquainted with the community and start to upload samples of your own to contribute to the vast world of samples on the internet.

 

 

 

Sample Focus

 

Very similar to Looperman, Sample Focus is a peer-to-peer, file-sharing website. It pretty much operated under the exact same framework. Users sign up for free, and then gain access to the pool of user-uploaded samples available across the website. Overall, the community is smaller than Looperman, however, if you’re a producer on a budget, strictly looking for free samples of any kind, it’s probably worth singing up to as many of these peer-to-peer communities as possible. After all, you have nothing to lose, but a whole web service of samples to gain.

 

 

 

Cymatics

 

Cymatics.fm are broadly known across the interweb for distributing a labyrinth of packs spanning many genres and they’ve prepared many of them under free access for you to add to your library. Just head over to their website today, navigate to the Free Downloads section and explore their introductory range of sample packs that you can add straight to your library.

 

 

 

FAQs

 

Do professional producers use drum loops?

Professional producers do indeed use drum loops, especially within the hip-hop community, however, most of the time, producers add their own creative flair to the sampled loop in one way or another. Typically, this creative flair is achieved through re-sampling the drum loop using a drum machine, or sample manipulation tools within a DAW. Producers will time-stretch the loop to a new tempo or slice it into a new pattern entirely.

 

Where do producers get drum samples?

There’s an abundance of sources online to acquire drum samples. Sources like Looperman, Cymatics and Sample Focus are good places to source free samples, however, Loopmasters shines as a hotspot for both free and premium drum samples. Loopmasters also has plenty of other samples available too. They also have their own cloud-based sample subscription service, called Loopcloud.

 

How do you make drum loops more interesting?

Drum loops can be made more interesting by chopping them up and re-sampling them using either a digital sampler plugin or a real-world, physical drum sampler like the Akai MPC or Native Instruments Maschine. That way, producers can add their own spin on the original sample, rather than just copying a stagnant four-to-eight-bar drum loop.

 

Is it legal to use drum loops?

Whether it is legal or illegal to use a drum loop in your production all depends on if the sample is royalty free. Most sample sources online will be strictly royalty free, however it’s always worth double checking the terms and conditions before publishing your work. If you’ve directly sampled your drum loop from a pre-existing track, chances are it is NOT royalty free, and illegal to use in your own work.

 

With that being said, drum beats themselves aren’t copyrighted. For example, most boom bap rap consists of the same drum pattern occurring over and over again, with very little variation between tracks. The same can be said for many genres – the rhythm is the signature of the genre. It’s usually the sounds themselves that can be copyrighted and if the track is famous enough to be recognisable from its sounds alone. For example Bob James's Take Me To The Mardi Gras drum loop has been sampled numerous times and remains very distinct and recognisable.