11 High Quality Drum Sample Packs You Shouldn't Sleep On
If you are like me you, you care about the quality of your records. Regardless if you are producing or mixing you want sounds that you can rely on time and time again.
The biggest problem with drum samples is that there just aren’t that many great sounding kits out there, and that’s part of the reason why I created my commercial sound libraries.
But just because they’re isn’t a lot of a good sound out there, doesn’t mean that there aren’t any at all.
There are definitely some great libraries if you know where to look and you have the experience to know what to listen for.
So with this article my goal is to help save you a lot of time and help get you started on the right foot.
If you were to only use the 11 sample packs I share below, you will be much happier and much farther ahead. Your tracks and your ears will thank you for it.
Modern Samples
Modern Samples is a drum sample website that I started back in August 2015.
My goal in creating this new brand was to deliver the best quality drum sounds at an affordable rate, sounds that had a unique and exciting tone but at the same time, I wanted to leave room for processing so that you wouldn’t be boxed into a corner with your mixes and productions.
All of the libraries from Modern Samples are recorded using Class A analog gear. A lot of time is spent processing, mixing and handcrafting each sample before they make into the final product.
None of the sample packs at Modern Samples are rehashed or recycled from other drum sample packs. Everything is 100% recorded, chopped up, and processed in-house.
About the Sample Packs
Trap Drums HQ
A collection of high quality professionally recorded drum sounds for use in trap and hip hop productions. These samples were recorded from analog drum machines through a pair of API 312 preamps, and each sound was meticulously mixed to ensure the absolute highest quality.
Hip Hop Drums Live
These hip hop samples can add a flavor and texture to your beats and productions that synthesized drum machines could only dream of - the sounds are unlike anything you've ever heard before. Each sound was meticulously processed and tweaked to inspire the highest levels of creativity.
Lo-Fi Drums Collection
This sample pack contains over 200 high quality, professionally mixed lo-fi samples. They work great for hip-hop, trap, and even modern day pop music. All sounds were recorded in-house and came from both drum machines as well as live studio recordings. A combination of analog gear and plugins were used to mold the final tones you hear.
What Others Think About Modern Samples
Justin what uuuuup?! The drum kit is dope man. Sounds mixed and ready to go. Definitely, would help producers and sound designers. I used a couple of sounds for a Busta Rhymes mix I was working on to reinforce a 2 track beat. Are You making any other kits? Interested to hear more of your work.
Honestly, quality wise it’s [Hip Hop Drums Live] amazing. Sonically it’s better than any kit I have. My favorite section was actually “Misc” – the hits and stomps sound amazing!
I use Trap Drums HQ on every, yes EVERY record. They are extremely versatile. It doesn’t matter what genre I’m making; MS-TDHQ Snare-06 is probably on the track somewhere. I love the claps and the kicks layer perfectly with each other!
Real Drum Samples
Real Drum Samples is another great boutique drum sample company.
Though their products focus mainly on the Hip-Hop side of the music spectrum, it doesn’t mean you can’t make use of them. I’m a huge believer in taking good sounds from different genres and blending them to create something new and exciting.
RDS was created by Jay Fisher whose has over half a decade of professional music industry experience. Jay’s worked with many Grammy Winning and Grammy Nominated songwriters, producers, and engineers whose credits include Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Rihanna, Usher & Trey Songz.
What Jay’s done is take his experience and his drum recordings (from the last 6+ years) and has made them available via the products on his website so you can now have access to these same sounds.
Who’s Using theses Drums?
- Needlz (Bruno Mars, 50 Cent, The Game)
- Ken Lewis (Kanye West, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys)
- Jean-Marie Horvat (Timbaland, Trey Songz, Justin Timberlake)
- Souldiggaz (Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson)
- Dave Aron (U2, Dr. Dre, The Notorious B.I.G.)
These are just a few of the people using these drums as there are plenty more listed over at Real Drum Samples
About the Samples
Line of Legends
Line of Legends sample pack is comprised of 380 hard hitting one shots, organized to perfection so that you can easily find the right sound in seconds. Each Sound Has Been Individually EQ’d, Filtered & Compressed For Maximum Punch while Keeping The Dynamic Integrity Alive
Ultimate Percussion Jungle
This collection contains over 400 HQ percussion sounds recorded over a period of 5+ years. Here's a short list of what's included: Agogo Bell’s, Ashiko Sounds, North-African Bendir’s, Bongo’s, Cajon’s, Portuguese Castanets, Crystal Clear Chimes, Chinese Crashes + ALOT MORE. Easily create your own unique sounds with these samples
Summing it All Up
Let’s be honest; the internet is filled with a lot of samples created or processed by amateurs. It’s one of the reasons why I started my sample company – I just couldn’t get the standard of quality I was happy with from other libraries.
So if you are always downloading and scrapping drum kits, looking for the next best thing, you’re wasting a lot of time!
That energy could be spent making music instead of searching for sounds that don’t suck!
People are so afraid to spend a little bit of money even though they know it’s going to benefit them tremendously – I honestly don’t get it.
If you’re serious about your music sounding professional, it might be wise to make a small investment in your sounds (and yourself) so you can start making better quality music.
You don’t have to go and grab every drum kit on this list; you can start small. In all honesty, even just one kit (anyone really) will make a massive improvement in the overall quality of your music.
After hearing and using the sounds in this article, you’ll start to understand what a good quality sample is supposed to sound like, which will help when demoing other drum kits out there.
Here’s to making great music!