This took a long time to try out all of these plugins to make the list of the best free VST Drums plugins. I did the work so you don’t have to. I am only including the ones that are completely free and nothing is paid here.
There are a lot of free drum plugins out there but not every one of them produces the sound or the quality we want. You see, unlike other plugins drum plugins are pretty important and we do need to be pretty selective as a bad drum track will almost always mess up your tracks.
After doing my own research, also going around places like Reddit, YouTube, and some music forums, I have come up with the best free VST Drums.
So, let’s begin…
Best Free VST Drums:
For easy navigation, you can click through the below links to jump to each section of this post. Keep in mind that these aren’t in any particular order.
- SSD
- Jamstix
- MT Power Drum Kit 2
- Drum Pro
- BPB Cassette Drums
- Spitfire Audio Labs Drums
- DrumTROOP
- 606 Koncept
- AVL Drumkits
- SM Drums
- SUB
1. Steven Slate Drums 5.5
Steven Slate Drums is an acoustic drum VST plugin that is sampled by Steven Slate. This plugin has a full version and this is the free version of it.
This plugin features some of the great-sounding drum sounds that were recorded by professional drummers playing it. Even though you can’t expect it to sound as good as real drums, this is pretty close given the sound quality.
Each of the sounds that comes out of this plugin is slightly processed and you can still tweak them to fit in your mixes.
2. Jamstix
Jamtrix is another freeware VST drums plugin but this one contains a lot of features. After trying out the plugin you can decide if you want to upgrade or not.
The free version of this plugin has:
- 8 Drummer models
- 20 Total style models
- 200 Total acoustic drum samples
- Velocity layers (Limited)
- Mapped MIDI Output
When you play the drums using this plugin, they have preserved the humanity of the sounds. It is not as processed or robotic as many other plugins are.
3. MT Power Drum Kit 2
The MT Power Drum Kit 2 is another realistic-sounding VST Drums, this plugin supports macOS and Windows and doesn’t take much of the CPU Load.
In my experience, this has to be one of my favorite go-to VST drums. I have used it on my last two tracks and very few people were able to guess if it was real or not.
Right of the bat with the presets, it might sound a little unnatural but with a little bit of velocity, effects, and layering you can get a realistic drum sound.
The plugin comes with built-in compressors and other helpful control that you can use to tweak your drum samples to create more natural sound drums.
4. Drum Pro
Next on the list of free VST Drums, we have the Drum Pro, this plugin looks good and sounds good as well. The user interface is well done and easy to use.
I wouldn’t suggest this for any acoustic use but this can be perfect for creating pop, RnB, Hip-Hop, and EDMs. The plugin also contains in-built features that are helpful.
The key features of Drum pro:
- 20 drumkits
- Supports macOS and Windows
- Global ADSR / reverb
- Contains 12 Pads
- Each pad has sepearet volume & pan.
This plugin was one of my first free drum plugins to create a trap track. It sounded great even without the need for much tweaking.
5. BPB Cassette Drums
BPB Cassette Drums is a Free Drum Machine VST/AU Plugin developed by Crimson Merry. This free VST plugin comes with a total collection of three drums and they are Cassette 606, Cassette 808, and Cassette 909.
Each of these three drum machines has its own user interface and you can also route the drums to individual outputs to process those sounds on your own.
You can get creative with this one and put them to good use. Out of the many free VST drums, I have tried, this was stood out because of the ease of use.
6. Spitfire Audio Labs Drums
Spitfire Audio Labs Drums is a free VST drum plugin that is one of the best natural-sounding drums. The drum samples are recorded perfectly and the sounds you get from the plugin are amazing.
Spitfire Audio Labs has much more plugins than just drums but this is one of my favorite ones to use, these drums will sit right onto your mix!
This plugin is available for both macOS and Windows and is also available as VST2, VST3, AAX, and AU, so it can be used directly in your favorite DAW.
7. DrumTROOP
DrumTROOP is an amazing VST drums plugin that is completely free and is available for both macOS and Windows PC. It also supports 64bit and 32bit.
For a free plugin, this one surely comes with premium features and also sounds pretty decent. Each pad in the drums can be separately tweaked.
I have tried it in Ableton Live and it works pretty smooth, you can tweak each of the pads/sounds and change up the kick or snare in a kit and this also has the ability to load any other samples you want.
8. 606 Koncept
This is another free drum kit but an analog VST drums plugin, don’t let the UI of this plugin fool you as this one has a lot of great features.
If you are looking for an analog VST drums plugin that can do it all, then this one seems to be perfect for it. I personally love how this functions.
Each drum sound’s pitch can be manipulated by using the summing pitch mixer. If you are looking for a plugin that emulates the sound of the eighties then this is your go-to free plugin.
Features:
- 606 Drum Kit
- Vinyl, tape-hiss, and sub sound generators
- Multi-pitch sum mixers
- Multi-LFO
- Reverb (Reverb)
- Highpass/Lowpass filter
- Amplitude range controls
- 3 voice modes: polyphonic, monophonic, and legato
9. AVL Drumkits
AVL Drumkits is a free drum sampler plugin that is dedicated to Glen MacArthur’s AVL Drumkit. This plugin comes with 2 drumkits which are Black Pearl and Red Zeppelin.
AVL Drumkits seems to be pretty straightforward and doesn’t have much complex functionality but it does what its purpose is set to. The drum sounds slightly processed if you don’t work on the velocity by yourself.
The plugin is available for macOS. Windows, and Linux.
10. SM Drums
SM Drums is a free VST plugin that is probably one of the best drum plugins out there, it sounds even better than those paid plugins. This plugin was created by Scott McLean, Tod Stillwell, and Suleiman Ali.
I have tried a lot of drums by now but this has to be my favorite drum plugin and I have also created a bunch of tracks with this one.
The plugin works on top of the Kontakt player, SFZ / Sforzando, and also on the reaper. The creators of this plugin have put a lot of thought and effort into this.
11. SUB – SAMPLESON
The last on the list is the SUB by SAMPLESON, this is a free Raw Analog VST drums This plugin can create those classic vintage analog sounds and also comes with an extra feature of a Sub-frequency oscillator.
This plugin doesn’t use any samples but just synthesis and because of that, it’s pretty low on size and CPU usage. This can be great for you if you are looking to create something on a low-end PC.
You can hear how it sounds and functions on Garageband software below:
Check out: Best Free Guitar VST Plugins
Conclusion
So, that sums up the best ones that money can’t buy. I did come across other free ones but the ones I saw didn’t really give me any confidence to add it to this list.
My Favorite picks:
SM Drums & MT Power Drum Kit 2
If you come across something cool or even know other free ones that need to be on this list then feel free to contact me and I will add it.
