Free Sample Packs: The Complete List for 2021
Sample packs are the sustenance of any electronic music producer’s studio setup.
But what’s better than regular samples?
Free samples.
So, to help you out on your production journey, we compiled this massive list of free sample pack resources for you to explore. We’re constantly updating this, so feel free to send us more resources.
Let’s take a look at what’s on offer across the internet, from individual packs to entire websites. You can use these sounds in any DAW, from Ableton Live to FL Studio.
(Not all of these sources are necessarily royalty-free sounds, therefore do your own research before using these in released tracks.)
Pro-tip: don’t just download samples that fit your specific genre. Branch out, using different sounds in new ways helps to create a unique sound.
Recommended: How To Sample Music: The Complete Guide
EDMProd Free Packs
You better believe it – we have free samples which you can pick up right here, right now.
EDM Starter Kit
Our biggest pack here at EDMProd, including:
- 700+ samples
- Serum presetes
- Our best educational resources
Download EDM Starter Kit
Analog Sample Pack
We recorded a bunch (over 700) samples of analog synths and interesting sounds, from the Roland Juno-6, Roland Jupiter 8, the Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators, a Korg Microkorg and more.
Grab it for free below:
Download Analog Sample Pack
Lofi Hip Hop Sample Pack
We made this dedicated pack for our Lofi Hip Hop guide, but you can get it right here for free. It includes:
- 10 kicks
- 10 claps/snares
- 7 hats
- 7 melodic sounds
- 23 foley/fx
Download the Sample Pack
Foley Sample Pack
Grab 53 foley sounds in our latest pack, including:
- Creek sounds
- Footsteps
- Stick sounds
- Leaves
- more
Download the Sample Pack
Before You Keep Going
Now I know you’ve probably downloaded some of our packs already, and you’re armed, ready to get a whole bunch more.
But I want to talk for a second about the importance of not having too many samples. Because with services like Splice Sounds, this list of free samples and a whole lot more, you can get caught up in collecting packs and not making much music.
So, here’s a little process for trying out sample packs. Imagine you’re trialling a demo of a new plugin, but instead, it’s a sample pack.
Sample Pack Download Process
- Look at the sample pack details:
- Look at the contents – what are you getting? Make sure the pack is worth even considering in the first place.
- Many paid sample packs have a demo you can listen to. Take advantage of these.
- Free packs often won’t have a demo, so you’ll need to download them first to listen to them.
- Download the pack into a ‘Trial’ folder in your sample packs folder:
- This is especially important with free packs, where often we get trigger happy and find way too many to use.
- Even with paid packs do this, unless you’re using a service like Splice where you can choose individual samples, already having auditioned them.
- Audition the samples in your DAW:
- Start by scrolling through the folders and getting a general feel for the pack. Are the sounds on par with what you expected? Do they need a bit of tweaking and is that worth your time? Could you easily find a better pack? Etc.
- If you’re still unsure, try making a quick beat or idea with the samples. Often this can help bring the potential in the sounds out.
- Decide whether the pack is for you or not:
- If the pack sucks, delete it.
- Is it only okay? Probably delete it.
- Oh, it’s good? keep it.
- (Optional) – Delete the bad samples:
- This can be a time-consuming task and can be quite boring, but if you feel up to it, deleting the samples you don’t like from packs can help to create a curated selection of samples.
Now, you can carry on with the downloading frenzy.
Recommended: The Producer’s Guide to File & Sample Organization
SampleRadar
Possibly the first free samples I ever downloaded came from MusicRadar’s sister resource – SampleRadar. This ever-growing haven of free sounds will give you enough material to work with for a life time – curated into themed packs so you’re not wasting time sifting through irrelevant samples.
Browse the list of 68,445 samples
Samplephonics
The makers of the sample subscription service Noiiz also have a bunch of free sounds you can grab on their website. They vary from trap, to D&B, and to tropical bass. You do have to make an account, but you don’t have to pay a subscription – just an email.
Check the sample packs out here
BassGorilla
Known for their great tutorials and resources, BassGorilla has a whole section on their website dedicated to free samples. Some of them are their own packs, but some are just random ones they’ve found online somewhere. As with all sample packs, they can be hit or miss, but this will keep you busy for a while.
Check out their list of packs here
LANDR
The e-mastering service created a sister website not long ago called wavy, but now they’ve rebranded it as LANDR Samples, and it’s dedicated to free packs only. No paid options here, just free stuff.
There is a solid range of options on the site, ranging from drum loops to dirt sounds.
All you have to do, once again, is create a LANDR account. Then you get to grab as many of the high-quality packs as you want.
ModeAudio
Long-time friends of the EDMProd team, ModeAudio, have a great selection of sounds available when you sign up for their email list. £84 and 800MB worth of samples for free, to be exact.
This is split across 5 packs from granular FX to chill electronic loops, with a few massive presets thrown in too. Not a bad deal at all.
Recommended: Serum Presets: The Best Free/Paid Packs in Each Genre
SoundPacks.com
If the site name doesn’t make it clear, this website hosts soundpacks, uploaded by users. For that reason, you can get a great variety of sounds here.
It goes without saying, but you have to be careful not to infringe copyright in this situation, as the freedom to upload also means the freedom to distribute paid packs illegally.
Apart from that, this resource is a gold mine for any sort of sound, from staples to experimental.
WA Production
These guys love their free samples. Not only do you get 3.3GB of free sample and preset content when you sign up for their newsletter, but they also have a solid portion of their site dedicated to giving away free stuff packs that you normally have to join their subscription service to access.
The only catch is that these downloads are all through the Pump Your Sound fangate, meaning you have to follow them on Soundcloud. Not a big deal though.
SampleSwap
This website has some weird and wonderful sounds (being around since 2001), some are more bread-and-butter, while others are definitely a mixed bag.
One of the cool features this site offers is the ability to download ‘random’ packs, so you don’t really know what you’re getting. This way you can get sounds you might not normally pick – great for inspiration.
On top of that, if you want to grab the entire collection at once, you can buy it for $29. If you don’t like it, they’ll give you $34 back.
Freesound.org
If you’ve ever been in a situation where you need a specific sound but don’t have it – Freesound is the answer.
This sound sharing website hosts a bunch of samples, not just for music production, but also for video games, video production and foley art, and a lot more. So the types of sounds you get on here are quite varied.
Simply make an account and you can search for any sound you like. You can get individual files, whole packs or even browse a certain uploaders catalogue of sounds. Neat stuff.
Reddit Subreddits
Sample pack companies often create solid packs because, well, they sell. Everyone needs staples. Not everyone needs more obscure sounds.
That’s where Reddit comes in, offering up a plethora of great subreddits for sharing home-made sample packs. Some of these resources are for sharing packs, some of them are for sharing sample-able music.
Once again, be mindful that some of these resources could infringe copyright, so be smart. Here are a few of my favourites:
- r/drumkits – One of my personal favourites. A lot of producers upload their free kits here to download, typically containing (you guessed it) drum loops and one-shots. Great for hip-hop oriented music
- r/hotsamples – A great resource for sharing music to sample. No downloads are linked for obvious reasons.
- r/samplesforall – Any kind of sample. Music. Drum kits. Drum machines. Audio. You name it, it’ll be there.
- r/youshouldsamplethis – For obscure non-melodic samples like film dialogue and random audio snippets.
- r/freesounds – Includes free sample packs among presets and other production freebies.
- r/samplehunters – For finding samples contained in other songs.
- r/vintageobscura – Very obscure record sharing. Lots of fun.
- r/vinylcollectors – Pretty self-explanatory.
Legowelt Free Packs
Germany-based underground producer Legowelt is an industry stalwart of sorts, with a decent release catalogue and a reputation for obscure sounds.
In addition to these things, he’s also put out a number of analogue sample packs over the years, all of which sound warm and fuzzy.
Check them out on his website, all available for free
Sample Magic
Sample Magic makes incredibly high-quality samples – some of the best in the game (in my personal opinion). Anyone with a Splice Sounds subscription would know that they are constantly recommended, with their packs being available on the platform.
If you want a taster of this quality, the numerous free packs they have available should satisfy.
Echo Sound Works
A lot of great free samples (and presets) available from a solid rotation of talented sound designers. You’ll get everything from bread and butter sounds to weird and wonderful nuggets. Particularly good for that modern EDM sound, but also some stuff that’s begging to be used in fresh ways.
The Pro Audio Files
Our friends at The Pro Audio Files have a great free download from one of their blog authors, Cristofer Odqvist. You get 100+ hand-crafted drum samples, loops, effects, transitions, impulse responses, reverb tails, synths, harmonies and more.
NASA Sound Library
If you want to achieve an esoteric, spaced-out aesthetic on your tracks, why not use actual sounds from space? NASA has built a great library of recorded sounds from various interstellar activities over the years, and put them up on their Soundcloud and website.
Make sure to read the ‘sound use policy’ before releasing anything, but go nuts on these sounds.
Bedroom Producers Blog
BPB was a haven for poor producers like myself who were young and had no money of their own when starting out in electronic music production, and I still find myself coming back there today.
Not only do they have a knack for compiling high-quality free plugins and sampler instruments, but they also release their own free sample packs.
They also started a side project, 99Sounds, dedicated to their original resources.
Visit the free packs section of their site
Prrrrrrr Records Sample Packs
A personal hidden gem – prrrrrrr on Soundcloud has two free sample banks for you to use in your own productions. These are a nice variety of sounds, so you’ll always be surprised what you get, but they’re quality nonetheless.
Vintage Drum Samples by Autodafe
I downloaded a massive pack of free vintage drum samples a long time ago, and I’m not 100% sure where I got it. But this was the closest thing I could find.
You’ll get lots of 707, 808 and 909 emulations, among more obscure drum machines, which is great if you need some solid, timeless drum samples.
Lastly, this is technically designed for Native Instruments Kontakt, but you can use the WAV files on their own.
Lex Luger Drum Kit
This pack essentially made trap music. Essentially, it’s a bunch of 808 drums processed to sound snappy (the snare) and boomy (the kick, hence why some people call them ‘808’s). If you want some solid sounds for that kind of music, look no further than this kit.
Samples From Mars
Need some carefully curated, high-quality vintage drum sounds? That’s Samples From Mars’ speciality. You can find a few free packs on their website that are smaller versions of their paid packs.
You do need to checkout in order to grab them, but hey, free samples are free samples.
Neurohop Forum Free Packs
Back in the days when Neurohop Forum was around, the userbase compiled together a massive pack of bass, FX, drum and a whole lot more. If you’re a bass music producer, this is a cornerstone resource for you.
It took a lot of digging, but here are the download files for both volumes.
Gratis by That Sound
That Sound creates awesome samples that span beyond electronic music, including this free pack of 500 sounds. No matter if you make hip-hop, pop, rock or EDM – this pack will give you sounds you need.
Jonas Aden Free Packs
You might have seen a video or two from Jonas Aden before on his YouTube channel. He makes great music production content detailing his journey as a producer and does great challenges and fun music things.
He also has a selection of free packs on his website of sounds he’s made – some of which he’s used in songs that have been released on Spinnin’ Records.
BBC Sound FX Library
I love the british. And I also love these sounds.
Note that while these sounds are free to download, you’ll need to purchase a license if you want to use them commercially.
Blu Mar Ten Free Jungle Pack
Blu Mar Ten have been in the drum and bass game for a long, long time.
Here’s a collection of sounds used in tracks from 1989-1999.
Voclr.it
Acapellas are super useful tools for coming up with a hook. You can chop, pitch and process them in a number of different ways.
Voclr.it is a great place to get all sorts of free acapellas. Simply create an account and you’ll get 5 download credits a week.
Bear in mind a lot of these are copyrighted, so use at your own discretion.
Signup here and get free access
LP24
I’ll be honest, when I came across these guys, I was astounded at the amount of free samples and presets they were giving out.
They’re also doing a series called #FreeSoundFridays where they put out packs of random but quality sounds.
Diode Eins “Hymenoptera” Techno Pack
Making techno? You have to check this great free pack from the trio Diode Eins. In total, you’ll get 181 samples – not bad for $0.
Need More Free Sample Packs?
I know, that was a lot of options. But if there’s more stuff out there that we’re missing, let me know by flicking me an email at [email protected] – I’ll add them here.
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