The Best Free Drums Sounds

Note: Analogue Drums, recommended below, may be out of business. Users are reporting issues there. You may want to contact them to see if the "Big Mono" kit is still available.

Looking for GOOD free drum sounds? How about a free sample player to play them? Finally, how about some free MIDI drum files that are 100% compatible with the sounds? In this post, I'll provide all the links and basic instructions to help get you started.

Free MIDI Loops: Click Here

Big Mono Drum Sounds: Click Here

Sforzando Sample Player: Click Here

Big Mono GM mapped preset: Click Here

Drum Sounds

First, download the Big Mono kit by Analogue Drums. Next, install the kit in any convenient location on your hard drive. There's no real "installation" to perform - you just have to extract the drum samples. The download will include presets for Kontakt and Battery. The preset you need for our GM mapped loops is linked above. These are incredible drum sounds with up to 48 velocity layers!

Sample Player

While you can use the Big Mono kit with Kontakt or Battery, the kit isn't mapped per the GM standard. The best free sampler out there is Sforzando by Plogue.
Download and install Sforzando. It includes both a VST and stand alone version and supports the popular .sfz file format. You'll find a large variety of free and inexpensive instruments in .sfz format.

Big Mono GM preset

As noted above, the Kontakt and Battery kits included with Big Mono are not mapped for GM. We've created a GM preset with a simple set of install instructions. If you haven't done so already, you can download it here.

Installation is easy. Simply copy the "Kits" folder into your Big Mono folder. That is, into the same folder containing the "Wavs" folder (drum samples).

1. Do NOT copy the "Kits" folder into the Wavs folder! It should be stored at the same level as the "Wavs" folder. (see image above)
2. Do NOT move the kit out of the "Kits" folder. You can rename the "Kits" folder and\or store other kits in there, if necessary.

Free Drum Loops

Download 250 free loops selected from 25 of our professional midi packs. This pack includes a range of musical styles from blues to Zydeco! Most our our loops are 4 or 8-bars long with 12-bar loops for blues (as it should be).

The loops are mapped according to the GM standard and will work seamlessly with the Big Mono GM preset linked above.

If your sequencer doesn't have MIDI audition, check out this blog post featuring 3 top recommendations, including links to a free version of Presonus Studio One.

If you have questions about Groove Monkee MIDI loops or need assistance, please contact us.

Enjoy!