The 9 Best FREE DRUM LOOPS You Can’t Use in Your Productions
Since the popularization of digital samplers during the ’80s and ’90s, the perfect drum loop has been sought after to sample and use creatively as a starting point for new musical compositions.
This formula for obtaining and using free drum loops has been one of the foundations that gave rise to genres like hip hop, drum and bass, jungle, among many others, and countless modern styles, including lo-fi. The recording technique of using one or two microphones for the drums in the recording room of ’70s productions gives us that vintage characteristic color that we all love.
At GuitarRec Online Studio, we’ve done a search for the most sampled drum loops in musical productions and captured 9 of them. We offer them for you to use (but NOT in your productions, unless you request commercial use licenses from the original owners). 🙂
Currently, the restriction and control of licensing and unauthorized sample detection systems in works are much more effective (and automatic….), and we absolutely advise against using them commercially (or non-commercially). Still, who’s going to detect that snare or kick drum sample mixed with ours in the track?
9 of the Most Sampled Classic Drum Loops (Free Download)
Here is the list of the 9 drum loops, used in countless productions, that we’ve sampled.
We know the ideal way is to use the original vinyl and sample with a vintage Akai MPC or an external sound card, but for now, we’re offering these mp3s at 320kbps quality converted to WAV for you to play with. We hope you enjoy the loops and learn from them, just like we did.
- 1. Funky Drummer – James Brown (1970) (Drums: Clyde Stubblefield)
- 2. Amen, Brother – The Winstons (1969) (Drums: Gregory C. Coleman)
- 3. Impeach the President – The Honey Drippers (1973) (Drums: Unknown)
- 4. Synthetic Substitution – Melvin Bliss (1973) (Drums: Bernard Purdie)
- 5. The Big Beat – Billy Squier (1980) (Drums: Bobby Chouinard)
- 6. It’s a New Day – Skull Snaps (1973) (Drums: George Bragg)
- 7. Hihache – Lafayette Afro Rock Band (1973) (Drums: Ernest “Donny” Donable)
- 8. Ashley’s Roachclip – The Soul Searchers (1974) (Drums: Kenneth Scoggins)
- 9. I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More, Baby – Barry White (1973) (Drums: Ed Greene)
Download: You can download the WAV files by clicking here.
Info: Each file contains the tempo/bpm (with decimals), but keep in mind that since they were played without a click track, the tempo is always approximate and fluctuates throughout the beat (blessed fluctuation!). The loops are squared as loops but not adjusted to a grid or quantized to maintain the original feel.
9 Classic Drum Loops (Chopped for Ableton Live – Download)
We’ve prepared an Ableton Live 11 session with the drum loops adjusted to tempo using warp (approximately and without altering their natural fluctuation), and each of them chopped (slices) and mapped to different MIDI notes so you can easily and quickly isolate individual sounds like snare, kick, hi-hat, etc…
The slices were automatically created, and they are not mapped to pads in the standard way (rearranging and selecting samples to your liking is up to you if you decide to use them for inspiration as a music producer online, and we insist, please read below about myths regarding the use of sampling in new recordings).
On our end, it’s still pending to extract the grooves for applying them to our MIDI drum sequences.
Download: Download the Ableton Live 11 session with chopped loops by clicking here.
Tip: We’ve inserted the Ableton plugin “Redux“, which allows us to lower the sample rate and bits, simulating the sound characteristic of vintage hardware samplers. Activate it and play with the parameters. If you use another DAW, there are plenty of free plugins that can do the same job.
Extra Info About Sampling: Myths Regarding Unauthorized Sampling and Use of Samples
Some widespread ideas and concerns about sampling and unauthorized use that you should be aware of if you extract any sample from a commercial copyrighted album (usually, the publishing owned by the label that funded the album production). Although sampling is a very powerful tool and adds creativity and new directions to how to produce a song, we must be cautious when using it in our final productions.
- “It’s just one or two seconds, doesn’t matter much, right?”: Just because it’s harder to detect doesn’t mean it’s any more legal to do.
- “I’ve changed it, it’s different from the original”: This doesn’t excuse us from having to declare that sample or negotiate with the owners of the recording if we want to use it in a release. Keep in mind that nowadays, there are many methods to detect these samples automatically.
- “I’m not going to profit from the recording”: Just because we share our music for free doesn’t give us the right to use these samples.
In fact, we’re not even sure if sharing these files is entirely legal. hmm… well, maybe it is, we’re sharing them for exclusive educational use and we don’t recommend using them in your songs or beats if you’re going to distribute and promote your music on Spotify and other streaming platforms. We hope you enjoy them and that they inspire you to find new production techniques, examine why they worked so well, and use them as a starting point or inspiration for making new beats or compositions.
If you have any doubts or suggestions, feel free to comment on our Instagram page. Oh, and don’t tell anyone! 😉
Tutorial created by Vicen Martínez (music producer, guitarist, and founder of GuitarRec.com). Follow on Instagram | LinkedIn.
