Samplephonics has announced the release of Smashed Analogue Kit, an impressive free acoustic drum kit library compatible with all sampler plugins and digital audio workstations.
After listening to the official audio demo for Smashed Analogue Kit, my expectations were already quite high. But even so, I was still very pleasantly surprised by the quality of this free drum kit after downloading it and spending some time jamming with the included samples.
It’s not the best or the most versatile free acoustic drum kit library in the known Universe, but it has a very unique flavor and I’m hereby warmly recommending it to anyone in search of well recorded and heavily saturated acoustic drum sounds.
See also: Best Free Drum Kits
The pack contains 1,188 drum samples, sorted into four differently mixed kits with presets for Ableton Sampler, NI Kontakt, Propellerhead Reason, Apple Logic, Steinberg HALion, and MOTU MachFive.
Samplephonics has also provided SFZ versions of the presets, which can be loaded in freeware instruments such as sforzando and Beat Zampler (among others).
Every drum hit comes with multiple velocity layers and three round robin variations, resulting in a fairly natural sounding performance without obvious sampling artifacts (such as the dreaded machine gun effect on the snares and hats).
I’ve mentioned that this is not the most versatile free acoustic drum kit out there because the samples are heavily processed with outboard gear, so you definitely won’t be able to get a clean acoustic drum sound with the Smashed Analogue Kit.
But if you’re looking for heavy acoustic drum hits with tons of character, this free product is the bomb! I really like the sound of these tube-processed drums, and it’s also neat that both the dry and room microphone recordings are available as separate kits, which can be mixed to one’s liking.
On the negative side, the open hi-hats are a bit too short for my taste (the drummer closed the hi-hat pedal around two seconds in), and some of the presets are somewhat unbalanced (the snares are a bit too silent, the hats a bit too loud, etc.), but I really seem to be turning into a grumpy old man this year because those are just minor flaws for such an awesome free download.
By all means, add this one to your arsenal of acoustic drum samples, as I’m pretty sure that you’re going to love it. And if you want even more high-quality acoustic drum sounds, check out the spectacular 60 Rogers Pop Kit, which is currently being given away for free by our friends at Drumdrops.
To download your free copy of the Smashed Analogue Kit, add it to your shopping cart on the product page linked below and proceed to free checkout. You’ll need to be logged in to your Samplephonics user account to complete the checkout process (registration is free).
Samplephonics has recently released two other high-quality freebies called The Wizard of Mbira and Reverse Tape Textures, both of which can be downloaded from their freebies page (so yeah, definitely worth the effort to sign up on their website).
Audio Demo
Check out the Smashed Analogue Kit audio demo:
Download
Smashed Analogue Kit is available for free download via Samplephonics (262 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 1,188 drum samples in 24-bit WAV format, presets for SFZ, Kontakt, Reason, MachFive, HALion, Ableton Live, Reason, EXS24).
Last Updated on September 2, 2024 by Tomislav Zlatic.
