Organic Drum Loops has released the Organic Calfskin Kit, a freeware acoustic drum kit instrument in the VST3 plugin format for DAW software on PC and Mac.
Organic Calfskin Kit is a flexible sample-based drum kit instrument. The plugin was developed using the Maize Sampler platform. It offers a range of control parameters for fine-tuning the drum kit’s sound in the user’s DAW.
See also: Reverb Releases FREE Studio Sampled Sounds Drum LibraryThe individual drum groups provide volume and pan controls, as well as the ability to be routed to a different audio output. The latter feature is handy if you want to apply third-party effects and processing tools in your DAW’s mixer.
Organic Calfskin Kit also features the global volume and pitch bend controls, an adjustable velocity curve, and a so-called “weirdness” parameter, which applies pitch modulation to the drums. Pitch modulation is an unusual effect that can make the drums sound lo-fi, unstable, or just outright weird.
It’s worth noting that the sampled acoustic drum kit was played using three different tools: sticks, brushes, and mallets.
The different articulations add tons of flexibility to the plugin, and you can use a different set of samples depending on your track. The brushed kit will work better for jazzy songs, whereas the sticks are a great fit for classic rock and pop tracks.
Even though the Organic Calfskin Kit isn’t a complicated plugin, the developers provided a set of video tutorials to help speed up the learning process. The first part of the tutorial is embedded below.
https://youtu.be/bVT9EYM26js
The developer also provided a MIDI map in PDF format. The file is located in the downloaded ZIP archive, and it can be useful if you’re planning to use the plugin with an electronic drum set.
The sampled drums sound very good and the plugin is worth downloading if you’re looking for natural acoustic drums. The only problem is the GUI size. It’s not too small for comfortable use on HD screens, but 4K display users might find it too tiny.
You can download the Organic Calfskin Kit plugin for free from the Organic Drum Loops website. Sign up for a free user account to access the download link. The plugin is a 1.1 GB download due to its large sample content.
Organic Calfskin Kit is compatible with VST plugin host applications on PC and Mac. Both 32-bit and 64-bit plugin hosts are supported. The software needs to be installed manually (extract the ZIP archive and move its contents to the VST3 folder in the Common Files directory on your hard drive).
UPDATE: Organic Drum Loops released version 1.1 of Organic Calfskin Kit. It reduces the file size from 2 GB to 1.1 GB!
More info: Organic Calfskin Kit (1.1 GB download size, ZIP archive, VST3 plugin format for Windows & macOS)
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Last Updated on June 5, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.
