Best Hiphop Vst Free
Although we have all the tools we need to produce extremely clean and precise music without any unwanted artefacts there’s something about the imperfections of analog recording equipment that triggers certain emotions in us.
So if you want to produce lofi music it’s important to pick the right sounds and samples from the start. You could, for example, sample old vinyl records or buy an old drum machine. It would however be easier to just get your hands on a decent LoFi House or Hip Hop sample pack.
Best Sounding Hip Hops VST Plugin. Hip-hop is by far one of the most popular genres of music. It is also a great genre for true artists who want to produce their own music at home.
- It’s remarkably easy to use, and it’s among the cheaper modules on our list of the best VST plugins for hip hop. Addictive Drums 2 The AD2 is a dedicated beat-maker VST that offers fine-tune programming and presets, electronic and acoustic drum kit colors, and a variety of straightforward percussion FX tables.
- Another huge free Hip Hop sample pack collection for you! We’ve scoured the web to find some of the best sample packs available. The collection includes over 1500 samples, Hip Hop drum loops, Hip Hop melodies, 808 basses and many more different styles of Hip Hop samples.
- The MFreeFXBundle contains 30 free VST plugins. They range from workhorse tools like a compressor and EQ, to less common effects like a ring modulator, flanger, and oscilloscope. If you’re looking to fill some holes in your plugin library, this is a great place to start.
Once you have a selection of cool sounds & samples you can further refine your music to sound like it was recorded a few decades ago. Luckily there are plenty of cool lofi plugins available so you don’t have to actually own an old tape machine. Here are some of the best options:
Free LoFi Plugins
I want to start this list with a bunch of free lofi VSTs, because I know that a lot of producers are one a budget, especially when they’re still going to school (or music is their only income lol). That said, you don’t always have to spend money to get some quality software. The freeware in this list can easily compete with some of the paid stuff I’ll mention later on.
BVKER LoFi Rack
The “LoFi Rack” is a free Ableton Rack based on Live’s stock plugins. It comes with 8 macros allowing you to decrease the band width, add vinyl crackles, detune and distort the source sound. Unfortunately it’s only available for Ableton Live users, so if you’re using another DAW you have to pick some of the other options in this list. If you’re using Ableton however, hop on my newsletter and I’ll send you a free download link.
iZotope Vinyl
As the name suggests, iZotope’s “Vinyl” is a plugin emulating the characteristic imperfections of vinyl records. Since the freeware only comes with a handful of parameters it’s easy to use and setting it up won’t take much time. What I love the most is that you can adjust the year of your “recording”. A must have for every lofi producer if you ask me.
Spitfire Audio Labs
Labs is a free software instrument made by the London based sound design company Spitfire Audio. There are several extensions available, including pianos, brass, choirs and synths. Most of these instruments are rather unique and therefore a nice addition to the basic instruments libraries you probably already own. The cool part about Labs is that it comes with only a handful of parameters so you won’t spend 10 years trying to get everything perfect. The sound either fits your production or not.
Tritik Krush
Tritik’s Krush is an effect plugin with 3 different distortion types. A bitcrusher , a downsampler and an analog drive knob. It further comes with 2 filters and an LFO that can be used to modulate every parameter. It’s available for both Windows and Mac in VST, AU and AAX format so really everyone can get their hands on this.
HY-Lofi2
This one is a free bit quantizer, waveshaper & filter plugin made by Tadashi Suginomori from HY-Plugins. It’s meant to process “audio to give it a low fidelity sound”. Just like Krush it combines different distortion modes with high and low-pass filters. More precisely it has one drive knob and a quantizer, which can run in different modes and qualities.
Legowelt Ableton Racks
Legowelt is a dutch producer known for releasing samples from analog hardware units, but you’ll also find some Ableton Racks on his website, including the Smackos Tape Station, the Smackos Lemuria Vintage Sampler Simulator, the Smackos 808 Simulator and the Smackos Amiga 909.
Sound-Base Audio Retro Boy
The Retro Boy is a Windows only VST synth. It comes with one oscillator, 7 waveforms and controls for ADSR, vibrato and decimation, which makes it perfect for Chiptune or 8-bit music. Since there isn’t much processing going on, the synth is quite CPU-friendly.
Best LoFi Plugins
Although you can definitely do some cool stuff with the freeware I mentioned so far there are some paid options no lofi producer should miss out on. A lot of them do more or less the same thing so in the end it’s up to personal preference (and budget), which ones you should get. Luckily most of these plugins aren’t that expensive compared to some of the stuff by other brands.
XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color
Probably the most hyped plugin of this list is the R-c20 Retro Color by XLN Audio. It combines 6 different effect units, including noise, wobble, distort, digital, space and magnetic. Combining these options basically allows you to recreate any lofi characteristic you could possibly think of. If I could only pick one plugin of this list I’d probably go for this one, since it comes with the most features.
Baby Audio Super VHS
Considering that Baby Audio is a rather new plugin company, their products already gained quite much attention. Super VHS again combines multiple effects, including a distortion unit, a retro sounding VST reverb and detune knob labeled “drift”. All knobs sound surprisingly good and I really dig the design.
D16 Group Decimort 2
Decimort 2 is a bitcrusher on steroids. It offers two optional anti-alias filters, adjustable jitter, two quantization methods and controllable dithering. If you’re looking for a cool bitcrusher, this is definitely the one you should get your hands on. With less than 50 bucks it’s also pretty affordable.
AudioThing Vinyl Strip
The Vinyl Strip is just like RC-20 a multi-effect plugin consisting of 6 different modules: Distortion, Compressor, Bit Crusher, Tilt EQ, Vintage Reverb, and something they call Vinylizer. In contrast to most plugins mentioned in this list, you can change the signal flow simply via drag-n-drop. On their website is stated that you can activate your license without an internet connection, which is pretty cool if you still live in a cave 😉
Devious Machines Texture
Texture is a plugin I just recently found out about watching Virtual Riot’s production workshop he did for Cymatics. It allows you to add noise to any kind of source sound. The cool part is that unlike similar effects you can even load your own noise samples and can adjust the exact frequency range, amount, ADSR and stuff like that.
Cableguys ShaperBox
When it comes to beat making, there’s one plugin every FL Studio user slaps on their melodies: Gross Beat (you’ll find plenty of memes about this). The problem is that it can’t be used in other DAWs (at least on Mac). This is where the Cableguys come into play. Their ShaperBox combines different effects that can all be modulated. The Time one is especially interesting for lofi producers, because it allows you to play back your melodies in halftime, add cool pitching effects and mix everything in with the dry signal.
Initial Audio Analog Pro
Analog Pro is once again a plugin meant to bring your digital audio tracks to live by simulating analog hardware. It comes with a variety of adjustable controls, including Noise Level, Noise Type, Impulse Type, Impulse Mix, Emphasis, Stereo, Lowcut, Highcut, Wow, Flutter and Amount. While I’m writing this the plugin is on sale for €26.10 (which is 64% off) so feel free to check out if this offer is still available.
Aberrant DSP SketchCassette
SketchCassette is a VST inspired by 4-track cassette recorders. It comes with most features the other plugins in this list have. Since it’s however available for only $20 it’s particularly interesting for producers on a tight budget.
Goodhertz Wow Control
Wow Control focuses on the weird and random modulations of analog playback devices. According to their website Goodhertz has carefully studied the essence of three different tape machines to make sure their plugin is the most comprehensive tape model they ever heard. I haven’t tried it out to be honest, but there are some videos about it on YouTube so feel free to check them out if you’d like to learn more about it.
PSPaudioware VintageWarmer2
The PSP Vintage Warmer is a tool simulating the saturation of analog compression / limiting. It comes with classic compression controls, such as knee or release time, and since it can run in multiband mode you can further control the individual bands a bit. In contrast to most usual compressors it comes with a big drive knob. Since it also comes with a mix knob you can drive the compression / saturation quite hard and mix it in just a bit to make your drums or vocals or whatever a bit fatter.
Wavesfactory Cassette
According to Wavesfactory’s website “Cassette is an audio plugin that imparts the unique character and sonic imprint of an often maligned recording medium”. You can also get your hands on their free Cassette Transport plugin, which “simulates the sound of tape speeding up and slowing down”. Or with other words: it’s a pretty cool tape stop plugin.
Psychic Modulation EchoMelt
Echomelt is “designed for adding character, texture and warmth to your sounds”. It doesn’t look that stunning, but it comes with an echo and chorus unit, which sets it apart from the other options in this list.
Aphex Vintage Exciter
The Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter by Waves is modeled on a tube-powered hardware unit. It allows you to increase high frequencies without raising the level too much.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are plenty of lofi plugins available that make your productions sound like they were recorded with a toaster (or something like that). The free offers, especially Vinyl and Labs are no brainers, since .. well, they’re free, so make sure to download them straight away if you haven’t done so yet 😉
One of the most important tasks while making beats is picking the right drum samples. Fortunately there are countless free drum kits available on the internet. I spent hours finding + downloading them and finally came up with this list of the best picks.
Most of these packs are particularly made for Trap or Hip Hop, but they can definitely be used for some other styles as well (like Pop or LoFi for example).
Let’s get right into it!
Free Trap Drum Kits
The following kits are suitable for Trap. No matter if you’re searching for classic 808 drum kits or packs that fit modern productions. You’ll definitely find something cool in here!
Drillers – UK Drill Drum Kit
The Drillers Kit is our take on UK Drill. It’s filled with dark melodies, MIDI files, drum shots and sliding 808s, suitable for all kinds of Drill music.
Drip Kit – Metro Boomin Drum Kit
Metro Boomin is without any doubt one of the greatest beat makers of our time. The Drip Kit contains 100 one shots and tuned 808s inspired by his most successful productions.
Bad Kit – Wheezy Drum Kit
If you’re looking for dirty 808s, oversaturated claps or crispy hi hats the Bad Kit is probably the right choice for you. It’s inspired by Wheezy’s best known productions, including “Yes Indeed” or “Going Bad”.
Born Kit – Pierre Bourne Drum Kit
For fans of Pierre Bourne or Playboi Carti the Born Kit is the right choice. You’ll get 100 royalty-free drum one shots, key-labeled 808s and a bunch of cymbals.
Chaos – Trap Samples
Chaos is our biggest free trap pack. It’s literally filled with everything you need to produce beats, including drum samples, drum loops, melody loops and matching MIDI files.
Free Drum Kit Download 2020! by TheKitPlug
According to The Kit Plug this pack has been made by Multi-Platinum Music Producers. All samples are in .WAV format, which means that it works with every DAW.
Free Drum Samples & Drum Kits by ProducersBuzz
50 free FL Studio sound packs designed for hip-hop and trap music producers.
Andromeda by Kyle Beats
Kyle Beats is one of the biggest YouTubers in the whole beat making game. Andromeda is filled with a total of 95 high-quality sounds including 808s, drums, real guitar loops & vocal chants.
DrumStar Vol.3 by FabeStar
DrumStart Volume 3 comes with over 300+ loops and one shots that can be used for Trap or R&B. If you want to learn more about this one click on the link and watch the demo on YouTube.
FL4ME Trap Drum Kit by prodbyaido
Another free drum kit filled with 15 808s, 10 claps, 5 crashes, 20 FX, 5 open hats, 20 hihats, 10 kicks, 10 percs, 10 snares and 10 loops.
Trap Drum Kit by Sumeenk
The cool part about this kit is that it not only contains drum sounds. It further comes with 6 reese bass samples, vocal chants and some really cool sound effects.
The Blue Diamond Kit by Loopcrate
The Blue Diamond Drum Kit has everything you need, including crispy drums, one shots and melodies in wave format, that can be dragged right into your DAW.
Summer Walker x Bryson Tiller Drum Kit
This kit contains more than 130 sounds and is the perfect pick for every trapsoul or R&B producer. In addition to the drum sounds this one also comes with some cool ambiences.
August 2020 Trap Drum Kit by Hipstrumentals
This Trap drum kit by Hipstrumentals contains 300+ drum shots and has been released in August 2020. As a bonus they included some pretty interesting bonus drums.
50+ Free Packs by FreeDrumKits.net
This is probably the biggest collection in this list. 50+ downloads inspired by artists including Murda Beatz, Blvnt$, JetsonMade, Zaytoven, Young Chop & Wiz Khalifa.
Free Sound Kits by The Producer’s Plug
Plenty of free sound kits, loop kits and preset banks by The Producer’s Plug. They also offer some interesting artist packs you might want to take a closer look at.
Deep Trap Freebie by Samplephonics
This freebie from Samplephonics comes with a bunch of samples taken from their premium library “Deep Trap”. The full version contains 198 lush beat loops and samples in 24 bit.
FourOneSix Drum Kit by TopSounds
24 kicks, 16 snares, 12 claps, 22 hats, 18 percs, 13 808s & 10 original vox loops by TopSounds – all in the style of OvO and Toronto Artists.
Car Drum Kit by Kimbo Beatz
Download the Car Drum kit and instantly access 50 unique drum samples, including snares, snaps, hi hats, effect sounds, kicks + mixed percussion.
Best Vsts For Hip Hop
Free Lex Kit by Hex Loops
24 one shot samples inspired by world famous Trap producer or beat maker Lex Luger.
808 Trapstep Vol. 1 by TriSamples
This one is definitely one of my favorite packs. I already downloaded it years ago when it initially came out and I’ve been using it on a regular basis since this day.
808 Trapstep Vol.2 by TriSamples
Just like Volume 1, this is one is without any doubt a great freebie. The download has a size of 162.9 MG and it contains more than 400 files in total.
Desiigner Panda Trap Samples by Free Beats & Samples
Desiigner’s “Panda” was a huge hit when it came out a few years ago. This pack includes over 20 free trap drum loops, drums, synths and Desiigner type vocal samples.
Energy Drumkit by The Highest Producers
The Energy Drumkit by The Highest Producers comes with 39 free to download drum sounds you can pick for your next Trap or Rap beats.
Fornuto Zone 6 Drum Kit by Producergrind
21 essential drum samples inspired by Zone 6 East Atlanta rappers & the producers that have crafted their sounds. You can preview some of the sounds on the pack’s webpage.
Straight From The Trap Drum Kit V1 by C-Ram Beats
“Straight From The Trap” is a freebie by C-Ram beats, which includes heavy 808s, brass stabs, clean & punchy kicks, trap snares, mixing presets, tags, FX and more.
Warm 808 Bass Samples by Your Local Musician
This FREE Warm 808 Bass Samples pack contains 500 royalty-free 808 sounds giving you everything you need to be able to make smooth Hip Hop, Future Bass, Trap, and more.
Free Hip Hop Drum Samples
Although Old School Hip Hop and Boom Bap aren’t as popular as they used to be anymore it can still be cool to play around with some old vinyl loops or vintage drum samples.
Lunar – Lo-Fi Hip Hop Sample Pack
Lunar is packed with 100+ royalty-free loops and samples taken from our upcoming project “Afterlife”, which will be filled with over a thousand total files for lo-fi hip hop.
Urban Drum Samples by SoundPacks.com
This library has been made by the founder of SoundPacks.com. It’s packed with 316 samples, including drums, 808 kicks and 18 sfx. The zipped size is 37,6 MB.
Classic Hip Hop Break Loops Vol. 1 by TheSample.net
This pack contains 50 drum loops that have been sampled from real songs. Keep in mind that you may need to get these samples cleared if you want to use them in your commercial productions.
Free Vinyl Drum Kit by ProducerSpot
Missing that vintage vinyl crackle vibe in your productions? ProducerSpot supplies 39 MB of vintage claps, snares, kicks, percs and drum loops.
Classic Reborn Boom Bap Kit by JGBeats
The Free East Coast Drum Kit “Classic Reborn” by JGBeats contains 222 high quality drum sounds including extraordinary vinyl breaks and one hitters. It’s a great choice for old school, east coast or boom bap beats.
1st Aid Kit by Beats 24-7
Free Rap Vst Plugins
The guys from Beats 24-7 are giving away the “1st Aid Kit” for free to say ‘Thank You’ for continued support! It contains one shot samples and presets for 3x Osc & FL Studio.
Free Hip Hop Drum Samples by R-Loops
A collection of 349 sounds inspired by Hip Hop musicians like Drumma Boy, Scott Storch or Timbaland. They’re all licensed as royalty-free.
Hip Hop Sound Kits by Just4Beats
If you’re searching for some old school sound kits, inspired by rappers like 2Pac, Big Sean, Dr. Dre, DMX you should check out the website from Just4Beats.
Boom Bap Addict Soundkit by Hipstrumentals
A huge Boom Bap sound kit with almost 200 kicks, snares, hihats and some mixed sounds.
Free Drum Machine Kits
A lot of Pop or Hip Hop artists like Post Malone or The Weeknd started using sounds from classic drum machines again in their songs. Here’s a collection of the best ones I could find.
Free 909 Sample Pack
210 drum shots and loops processed in different ways to fit both lo-fi or modern production styles. All drum loops have been made using the 909’s famous groove. Enjoy!
Yamaha DD-8 Drum Sample Pack by Bedroom Producers Blog
If you’re lookin’ for something different you might like this pack of samples from the Yamaha DD-8 toy drum machine. Here are 28 files in 16-bit WAV format for you.
Free Drum Samples by Samplefino
Hip Hop Vsts
60 free drum hits, taken from Samplefino’s premium packs Analogue Drum Samples and Analogue Kick Drum. All 100% royalty-free.
Analog Kick Pack by Rekkerd
65 free kick drum samples that have been released via Rekkerd. They’re based on the Jomox MBase 01 drum machine and have been recorded with an RME audio card in 24 bit quality.
Drumbrute Kicks by Beat Production
A bunch of kick samples made with Arturia’s Drum brute and processed through analog equipment, such as the Elysia Karacter, X-Filter or Xpressor to refine the sound.
Final Words
As you can see, the amount of free drum kits you can find online is insanely high (and there are way more packs than the ones from this list). If you don’t want to miss out on upcoming posts feel free to join my Inner Circle. You’ll get plenty of free sample packs, Serum presets, some helpful PDFs + updates whenever I release another piece of content.