Best Free Drum Plugins for Metal 2024

In 2024, writing a post about free drum plugins/libraries seems quite redundant. It’s so easy to find them online with a simple search that it doesn’t seem worth talking about. However, I haven’t found a real “comparison” between plugins specifically designed for metal. So? Here’s this post for you.

Table of contents

• Main Purpose
• MT Power Drumkit 2
• Steven Slate Drums 5 Free
• ML Drums Free
• Krimh Drums Free
• Thoughts and preferences
• Exclusion list

Main Purpose

Below, I’ll quickly talk about the libraries that meet this criterion. I loaded them onto a MIDI track derived from the drum track on which I wrote a couple of riffs for a “Sunday with Ola: Riff Challenge” a while ago. So you can listen to how each library sounds within the mix. The original reference track is the following (I will never apologize enough for how bad this video is!):

MT Power Drumkit 2

(Manda Audio)

It’s the oldest plugin on the list, existing for many years. Initially, it was paid software but was later released as freeware, or rather “donationware” without limitations (you’ll receive a screen to skip at each plugin start unless you donate for a license code).
In any case, it’s quite a complete plugin, with a mixer and composable loops, for free. The kit is unique and not modifiable, but the sounds are excellent. It’s probably more suited for hard rock and punk rock than metal, but honestly, it still sounds great to me.
website

Steven Slate Drums 5 Free

(Steven Slate)

In terms of “offer,” sound customization possibilities with a mixer and individual controls for each component, adding external samples, and the number of elements, it’s definitely the top of the list. But in the context of this comparison, it almost seems to falter in terms of “out of the box” sounds. It definitely needs some tweaks to make it sound great, which I might talk about in future posts (so, in another 6 years…), but if you’re looking to open a track, insert the plugin, and hope it sounds good right away, you might be disappointed. Really excellent, but it requires some time to tweak it a bit.
website

ML Drums Free

(ML Sound Lab)

The real surprise in this comparison. The free version has maybe too many limitations in my opinion, but in terms of performance, it’s truly exceptional. If you want to raise the level even higher at the cost of a bit of your time, I suggest you take a look at this video, exceptional results with little effort.
website

Krimh Drums Free

(Bogren Digital)

My favorite. Hands down. It’s aggressive, clean, and just right. It’s a reduced and “fixed” version (no mixer, no customization) of Krimh Drums by Bogren Digital, but in the context of this comparison, it stands out as the clear winner. To be fair, it’s not a standalone plugin but a library for Kontakt, even in the free “player” version, so it still remains free, right?
website

Thoughts and preferences

But how much do they “weigh” in terms of installation? Below is a table showing the size of each library. I thought it makes sense for this investigation to highlight the lightest library.

(*) not considering the installation of Kontakt

As you can see, we have a clear winner in terms of weight. MT Power Drumkit is super light.

As previously mentioned, my preference goes to Krimh Drums. Even though it’s technically not a standalone plugin and the installation of Kontakt (even in the free “player” version) might be a bit off-putting, it completely meets the initial objective: load it and it sounds great without any further tweaking. Right behind we have MT Power Drumkit, it’s simply unbeatable to have such a sound for about 100 MB.

Exclusion list

There are others. I know. But they have “cons” that led me to exclude them from this specific comparison. It doesn’t mean they’re not valid libraries, but they didn’t fit well into this context. Here’s the list with the reason for exclusion.

DFB drums: too heavy in terms of size for songwriting purposes alone (about 5GB) and not suitable for metal considering what I hear in the samples on their website.
Perfect Drums: the free version only has 8 available instruments, so 8 elements in total between shells and cymbals. That’s really too few. I tried loading the “Restrains Kit” from Panda Sound (also free and great for Metalcore productions) but the limitation to only 8 “pads” completely hinders it.
Sean Pandy Drums: this one is very particular, it consists of only shells, no cymbals, so by itself, it’s not suitable for this use case. But it can easily be used in combination with cymbal sounds/libraries, watch to believe.
The Metal Kick Drum: similar to Sean Pandy but there’s no actual plugin; you can download the samples to use in a sampler (duh?!?). Too much work for our use case (maximum laziness mode on).
DrumGizmo: almost 10 years ago, I had left a draft post precisely on DrumGizmo. I might actually bring it out again and talk about it. I didn’t include it in the list because I find it a bit less “easy” compared to others, but it’s a completely subjective judgment.

If you made it this far: Congratulations! Why don’t you leave me a comment with your preference/thoughts/insults/suggestions for other free libraries?