With the rise of genres like Chill Hop and Jazz Hop, lofi sample packs are a must have in any hip hop producers musical tool kit. Thankfully, there are plenty of free drum packs out there, you just have to find the one that suits you best!
Below we will take a look at what makes an awesome sample pack, and we’ll show you 6 of our favourite free lofi sample packs from the internet.
Let’s get started!
- What To Look For In A Sample Pack
- Our Picks For The Best Free Lofi Samples On The Internet
- Free Lofi Hip Hop Drum Kit from theaudioowl
- FLPSDE’s Free Loop Friday #7 Loop Pack
- Lofi Drum One-Shots from Juesswork
- Digitial Dimension Audio’s Free Lofi Drum Pack
- Asparagus Hip Hop Drum Pack from Lofi Organic
- Mondo Loops Lofi Hip Hop Guitar Loops
What To Look For In A Lofi Sample Pack
Sample packs come in all shapes and sizes but there are 3 important factors you need to listen for when choosing the Lofi samples that are right for your production style.
- Quality of samples in the pack
- Style of the sample pack
- How “out of the box” the sample pack is
Quality of samples in the pack
You’ll want to find sample packs from producers who have put time into their work. The biggest quality component to look for is the quality of the one-shot drum samples.
There are a lot of sample packs out there (especially the free ones) that come with untrimmed, low volume drum one-shots. These are not nearly as effective as a well produced, easy to load one-shot samples.
Often times producers will chop drum sounds from their sample material and leave them as is, this is the wrong way to do it.
One shots should be trimmed so the sample starts when the drum hits and ends when the volume envelope fades out. The volume of each sample should be maximized as well, we like to see our samples somewhere between -3dB and 0dB.
Style of the sample pack
To get that lofi drum sound, you’ll want to look for drum packs with a warm sound and a bit of analog dirt. Most packs should come with a variety of one-shot drum sounds like kicks, snares and hi-hats. Some packs even offer bonus effects and cool sounds you can use in your music.
If you are looking for an “all-in-one” sample pack you should look for one with some loop samples as well (there are some below). You can chop these loops into a sampler for use with an MPC style drum pad.
Again, you’ll want to listen for loops with an old analog feel, loops chopped from vinyl or cassette seem to work best.
How “out of the box” the sample pack is
A good sample pack will have a high utility factor. You should be able to download the sample pack and start creating without too much delay.
One-shots should drop into your drum machine with very little enhancement other than pitch and envelope settings.
We like to see sample packs come with drum kits rather than large folders of random drum sounds. This means less time looking for sounds that compliment each other and more time writing music.
Another downside to sample packs with a ton of samples is that you will end up storing hundreds of useless samples on your hard drive. In the past we have installed sample packs that claim “over 1GB of samples” and we only ever use 20-30 of the samples in the pack.
Our Picks For The Best Free Lofi Samples On The Internet
There are tons of lofi sample packs available for free. All of the samples below are in WAV format and work with any DAW like Ableton of Fruity Loops.
Here are some of the best free Lofi Hip Hop drum kits we could find:
- Free Lofi Hip Hop Drum Kit from theaudioowl
- FLPSDE’s Free Loop Friday #7 Loop Pack
- Roughcuts Lofi Drum One-Shots from Juesswork
- Digital Dimension Audio’s Free Lofi Drum Pack
- Asparagus Hip Hop Drum Pack from Lofi Organic
- Mondo Loops Lofi Hip Hop Guitar Loops
Free Lofi Hip Hop Drum Kit From theaudioowl
Our Free Lofi Hip Hop kit is all you need to get your next track started. If you are an Ableton user you can simply drag and drop the pre-loaded drum kit into you session. It is that easy!
What it comes with
The Audio Owl free lofi drum kit comes with 1 Ableton Live drum kit containing 16 one-shots as well as a pack of 11 extra one-shot drum samples.
Samples come in WAV format and are ready to drop into any drum machine or sampler. You will find a variety of sounds from kick drums, snares and hi-hats to vocal hits, toms and effects.
- 3 Kick Drums
- 3 Snares
- 2 Open Hats
- 3 Closed Hats
- 3 Vocal Hits
- 1 Clap
- 4 Toms
- 8 Effect Hits
- 1 Ableton Live Drum Kit
Size: 2.16MB
Pros
- Easy to drag and drop into Ableton
- Samples already fit the Lofi Hip Hop vibe
Cons
- Only comes with 1 drum kit
What we did with it
We had some fun with this one!
The first thing we did when we unzipped this pack was load up the drum kit in Ableton. From there we chopped up a guitar loop we had from another free pack.
Once we had the main loop in place we used our drum pad to play the main drum groove and recorded our midi inputs. The one-shots from this kit are already processed to fit in perfectly with a Lofi track so the drums were easy peasy.
A little bit of panning and some quick tuning to match the loop and we are good to go.
We also used one of the hi hat samples to create a short reverse riser to use during transitions.
FLPSDE’s Free Loop Friday #7 Loop Pack
This free pack from FLPSDE was a much welcomed find on our search for free lofi sample packs. The loops in this pack are perfect for lofi hip hop. Lots of noise and analog artefacts help with the degraded lofi sound. The chord progressions are slow and melancholic and played on dark pianos or jazzy guitars.
Our favourite way to play with loops like these is to load them up into an MPC style drum pad. Each pad should hit on a transient if possible. This allows you to chop up your own chord progressions using the sounds from these loops. Essentially creating something new from something old.
What it comes with
FLPSDE’s Free Loop Friday pack comes with 10 awesome loops to chop up. The loops already have the lofi feel and each loop varies in length and key.
Contents
- Plucky melody with a sad piano sound following the plucky notes
- Mellotron style pad loop with lots of tape hiss in the background
- Summery jazzy guitar loop with lots of reverb
- Sad grand piano loop with some drum fragments
- Lofi piano chords with a dark hiss in the background
- Overdriven electric piano loop with reverb and delay
- Bassy lofi piano piano riff with some vinyl static
- Sad plucky bell sounds with reverb and delay
- Lofi Rhodes style piano loop with some bass pads
- Overdriven degraded piano loop soaked in an ambience with tape artifacts
Size: 49.8MB
Pros
- Great loops for inspiration
- Loops sound great “out-of-the-box”
Cons
- No drum one-shots
What we did with it
For our demo-track we used the loop called “wurly Emin 125bpm”. We liked the dark lofi vibe the loop already had.
To make it even better we slowed the loop down, and ran it through our tape deck for some extra analog flavour.
The drum track comes from an Ableton Live pack, also ran through the tape deck.
Roughcuts Lofi Drum One-Shot Samples from Juesswork
Juesswork’s Soundcloud Channel
Juessworks Roughcuts drum kit is a heavy-hitting free lofi sample pack. This pack has all the hi-hat, kick, and snare cuts you will ever need. Samples are unique and come with a bit of tape or vinyl degradation already built in. Prepare to have some fun with this one!
What it comes with
The Juesswork Lofi drum pack comes with a total of 139 unique one-shot drum samples. Each sample comes in both 16 bit and 32 bit format so they will work well in both a DAW and a hardware unit.
Our only gripe with this pack is that the samples are not normalized or trimmed neatly. You will need to do a little bit of tweaking to get a nice sounding drum kit to work with.
Contents
- 38 Kicks
- 56 Snares
- 39 Hats
- 6 Vox hits
Size: 35.4MB
Pros
- Heavy hitting drums
- Comes in 32 bit and 16 bit WAV files
Cons
- Samples are not normalized
- Samples not trimmed neatly
- Lack of open hat sounds
What we did with it
We used this drum pack to create a heavy sounding drum loop for our demo track. The kick we used hits hard and the snare pairs with a clap nicely on the 2 and 4. Our hi-hat is also heavy on the attack to compliment the kick drum sound.
One of the things this kit lacks is a good open hat sound, we chose one that sounds more like a scrape. We had to “scrape some of the low mids out of the sample to get it sitting right.
For the growl sound we took one of the vocal hits in the pack and dropped it into Ableton’s Simpler. From here we adjusted the volume envelope a bit and dropped the pitch down almost 3 octaves.
Digital Dimension Audio’s Free Lofi Sample Pack
Digital Dimension Audio’s Youtube Channel
This is a great free pack from DDA, plenty of drums and some inspiring loops to work with. You could definitely produce more than a few tracks using the samples from this pack alone.
While these are great samples to work with, they take exactly that, a bit of work. The one-shot samples sound a little too polished for a Lofi sample pack. For example, you can hear both the kick drum and the vinyl crackle in the kick one-shots but they don’t seem to blend as one.
What it comes with
This pack comes with everything you need to produce a Lofi track. Drum one-shots, LoFi melody loops, and even vinyl crackle and tape hiss samples to layer under your tracks.
Contents
- 5 Lofi Kicks
- 5 Lofi Closed Hi Hat
- 9 Clap and Snare One-Shots
- 5 Cymbal Hits
- 5 Percussion One-Shots
- 6 Tape and Vinyl Crackle Loops
- 11 Lofi Loop Samples
Size: 52.8MB
Pros
- Comes with vinyl crackly and tape hiss background noise
- Plenty of drum one-shots to work with
Cons
- The pack has a bit of an emulated feel
What we did with it
We were able to produce almost the entire demo track with the samples from this pack. The only song element not from the DDA Lofi pack was the bass line we played.
Since this pack has almost everything you need for a track, we decided to leave the loop sample as is. We really wanted to show you a good example of what comes with this pack.
We used the drum one-shots to create the drum groove by dropping the WAV files into Ableton’s Drum Rack. From there, a bit of panning, volume adjustments and tuning and we were ready to jam.
We choose Track 2 as our loop and did not modify the sample too much. We cut out some low end to make room for the new bassline and added some sidechaining to pump the volume a little bit.
Asparagus Hip Hop Drum Sample Pack from Lofi Organic
Lofi Organic’s Spotify Channel
The Asparagus Lofi Hip Hop Drum Kit sounds just like a Lofi sample kit. We really enjoyed working with this one, the sounds mix well together, samples are crisp with some analog warmth. This pack comes with plenty of one-shots to fill your drum pads with.
Although the sample pool is good, the quality is lacking in the samples. Low volume and a poor trim job can be found on almost all of the one-shots in this pack. Maybe that’s what gives them their Lofi feel?
What it comes with
In Asparagus, Lofi Organic give you a total of 26 drum one-shot samples. All of them come lofi and this is also the only drum pack on our list that comes with Lofi 808 samples.
Contents
- 3 Lofi 808 Sub Hits
- 7 Closed Hat Samples
- 1 Open Hat Sample
- 3 Kick One-Shots
- 6 Percussion Hits
- 6 Snare Drum Samples
Size: 6.3MB
Pros
- Great sounding samples
- Lots of variety
Cons
- Samples not normalized or trimmed neatly
What we did with it
We used a lot of the samples from this drum pack. After loading up our main loop sample, we dropped the drums from Asparagus into our Drum Rack.
Kick 2 and Snare 2 mixed well for us so we used those 2 samples as the backbone of our beat. A little bit of Snare 3 was also added to give the snare a bit more strength.
We also pitch dropped the vocal sample from Asparagus for a sort of drop at the start of a bar. The reverse crash also came in handy, we ran it through reverb to create a shimmery transition effect.
Mondo Loops Lofi Hip Hop Guitar Samples
If moody guitar loops are your jam, these loops are for you. Mondo Loops gives you 31 guitar and drum loops plus one rain sample effect (for extra moodiness).
The drums are nice and dusty sounding, like a real kit recorded through some old microphones. The guitar loops in this pack come either with effects or without effects. Having the DI guitar track available to you allows you to craft your own guitar tone.
What it comes with
There are 8 guitar chord loops and 4 guitar solo loops, recorded at 2 different tempos. Each of the guitar loops have a bluesy, slightly jazzy feel to them.
The 4 drum loops in this pack sound pretty basic, lots of space, not too much going on. They could use a little spicing up.
Contents
- 8 Guitar Chord Loops
- 5 Guitar Solo Loops
- 4 Drum Loop Samples
- 14 Dry Guitar Loops
- 1 Rain Sample Effect
Size: 324.3MB
Pros
- Unique guitar loops
- Cool dusty sounding drums
Cons
- Not much variety
What we did with it
To get started with this demo, we loaded one of the guitar chord loops onto a drum rack. Each of our pads lined up with a chord from the sample. From here we started jamming on the drum pad to come up with the main chord progression.
The drum loops seemed to be a little lacking so we chopped them up as well. We isolated the hi hat, snare, and kick into their own drum pads and adjusted volumes and panning. Some extra percussion elements were created using the drum samples and volume envelopes.
We hope that you found as much value in these sample packs as we did. Remember to look for quality over quantity, style, and high utility when choosing a sample pack that works for you.
If you didn’t find what you were looking for above, a quick Google search will reveal a wealth of even more free lofi sample packs.
Good luck and happy producing!
Author: Mike P
Hi! My name is Mike! I’ve been an apartment producer/musician for 10+ years. I’ve played in punk bands, released EDM tunes on Beatport and iTunes, and have a semi-successful stock music portfolio. Read more…
