The 10 Best Cymbal Sample Packs (Free and Paid Options)

Cymbal sample packs are incredibly useful resources. Having a diverse selection of samples allows you to create a large spectrum of different songs and tunes. Luckily, there are several options for cymbal sample packs.

Great cymbal samples can add a lot to the groove of your track. This article gives you some great free and paid options that you should check out.

This list includes real cymbal samples, processed electronic cymbal sounds, and dance hi-hats. So you’re likely to find something that will work for your genre.

1. Studio Cymbal Sessions at Splice (Paid)

Screenshot of splice.com

Splice is a musical platform that offers sound samples, loops, FX, presets, plug-ins, and informative blogs. Studio cymbal sessions are also a part of their offerings.

Not only are these cymbal sounds high-quality and clear, but they are also diverse and versatile.

The package consists of more than 645 cymbal hits, all of which can accommodate rods, mallets, brushes, and sticks. They are all amazing, unique, and different from each other.

Plus, each of these samples has a 96k sample rate, which helps maintain the sounds’ quality and clarity.

You even get a free 14-day trial and check out the website. If you don’t feel comfortable on the platform, you can pause or cancel the subscription. Talk about convenience!

2. RealDrumSamples (Free/Paid)

RealDrumSamples offers some great-sounding cymbal samples as part of both their free and paid bundles.

With their popular Line of Legends Premium Package, you get plenty of crystal clear cymbal sounds and others such as finger snaps, claps, snares, and hi-hats.

There are no fillers in the package, and you only get high-quality sounds to get going with your musical projects.

Plus, all of these sounds are categorized, organized, and 100% royalty-free. As a result, you can easily find what you are looking for without wasting much time.

Then, you can use your favorite sounds for your desired content without any legal issues.

Real Drum Samples are offering a 20% discount to our readers for any premium pack, use the discount code “DRUMADVISOR20”.

3. High-Quality-Cymbals by ltibbits (Free)

Screenshot of freesound.org

This particular pack by Itibbits contains 49 high-quality, clear, and creative cymbal sounds. Over 8000 people own this pack, and its popularity speaks for itself.

You can create hundreds, no, thousands of musical pieces with these sample sounds. You can mix and match, merge, or simply get inspiration from this premade content.

To download these sounds or the pack, create an account on the platform and log in.

Bonus fact: apart from downloading, you can also upload sounds on the platform. The procedure is the same: sign up, log in, and upload your sample pieces.

4. Designer Dance Cymbals at Loopmasters (Paid)

Screenshot of www.loopmasters.com

Loopmasters is a “sample boutique,” and you can go shop your favorite sounds there. Designer Dance Cymbals are one of these many packs available on the platform.

This collection of samples comprises sounds for almost every music genre, including house, progressive, electro, tech, and many more. The sounds in this pack include impact crashes, SFX crashes, Hi-hats, and, of course, various kinds of cymbals.

You can also download a tester pack and see how it works for you!

All of the sounds in the collection are handpicked based on their quality, clarity, and attractiveness.

Because of this “filter,” these sounds are incredibly versatile and can help create several different types of musical masterpieces. With 24Bit 44.1 kHz quality, the entire pack is 186 MB and has 300 plus samples.

5. FreeSound Cymbal Samples (Free)

Screenshot of freesound.org

Free Sound is a music platform that offers several free sound samples of different categories. If you are looking for cymbal sounds, you will find over 4,000 separate pieces and packs on this platform.

The great part about Free Sound is that it allows both downloading and sharing.

This way, the versatile content’s availability never ends, and you always have something that serves as an inspiration.

Similarly, the cymbal sounds collection on the platform is also full of various types of samples.

Each sample has a different creator and, thus, a different feel to it. This way, every piece is different from the other, and by taking inspiration from them, you can create your personalized, completed musical piece.

6. addictive drums 2 (Music Plugin) (Paid)

Screenshot of www.xlnaudio.com

This one is a little different. It’s a plug-in. XLN Audio’s Addictive Drums 2 Virtual Drum kit is a VST that offers usability, advanced features, presets, and high-quality sounds.

It has a whole library of 1000s of beats (depending on the version of AD2 that you get) that you can manipulate according to your wish to create new pieces of your own.

Using all the tools and features in the plug-in, you can tweak the present material or create your own from scratch.

7. 477 Free hi-hat samples from MusicRadar (Free)

MusicRadar has a great pack of 477 free hi-hat samples that offers acoustic and synthetic loops. It is a collection of nine folders, each with a tempo theme and consisting of different kinds of hits. These loops and hits are supposed to inspire you or act as a base for your new musical creations.

The samples are WAV files, making them easier to import into the DAW or any other sampler you like. The sweet cherry on top is that they are all royalty-free samples, so you can use them any way you wish.

8. Organic Drum Kit at ProducerSpot (Paid)

Screenshot of www.producerspot.com

Organic drum kit is a collection of sounds by Xclusive audio. Along with a positively crazy collection of 90 cymbal sounds and 90 open and closed hi-hat sounds, this drum kit features everything from snares to kicks to claps.

Plus, you get 100 authentic drum loops that you can use as inspiration. And, also, you don’t have to worry about legal issues and your rights over the samples because they are royalty-free.

You can integrate them into music videos, website content, TV programs, YouTube content, and pretty much anything else.

The file comes in a WAV 24-bit format and has a download size of 429 MB.

9. Hi-Hat sounds at SampleFocus (Free)

Screenshot of samplefocus.com

Sample Focus has 940 samples on its platform for closed hi-hat sounds, and they range from noise to fun to dry and cold cymbal sounds.

The best part about SampleFocus is its easy navigation and quick results. It allows you to choose from various instrument categories like drums, guitar, keys, bass, and many more. Choose a type, then a subtype, so that you can specify what you want. Then, the platform shows you only what you said you wanted, and nothing else.

You can even browse by genre to make results even more specific.

This particular feature easily saves a lot of time and helps you find what you need. Other drum sample sounds include claps, kicks, crashes, and several others.

You can sign up and log in to upload or download cymbal sounds or any other sounds for that matter.

10. Cymbal sounds at Looperman (Free)

Screenshot of www.looperman.com

On Looperman, you can choose from 726 different loops involving hi-hat sounds from all genres and categories.

You can search for them on the platform using a very convenient filter system. Enter a keyword that describes what you want.

Then, choose a category and a genre. You may also provide dates, member names, and BPM to be even more specific. Finally, click on “find loops” and voila! You’ve got yourselves particular results out of all the content on the platform.

These loops and samples are courtesy of other users of the platform. Thus, you must go through the platform’s terms and conditions to understand how you can use these sounds and incorporate them into your content.

Conclusion

Cymbal sample packs offer a diverse collection of sounds. Having additional cymbal packs into your library of samples is always useful. You can use their sounds in many different ways, and you never know when you might need them. That’s why it’s important to have a sample pack like this somewhere at the edge of your hard drive space.

This list includes free and paid cymbal packs, but it’s up to you to choose what you prefer. The benefit of free samples is that they are accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial status or position in life. However, paid samples typically come with better-quality sounds because they were crafted by professional sound engineers who had more time and resources at their disposal.

Mike O'Connor
Mike O'Connor

I've been playing drums for over 18 years. I work as both a session drummer and a drum teacher, and I love to share my knowledge and tips on this site. You can also find me on the Electronic Drum Advisor YouTube channel.

Leave a Comment

Leave a reply

Electronic Drum Advisor
Logo