Where to actually find free sample packs
A working list of sources that give away sounds worth using — plus how to read a licence before you build a track on top of it.
Signature Sounds
Phil has built one of the most generous free archives on the web — field recordings, drum kits, percussion, ambient loops and sound effects, all released under CC0. No registration, and in his own words "100% royalty-free (CC0) — no credit required".
CC0 is the most permissive licence there is: use it commercially, edit it, redistribute it, no attribution owed. That is rare, and it is worth knowing who is doing it. Credit him anyway — he has not asked, which is exactly why it is worth doing.
CC0 · NO CREDIT REQUIRED
Search “free sample packs” and you get a wall of sites that want your email before they’ll admit the pack is four kicks and a crash. The sources below are ones that actually hold up. Some want a free account, none of them want your card.
A word before the list: free to download is not the same as free to release. Every one of these has a licence, and they are not the same licence. Read the section at the bottom before you put any of it in something you plan to publish.
Big libraries that are genuinely free
SampleRadar (MusicRadar) — Probably the largest genuinely free collection on the open web. Thousands of packs, sorted by genre and instrument, no account required, direct downloads. The recording quality is uneven because it spans a decade of magazine cover discs, but the drum and percussion packs are consistently useful.
Spitfire Audio LABS — Free instruments rather than raw samples, but the recordings underneath are excellent — strings, pianos, choirs, odd textures. Needs their downloader and a free account. If you want something that sounds recorded rather than synthesised, start here.
Native Instruments Komplete Start — A free tier of a commercial library. Comes with a usable sampler, a handful of synths and a decent chunk of content. Heavier install than the rest of this list, worth it if you work on a computer as well as a phone.
Freesound — A community database of field recordings, one-shots and oddities, contributed by thousands of people. It is the best place on the internet for a specific real-world sound and the worst place for a polished drum kit. Licences vary per file here more than anywhere else, so check each one.
Smaller, more curated
Signature Sounds — Covered at the top, but it belongs in this list on merit too. CC0 across the board, no registration, no attribution required.
99Sounds — Small, well-produced packs given away with no strings. Quality over quantity; their drum and foley collections punch above their size.
Goldbaby free packs — Goldbaby sells sample packs recorded off real hardware through real analogue gear, and gives a portion away. The free 808 and tape-processed drum material is better than most paid packs.
Legowelt’s sample archive — The producer has given away vintage synth and drum machine recordings for years. Raw, characterful, occasionally noisy in a way that works. Excellent source material if you like to process heavily.
Bedroom Producers Blog — Not a library, a filter. They have been reviewing free plugins and sample packs for years and their free-pack roundups save you the trawl.
How to read the licence in thirty seconds
Look for four things:
- Can you use it in a commercial release? Most say yes. Some say personal use only, which means no streaming platforms.
- Do you have to credit anyone? Creative Commons “BY” licences require attribution. Freesound is full of these.
- Is redistribution allowed? Almost always no. You can put a sample in your track; you cannot put it in a pack of your own and give it away. This is the rule people break without realising.
- Is there a “ShareAlike” clause? CC BY-SA means anything you make with it inherits the same licence. That is a real problem for a commercial release and is easy to miss.
If a site gives you a pack with no licence file at all, that is not permission — it is an omission. Treat it as unclear and use it for practice rather than for a release.
A note on the packs we link to
We don’t rehost any of these. Even where a pack is free, redistribution is usually forbidden, so every link above goes to the source. If you find a site mirroring someone else’s free pack on their own domain, that is a sign the site is not one to trust with anything else either.
Once you have sounds you like, the work is in what you do with them. If you want somewhere to try them out, the browser studio runs a full sixteen-pad sampler and step sequencer with nothing to install.