The Best Drum VSTs

Drum VSTs have become essential tools for producers, composers, and musicians looking to create realistic, high-quality drum tracks in the digital realm. Whether you need acoustic drum kits, electronic beats, or deeply customizable percussion, the best drum VSTs offer incredible sound quality, flexibility, and workflow integration. From lifelike sampling to advanced MIDI programming, these plugins can bring your drum tracks to life.

Now it’s your turn to weigh in! Cast your vote for the best drum VSTs and share your experiences in the comments. Whether you have a go-to plugin or recommendations for others, your input can help fellow creators find the perfect drum software for their projects.

1. Toontrack EZdrummer 3

Toontrack EZdrummer 3

Offers seven high-quality complete drum sets and six cymbal sets.
Additional kicks, snares and cymbals as well as supplementary percussion library.
MIDI library recorded by professional drummers with over 2500 grooves and fills.
Timeline arranger for creating complete drum tracks incl. recording.
Integrated grid editor, step sequencer and intelligent humanize functions.

2. Toontrack Superior Drummer 3

Toontrack Superior Drummer 3

Over 230 GB of natural drum samples without effects.
6 drum kits by Ayotte, Gretsch, Pearl, Premier, Ludwig and Yamaha as well as additional Snares, Kicks and Cymbals.
Additionally about 350 electronic drums as well as percussions.
Integrated groove sequencer with grid editor.
Scalable mixer with 35 effects such as filter, equalizer, compressor, gate, transient processing and detailed adjustable bleed between the channels.
Professionally drummed MIDI library with 1640 grooves and fills.

3. Native Instruments Studio Drummer

Native Instruments Studio Drummer

Three detailed, high-quality studio drum kits.
The Stadium Kit: Pearl Masters Premium Maple.
The Session Kit: Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute.
The Garage Kit: Sonor SQ2 Drum System.
Integrated mixer with control over the individual signals, overheads, room microphones and the snares' top and bottom microphones.
Integrated effects: EQ, compressor, transient designer, band saturation and convolution reverb.
Over 35,000 samples in 44.1 kHz and 24 bit.
Contains over 3,300 reworkable grooves, each with fills and variations.

4. Steven Slate Audio Trigger 2 Platinum

Steven Slate Audio Trigger 2 Platinum

Large library with Steven-Slate drum samples included.
Phase multi-layer triggers.
Each plugin instance allows seamless and timed triggering of different samples.
Velocity zones, dynamic control, envelope curves and other parameters of the multisamples can be customised.
Supports audio MIDI conversion.

5. Steven Slate Drums SSD5

Steven Slate Drums SSD5

Simple routing and mapping system.
Playback algorithms based on physical modelling.
More than 100 drum kits from various music genres.
Features 111 Snares, 103 Kicks, 115 Toms, 16 HiHats, 49 Crash Cymbals, 10 Ride Cymbals, 3 Splashes and 5 Chinas.
Drum kit or pad cell view with up to 32 drum instruments.

6. AIR Drum Synth 500

AIR Drum Synth 500

Individual editable channels for kick, snare, hi-hats, clap, toms, percussion as well as 2 additional sampler channels with WAV import function.
Random function allows you to create new electronic drum sounds.
MPC Full Level and Note Repeat function per instrument.
3 Ddistortion effects, filters and compressor as well as 2 reverb and 2 delay sends per instrument.
Master channel with saturation effects, reverb, delay, compressor and kill EQ.

7. AIR Strike 2

AIR Strike 2

An easy way to produce professional, highly realistic drum performances.
Control intensity, complexity, timing, groove, dynamics, and more for an incredibly organic sound.
Control room ambience, microphone levels, mic bleed, EQ, dynamics, and much more.
Dedicated EQ and two insert effects/processors per channel.
Effects and processors include: dynamics, distortion, filtering, modulation, delay, reverb, and more.
MIDI Learn functionality allows easy mapping to MIDI controllers.

8. BFD BFD3

BFD BFD3

7 drum kits recorded in 2 studios.
Includes brush kits and sets that are optimised for Rock, Metal, and Jazz.
Modeling of tom resonances and cymbal rolls.
Integrated mixer and effects including eight-band EQ, reverb, DCAM EnvShaper, distortion, etc.
Wide selection of presets and grooves.

9. EastWest PRODrummer 1 & 2

EastWest PRODrummer 1 & 2

Offers recordings from five different rooms with over 100 GB of samples of drums and cymbals from Craviotto, Drum Workshop, Gretsch, Ludwig, Orange County, Slingerland, Tama, Yamaha, Istanbul and Zildjian.
Integrated 16-channel mixer with bleed function and room miking.
Integrated SSL effects with filter, EQ, compressor, gate and transient shaper as well as stereo bus compressor.
Includes convolution reverb, Ohmicide multiband distortion and amp simulation.
Songbuilder sequencer allows the creation of complete drum arrangements within the software.

10. IK Multimedia Modo Drum

IK Multimedia Modo Drum

13 Editable drum sets.
Over 1400 MIDI patterns.
8 Room simulations based on impulse responses.
19 Studio effects.
Detailed parameter set for each instrument in the set, such as diameter, height, cymbal, stroke position, etc.
Adjustable tuning for exact adaptation to the mix.
Optimise grooves with adjustable damping.
Snare adjustable in size and head tension.

11. Klevgrand OneShot

Klevgrand OneShot

Comes with a large collection of acoustic and electronic drum sounds with over 8000 carefully created samples from different styles and regions.
Realistic drum sounds thanks to velocity layers, round-robin samples, humanise function and choking.
Up to 24 instrument slots can be used simultaneously.
Each slot offers its own settings for volume, panorama, pitch, insert effects, send effects and much more.
Contains numerous additional effects such as EQ, compressor, reverb, delay, distortion, bitcrusher and many more.
Over 200 ready-to-play presets in many different acoustic and electronic styles.

12. Klevgrand Slammer

Klevgrand Slammer

Easy-to-use drum plug-in with 30 different drum sounds to choose from.
12 parallel slots with many individual settings like pitch, filter, envelope, effect send etc.
Dirt section with distortion and compressor.
Complementary reverb effect.
Lots of presets for a quick start.

13. Steinberg Groove Agent 5

Steinberg Groove Agent 5

Large selection of percussion instruments.
Over 1000 MIDI grooves from a wide range of styles.
Over 130 kits for electronic music.
Live sampling function allows direct sampling on the pads.
Easy creation of own kits Drag & drop of samples.
32 Velocity layers for very dynamically playable sounds.
Suitable for different genres such as rock and pop, jazz and funk or trap and EDM.

14. WaveMachine Labs Drumagog 5 Platinum

WaveMachine Labs Drumagog 5 Platinum

Advanced triggering engine for accurate detection of hi-hat articulatory ions.
Auto Align 2.0 to avoid phase problems.
Integrated drum synthesizer and convolution reverb.
Direct use of VST instruments in Drumagog 5 Platinum.
6 GB of samples included.

15. XLN Audio Addictive Drums 2.5 Custom Collection

XLN Audio Addictive Drums 2.5 Custom Collection

Includes Addictive Drums 2 with 3 freely selectable ADpaks, MIDIpaks and Kitpiece Paks each.
18 Kit-piece slots.
Kitpiece controls for detailed sound design.
4-Band EQ.
Compressor and Distortion.
2 Reverb processors with delay and EQ.

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