Toontrack enlisted the help of musiclegend George Massenburg when putting together this catalog of drums. There’s everything here, from thousands of acoustic drum samples to a host of vintage drum machine sounds. Toontrack have equipped this VST with practically everything you will need to create your own real-sounding custom drum tracks. This plugin is a behemoth when it comes to sound and detail. Toontrack Superior Drummer 3įirst up on our list of the best drum VSTs is Toontrack’s Superior Drummer 3. The standout quality of Addictive Drums is the responsiveness of the samples. It contains a huge library of drum sounds, from classic drum kits of the past to more modern, processed kits. Addictive Drums 2 is in my opinion the best premium drum VST plugin when it comes to producing authentic, real sounding drums. Spanning over four decades of rock, this expansion includes in- your-face blues-rock, heavy uncompromising hard-rock and epic rock. Rock Essentials brings you the drum grooves from a time when real rock-stars roamed the Earth, and multi-platinum-selling albums and headbanging stadium concerts were a reality. The downloadable file size is 1.83 GB which is lightweight comparing to other drum VST plugins. According to the color of the sound, this instrument is more suitable for pop, rock, and ballad music. This plugin holds the tenth position in the list of best drum VST plugins at the moment when I am writing this article.
Also note that you get one compressor for each channel, plus MIDI. The manufacturer promises bass and snare drums that really cut through the mix. The main asset of this virtual drum kit is that it offers sounds that are already processed (which will be a disadvantage for some!) that can be easily integrated in a typical pop/rock production. But you need to understand that the most complex or the very expensive drum plugin isn’t necessarily the ideal fit for your needs. There is a broad collection of drum VST plugins available on the market to select from. If you plan on connecting controller kits such as electronic drum kits to the setup, it’s advisable to have a good low-latency sound card or audio interface.
Many of the higher budget drum VSTs are quite heavy on resources and so will require fast computing speeds with lots of free disk space.
If you consider yourself a bit of a nerd when it comes to an authentic drum sound then you’ll find our rundown of the top drum VSTs essential reading.Īs with all VSTs, it’s important to have a suitable setup with which to run them on.
It’s worth pointing out that it’s perfectly possible to get up and running right away with a basic drum VST and in many cases these come at no charge whatsoever. We will look at some of the most advanced and expensive drum VSTs, as well as some smaller free ones. Finding the right drum VST for you depends largely on your goals musically. This review is all about the best drum VST plugins of 2020.