The piano is a versatile instrument. It sounds good in just about any genre, and mood wise, it can be anything you need it to be – beautiful, haunting, emotional, melodic, upbeat, or otherwise.
Starting from scratch, of course, has certain drawbacks, especially if you don’t play the keys, don’t have the necessary gear, or don’t have a solid understanding of music theory. Even if you do know your way around music theory, it can take a while to put together the perfect sequences.
Starting with samples and loops lets you tap into the inspiration and creativity that’s been captured by someone else and these creations are often processed and mix ready to boot. In this guide, we look at the best free piano sample packs and loops.
40 Best Free Piano Samples by LANDR
LANDR offers up 40 Best Free Piano Samples, essential building blocks for all your musical projects.
Whether it’s a chord or a swell, the sound of a piano is elegant, beautiful, and perfect for evoking emotion within your music.
These LANDR samples are perfect for processing, whether it’s reversing, creating loops, adding stabs to your tracks, or otherwise. When you’re thinking creatively, 40 samples really turn into 4,000 (I made that up, but the sentiment stands)!
This pack comes with a variety of piano, Rhodes, and electric piano samples, many of them dark, mellow, moody, melancholic, and chill.
The samples can be downloaded individually or as a pack. Most are key and BPM labeled for ease of use.
Download: LANDR
Free Piano Loops Sample Pack by HipHopMakers.com
HipHopMakers.com’s Free Piano Loops Sample Pack comes with 20 royalty free piano loops you can use for a variety of genres. You’re welcome to use these for personal and commercial projects.
I went ahead and listened to these samples, and what I observed is that there is a good variety of melodic, jazzy, lo-fi, and ballad-oriented loops.
Download: HipHopMakers.com
Free Hip Hop Piano Loops by AngelicVibes
AngelicVibes’ Free Hip Hop Piano Loops comes with 13 royalty free piano loops in WAV format, with BPM and key labeling.
This collection is made up of simple melody loops ideally suited to beat making applications.
Download: AngelicVibes
216 free jazz keys samples by SampleRadar
Jazz has infiltrated plenty of genres, be it ambient, R&B, hip-hop, or house. There’s just something so satisfying and calming about those jazzy chords, isn’t there? They belong in a lot of places you wouldn’t otherwise think they would belong.
But your keyboard skills have got to be up to snuff to play jazz chords, and that can be a challenge. Sequencing them can also be time consuming.
That’s where this meaty collection comes in, complete with 216 jazz influenced riffs, chord hits, and loops. For this collection, the samples have all been organized into three folders – bassline and riff, chord hits, and chordy loops.
The samples have been delivered in WAV format, and they are 100% royalty free.
And while there are obviously a lot of great piano samples here, since this is a “keys” collection, there are also electric piano, organ, and other key samples here too. Handy!
Download: MusicRadar
Orchid by Cymatics.fm
More than a mere piano sample pack, Cymatics’ Orchid features over 3 GB of content, created for pop, trap, R&B, dancehall, melodic hip-hop, and more. And yes, it’s verifiably free.
The collection is dripping with emotional, melodic material designed to capture the attention of the listener and draw them into your music.
There is, obviously, a ton of material here – melodies, drum one shots, drum loops, vocals, FX, and more – and it’s all royalty free.
In terms of piano, it’s primarily home to piano loops mixed with distorted, dreamy vocal samples. You’ll find at least nine samples with piano in Orchid.
Download: Cymatics.fm
Eternity – Lofi Sample Pack by Cymatics.fm
Cymatics Eternity – Lofi Sample Pack was inspired by the likes of Enter the Wu-Tang, Illmatic, and The Infamous.
This collection comes with two folders’ of piano melodies, well suited to jazz-hop, lo-fi, or boom bap.
The “Piano” folder comes with nine dry and nine wet samples, while the “E-Piano” folder comes with 13 samples.
Download: Cymatics.fm
Experimental Pianos Freebie by Tropics
Experimental Pianos Freebie features a collection of royalty free one shots (well, some are one shots, but some are more like loops).
The samples come in a few different keys, and there are a total of 10 files.
The experimental part is the sound, which was taken from a few different pianos and unconventional mic or playing techniques. In some cases, the post-processing is what’s a little unusual. At least, that’s what I’m picking up from it.
Download: Samplephonics
Melodic Keys Sample Pack by Biochron
Melodic Keys Sample Pack comes with multiple melodic keys samples and loops, mostly consisting of piano and organ sounds.
The files have been tempo and key labeled, and there are a total of 31 samples.
Download: SoundPacks.com
Analog Supplies Vol. 1 by Analog Cases
Analog Supplies Vol. 1 features all manner of mellotron and Rhodes chords, jazzy pianos, drum shots, drum loops, and more. As you might expect, they’ve been graced with a warm, analog tone (thus “analog”).
The sounds are royalty free, and there are a total of 66 WAV samples, ideally suited to electronic, hip-hop, and house. In terms of piano / keys, there are four jazzy piano samples, two mellotron samples, and one Rhodes sample.
Download: SoundPacks.com
Analog Supplies Vol. 2 by Analog Cases
Analog Cases follows up the first volume of Analog Supplies with another, this time a collection of 90 melodic loops and drum one shots, perfect for use with your favorite sampler.
The original collection comes with hip-hop inspired pulsating synths, house drum breaks, and deep 808 kicks. The files are royalty free.
This volume comes with a total of 34 melodic loops. There are at least four piano oriented ones.
Download: Analog Cases
Analog Supplies Vol. 3 by Analog Cases
Back by popular demand, Analog Cases offers up the third installment in the series, Analog Supplies Vol. 3, created alongside LA producer and beatmaker Brando Leslie (UNTHOTOF).
There are over 90 original melodic loops and drum samples, with even more depth – deep kicks, crisp snares, experimental percussion one shots, ambient field recordings, found sounds, and more.
The files are all royalty free, but you are encouraged to reach out to Analog Cases when you use their sounds, so they can re-post the best works on social media.
There are a total of 34 melodic loops here, with at least one piano oriented sample.
By the way, there is an Analog Supplies Vol. 4 as well, but it doesn’t seem to be publicly advertised. Sign up with Analog Cases and you should be able to download it from the “thank you” page.
Download: Analog Cases
Lo-Fi Keys Sample Pack by Biochron
With grand piano chords and jazzy electric piano loops, Lo-Fi Keys Sample Pack was recorded into a SP-404, along with de-tune and vinyl crackle effects for a vintage, lo-fi vibe.
This collection comes with a total of 22 samples, perfect for jazz and hip-hop.
Download: SamplePacks.com
TheAttic Lo-Fi Jazz Chord Progressions by TheAttic
This library comes with various lo-fi piano chord progressions, perfect for jazzy compositions. There are both WAV loops and MIDI files if you’re the type that likes to customize.
Ideal for jazz and hip-hop, there are a total of 20 samples included in this collection.
Download: SamplePacks.com
Lofi Jazz Keys Sample Pack by TheAttic
Inside Lofi Jazz Keys Sample Pack, you’ll find five compositional loops adorned with wobbles, hiss, and tape flutter. These short compositions show some sophistication with great melodies, and as expected, they do have a delightfully vintage vibe too.
Perfect for boom bap, hip-hop, and of course, jazz.
Download: SamplePacks.com
Memories Lo-Fi Loop Kit by D1EG8
For those who love Joji and Kota the Friend style beats, Memories Lo-Fi Loop Kit is sure to delight.
This kit comes with lo-fi guitars, filtered keys, nostalgic ambiences, and so on.
These original loops are just waiting to be graced by custom drums.
There are a total of 18 samples here, with most of them featuring piano, electric piano, or organ.
Download: SamplePacks.com
Vintage Organs Pack (FREE Sample Pack) by Samplar
While these are organ samples and not piano samples, organ is perfectly complementary to pianos and other keys, so it’s well worth having in your collection.
We found this one a little off the beaten path, but it is legit. Samplar’s Vintage Organs Pack comes with 15 WAV files, sound that they say should be perfectly complementary to your house productions.
They are basically one shots, but they do sound good. Click on the SoundCloud “Buy” button to get these for free.
Download: SoundCloud
Dusty Lo-Fi by LANDR
LANDR’s Dusty Lo-Fi pack features a mix of 50 lo-fi keys, crunchy piano loops, dry drums, sad guitar loops, lo-fi percussion, bass, drum kits, and more.
That’s what they say, at least, but I only counted three Rhodes oriented samples.
You can download the entire collection or listen to them and download them one by one on the LANDR website.
Download: LANDR
Smooth Rhodes by LANDR
Everyone loves the sound of electric piano, especially a classic Rhodes. With one shots, chords, and loops, this collection should do something to satisfy your Rhodes lust. There are a total of 22 files in the collection.
Download: LANDR
488 free broken piano samples by SampleRadar
Here’s a bit of a unique offering. When they say “488 free broken piano samples,” let me emphasize that word broken. This collection features scrapes, knocks, string sounds, and many other sounds a broken piano would make. In that sense, you could maybe say it’s a little “anti-piano.”
The samples are available as royalty free WAV files, and they’ve been organized into four folders – Loops, Multis, Processed, and Raw.
I could see these being quite interesting for a variety of electronic beats and even for haunting soundtrack work.
Download: MusicRadar
Where Else Can I Find Piano Sounds & Loops?
Free piano sample and loop packs aren’t necessarily in abundant supply. You might be able to make do with what we’ve looked at so far, but no doubt some of you are going to keep looking for additional files.
Here are several places where you may be able to find additional samples and loops, oftentimes as individual files, but sometimes as packs as well:
- Cymatics.fm: What’s available on Cymatics depends a lot on their current promotions. They offer both premium and free products, but they’re well worth keeping an eye on. Their sample packs usually feature multiple instruments, sometimes voice as well.
- Free Sample Packs: On Free Sample Packs, you can find a ton of sample packs curated from all over. I find their site a little busy and hard to use, but it could be worth checking.
- LANDR: As you’ve already seen, LANDR is home to a lot of sample packs, the occasional one free. There could certainly be something there we haven’t uncovered yet, so if you want to do a bit of deeper digging on your own, you’re more than welcome.
- Loopmasters: Not everything you’ll find on Loopmasters is necessarily free, but they call themselves “the sample boutique” and for good reason. They have a highly searchable website with a ton of relevant tags and categories to guide your hunts.
- Samplephonics: You can find plenty of free sample pack freebies on Samplephonics. There aren’t too many piano- and keys-oriented ones, but you might be able to dig up something we haven’t.
- SoundPacks.com: With plenty of sample, sound, and preset packs gathered from around the web. We think we dug up practically everything you can expect to find here, but you never know when they might add something new.
Top Free Piano Sample Packs, Final Thoughts
When it comes to recording projects, samples and loops are indispensable, especially for those times when you’re lacking inspiration and don’t have a starting point for your next project.
So, use samples liberally. Just be sure that they are royalty free if you plan to release the music you create, as otherwise you could get into some legal trouble, and that’s never fun.