Don’t have enough snare sounds in your personal sample collection? Looking for new, killer sounds you can drop into your mixes?
You’re in luck, because there are plenty of snare sample packs and loops out there, and you can even get many of them for free.
In this guide, we look at the best free snare sample packs and loops.
Snare Drum Samples – 146 High Quality Snare .wav Sounds by PAV Beatz
PAV Beatz boldly declares Snare Drum Samples – 146 High Quality Snare .wav Sounds the best collection of snares on the market.
Take them at their word, or don’t. We can’t confirm or deny it. Either way, it’s a sizable collection of free snare sounds, including 808s, rimshots, claps, old school, Rasta snare, snaps, space snares, and much more.
What that tells us is that you can use this pack for organic or acoustic genres and electronic genres alike. There should be a snare sound suited to most styles and projects in this collection.
It’s free, so you’ve got nothing to lose by trying it out.
Download: Producers Buzz
HF Free Snare Drum Samples by Hinton & Fairchild
HF Free Snare Drum Samples is a collection of 30 snare samples via Hinton & Fairchild. This one is tailored toward electronic genres, and the files come in 24-bit WAV fidelity.
There are some hard-hitting, snappy snares in here, as well as some rounder impacts suited to different projects.
Download: Dance Midi Samples
FREE Mini Snare Pack by Odeholm Audio
The FREE Mini Snare Pack is a small library of punchy snares. It comes with two snare sounds with four velocities and 12 variations each – perfect for Kontakt and Slate Trigger.
Per Odeholm Audio, the processed sounds are ideal for metal productions, while the raw sounds give you room to experiment and sculpt to taste.
The two snares used were the JAPAN 5×14 Maple Snare and CALI 8×14 Solid Ash Snare. You get four articulations (hard, medium, soft, ghost), and multiple mic placements (top, bottom, overheads, room stereo & mono).
In addition to NKI and TCI formats, you also get 24-bit / 44.1 kHz WAVs for drag-and-drop ease of use.
If you want to use the pack inside Kontakt you will require the full version of Kontakt 5.5 or later.
Odeholm Audio makes this pack sound small, but it’s not – there are nearly 500 samples included in the ZIP. That makes this selection the biggest in this guide.
Download: Odeholm Audio
Free Snare Samples | Ludwig Black Beauty Snare Drum by Drum Werks
Drum Werks’ Free Snare Samples may not be top-notch in terms of quality. If anything, the samples found in this collection are experimental, because they come from Drum Werks’ extensive testing of snare sounds using minimal mic setups and differently tuned snares.
The sounds were captured with a Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum using a medium-tight setup. Some muffling was used, and the entire rig was captured using just four microphones.
Peeking inside, we found 86 snare samples labeled by the attack – crack, extra hard, hard, medium, soft, and extra soft. They don’t sound half bad, honestly.
Download: Drum Werks
Free Snare Pack – 45 Samples by Ghosthack Audio
The Free Snare Pack – 45 Samples library contains 15 snares and claps with dry and processed versions of each sample.
The samples are available in 24-bit WAV fidelity, and Ghosthack Audio took advantage of tools like Supercharger GT, Neutron, MFM2, and RC24 to process and spice up the sounds.
Download: Ghosthack Audio
Echo Sound Works Trap Snares – Free Snares For Trap and Hip Hop by Echo Sound Works
Hip-hop and trap have their own distinctive sounds, and having genre-ready snares is key to creating fire beats.
The Trap Snares library comes with Echo Sound Works’ go-to key-labeled snare sounds for modern trap and hip-hop productions.
Inside, you’ll find several unique sounds you haven’t already heard elsewhere. You can check out several audio samples on the Echo Sound Works website, so you know what you’re getting before you get it.
Download: Echo Sound Works
Free Snare Samples by StayOnBeat
StayOnBeat’s Free Snare Samples features 300+ snare sounds for an array of genres – pop, rock, R&B, house, EDM, and dubstep.
All sounds have been made available as high-quality WAVs so you can use them in any DAW host – FL Studio, GarageBand, or otherwise.
Download: StayOnBeat
Free Snare Samples by Red Pack Drums
Red Pack Drums’ Free Snare Samples pack comes with five snare types – ash, mahogany, stainless steel, walnut, and magnesium. The snares were captured using four mic positions – top, bottom, overheads, and room.
The snare samples are available as TCI files only, which is a little disappointing for anyone specifically seeking WAVs.
Download: Red Pack Drums
Trap Snares by Beat Production
Beat Production’s Trap Snares comes with the ammunition you need to fire off your hip-hop, trap, ambient, and future bass masterpieces.
The snares found in this pack were compiled from multiple drum kits, including the Lex Luger Drum Kit, Metro Boomin Drum Kit, Trap Kit, and Soulection Drum Kit. You can, of course, check those out if you want more where this came from.
All samples are available as WAV files.
Download: Beat Production
Pearl Reference Snare by PureTones
PureTones’ Pearl Reference Snare includes seven TCI files and seven WAV files – top, bottom, overheads, stereo room close, stereo room far, and two reverbed snares.
Download: PureTones
Free 80s Snares by loops de la crème
loops de la crème’s Free 80s Snares comes with 20 24-bit / 48 kHz WAV format one-shots, including 80s-style acoustic snare drums, processed samples, and raw electro snares, toms, and claps.
This is a “pay what you want” offer.
Download: loops de la crème
25 Free Claps & Free Snares Hip Hop RnB by Xylote.com
25 Free Claps & Free Snares Hip Hop RnB is just as it sounds. It comes with 25 WAV snares and claps tailored towards hip-hop and R&B genres.
Download: Xylote.com
100 free EDM snare samples by Paree Katti
If you’re looking for snare sounds suited to electronic music, you’ve found a pack that should do the trick. It includes 100 24-bit WAV snares suited to electronica, minimal, dubstep, experimental dance, and more.
The sounds were created using the CBW01 drum sound generator and processed using MeldaProduction’s MFreeFXBundle, TAL-Effects, Sanford Reverb, and others.
Download: ProducerFeed
Orchid – Premium Samples by Cymatics.fm
Cymatics’ Orchid pack comes with more than just snare samples, with an array of drum loops, hats loops, percussion loops, and over 90 one-shots. What a pain, right?
But the pack is well-organized, so if you just want to pull the snares out and leave the rest alone, you shouldn’t have any problems there (and that’s the case with other packs featured below too).
This kit is perfectly suited to pop, dancehall, trap, R&B, and similar genres.
Download: Cymatics.fm
Symbolyc One S1 Sample Pack by Cymatics.fm
Symbolhyc One S1 Sample Pack is a free artist series library, featuring sounds that take after the masterful productions of Symbolyc One, who’s worked with the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z, Drake, and many other big names you would know.
Cymatics, in fact, managed to get Symbolyc One himself to drop a few favorite personal samples into this collection. That makes it extra cool!
While the pack comes with 15 snares, you also get 15 drum loops, 13 kicks, 10 melody loops, 20 hi-hats, six bass samples, and 10 percussion one-shots. I know, how self-indulgent.
Again, if you want to separate out just the snare sounds, be our guest. But it’s always nice to know there’s more to work with when and if you need it.
Download: Cymatics.fm
“Old Town” Hip Hop Sample Pack by Cymatics.fm
Inspired by Lil Nas X and his crossover success with Billy Ray Cyrus in 2019, Cymatics put together “Old Town” Hip Hop Sample Pack, filled with a mix of trap and country music influenced samples.
As with other Cymatics packs mentioned here, this one includes more than just snare sounds – drum loops, drum one-shots besides snare sounds, melody loops, MIDI files, FX, and even Serum presets. There’s nothing to cry about here if you don’t mind the extra goodies.
“Old Town” offers 100 samples, and there are a total of eight country / hip-hop crossover snare samples inside. Is it worth it? It’s up to you to decide.
Download: Cymatics.fm
Odyssey – Edm Sample Pack by Cymatics.fm
Cymatics’ Odyssey – Edm Sample Pack is an expansive selection, with over 300 files, samples and stems all in.
To point out the obvious, the kit was developed with EDM in mind, and this library focuses specifically on drums, breakdowns, drops, and other percussive elements to fill out your beats. But it does come with a few extras, like synth one-shots and vocal samples.
Since it features 28 snare sounds, this one could very well be worth it, even if you don’t think you’ll need the other goodies included.
Download: Cymatics.fm
Humble – Hip Hop Sample Pack by Cymatics.fm
The Kendrick Lamar inspired Humble – Hip Hop Sample Pack captures the elements that make up the trailblazing legend’s unique sound.
The library is somewhat humble in scope too, with just under 80 samples. That said, nine of those 80 samples are hip-hop oriented snare sounds.
If you’re a hip-hop producer, it couldn’t hurt to get your hands on this toolkit.
Download: Cymatics.fm
Final Thoughts
Do you have more snare sounds than you can handle yet? We sure hope so.
No matter how good your beat, if you don’t have the right sounds, crafting the perfect mix will prove a challenge. So, don’t forget about other drum sounds – kicks, hats, cymbals, and more.
Have fun and let us know how you get on.