Best sample packs of the month: May 2021

Our monthly round-up of the hottest sample releases includes club-ready sounds, vocal instruments and free loops.

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Best sample packs of the month: May 2021

We’ve scoured the Internet once again to bring you an enticing and varied round-up of top-notch sample releases for May.

This includes some genuinely epic vocal instruments, loose and funky drum grooves, chilled out loops, heavy-weight club sounds, plus some free acoustic guitar and synth sounds.

1. Resonance Sound – SOR Shhh I Am Speaking 3

Resonance Sound - SOR Shhh I Am Speaking 3

Price £27/€25.17
Contact Resonance Sound

Finding the right vocal phrase for a track can help to elevate it and create a special moment on the dancefloor. This unique pack from Sounds of Revolution offers 664 spoken and whispered vocal samples with a sultry, English female voice. You’ll find plenty of varied phrases along with a lyric sheet, plus nearly 300 individual words and 11 effects demo vocals. Samples are provided clean, but you are encouraged to get creative and stretch, chop, pitch and add effects to make them unique.

2. Loopmasters – Future Soul & Chill

Loopmasters - Future Soul & Chill

Price £25/$35
Contact Loopmasters

This deep and eclectic new pack from Loopmasters ticks plenty of boxes, with nearly 700MB worth of grooving drums, deep basslines, and woozy synths, plus keys, vocals, saxophones and more. Everything has been given a production-ready finish with effective use of reverbs, delays and pitch effects. There are some cleaner, more acoustic loops thrown in for good measure alongside a bunch of one-shots and 29 sampler patches. Tempos range from 60 to 140bpm, so you could easily use these soulful loops in a wide range of genres.

3. Toontrack – Modern Funk Grooves Drum MIDI Pack

Toontrack - Modern Funk Grooves Drum MIDI Pack

Price £25/$29
Contact Time + Space

The sounds of classic funk drums from the 70s have filtered their way into many genres. This collection of drum MIDI files from Toontrack takes that DNA and blends it with more modern styles from the past few decades. All grooves are performed by session drummer Darby Todd and include 3/4, 4/4 and 7/8 in straight and swing feel, with plenty of loose, natural rhythms and intense fills. The tracks are divided into song parts to help with arrangement, so you could build up a whole track, or just take a single loop. It’s a great way to get live-sounding drums, but with all the flexibility of using your favourite drum instruments and samples.

4. ModeAudio – Dream Days LoFi Hip Hop Loops

ModeAudio - Dream Days LoFi Hip Hop Loops

Price £18
Contact ModeAudio

Bringing a sense of serenity to our list this month, we have a smooth collection of mellow instrument riffs, tranquil synths and head-nodding drum patterns courtesy of ModeAudio. You can expect to find 459MB worth of dusty LoFi hip-hop, which breaks down as 155 loops, 107 drum samples and 85 MIDI loops. From thoughtful piano riffs and guitar licks, to deep pads, noise textures and field recordings, everything has a warm organic touch, with a good mix of electronic and acoustic sources.

5. VSL Big Bang Orchestra YMIR – Children’s Choir

VSL Big Bang Orchestra YMIR - Children’s Choir

Price £84/$104 (£57/71 intro)
Contact Time + Space

This latest VSL release captures the angelic and pure sound of the internationally acclaimed “Gumpoldskirchner Spatzen” children’s choir. They’ve appeared on countless recordings, including recent film scores for Lego Batman, Christmas Chronicles and more. This instrument includes 24 young voices between eight and 14 years old, singing AA and UU vowels as sustains and legatos, along with L, B and N attack consonants and humming MM sounds. There are also a range of microphone positions and mixer presets for creating an instant cinematic sound.

6. BandLab Sounds – Spanish Guitar

BandLab Sounds - Spanish Guitar

Price FREE
Contact BandLab

BandLab Sounds continues to expand its free library of royalty-free samples with eclectic additions. One that especially caught our ears this month is a beautifully recorded set of acoustic Spanish guitar loops. There are 99 loops in total, which weighs in at 160 MB, and they can be loaded directly into BandLab or downloaded and used in your DAW or sampler of choice. Each loop is key and tempo-labelled, with bpms of 100, 140 and 160. There’s a lively blend of plucked, strummed and arpeggiated riffs alongside a handful of useful one-shots.

7. Loopmasters – Darius Syrossian Real House Collection 2

Loopmasters - Darius Syrossian Real House Collection 2

Price £25/$35
Contact Loopmasters

House music maestro Darius Syrossian has over 20 years of gigging under his belt, alongside a plethora of releases on respected labels such as Get Physical, Drumcode, Defected and Hot Creations. He returns to Loopmasters for another pack that distils this experience into 527 MB of dancefloor-primed house loops and hits. These include pumping drums and percussion, grooving basses, acid sequences, and smooth keys and synths, all at 127 bpm. There are also 132 one-shots and 41 sampler patches in a variety of formats.

8. Loopmasters – Berlin Techno Wavetable Presets

Loopmasters - Berlin Techno Wavetable Presets

Price £15/$21
Contact Loopmasters

Loopmasters’ long-running Patchworx series continues to impress with this new release, that puts club-ready techno sounds at your fingertips. There are plenty of distorted basses, dark textures, complex arpeggios, and experimental leads to give your tracks a unique energy. Each of the 64 custom presets use the Wavetable synth as a source, but is placed within an Ableton Rack with additional processing and Macro controls so you can easily program evolving sounds. Also included are 64 MIDI files and rendered WAV files, giving you instant inspiration.

9. Zero-G – Ethera Gold Sahara Voices

Zero-G - Ethera Gold Sahara Voices

Price £51/$60
Contact Time+ Space

Add some Middle Eastern flavour to your productions with this epic sounding new addition to Zero-G’s Ethera series. This multi-sampled Kontakt instrument contains 6GB of audio that showcases the incredible vocals of Clara Sorace, who has performed with many of the great soundtrack and video game composers. The library contains over 800 inspiring and evocative phrases, with five Kontakt patches, including a Sustains instrument with 11 articulations. There’s also a Reversed Vocal Phrases instrument and a custom convolution reverb.

10. Jon Sine – Free Deep House Sample Pack

Jon Sine - Free Deep House Sample Pack

Price FREE
Contact Axsens Music

Axsens Music label owner and artist Jon Sine has released a free pack of deep house samples, made using his collection of analogue gear. There are 17 synth sounds, all tuned to C, with several octaves included, plus 60 drum one-shots covering classic 909 and more modern sounds. These can quickly be loaded into any sampler, ready for creating riffs and sonic manipulation. To get hold of the pack, all you have to do is click through the link and give Jon Sine an Instagram Follow. Bargain.

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