SM Drums - Vintage Acoustic Drum Kit for Ableton Live

This is one of the best sampled drum kits out there…and it’s free! When I came across the SM Drums site, I was flabbergasted by how much detail and care went into sampling this amazing drum kit…it was already available there for a few other sampling platforms, but not Ableton yet. So of course, I went into action.

This 1960s vintage Ludwig drum kit (in Oyster Blue Pearl!) is owned by drummer/producer Scott McLean, and he played and recorded all the samples. Engineer/musician Tod Stillwell, sampler maestro D. Smolken, and Suleiman Ali all helped put together all the original sampler kits. With Suleiman’s kind permission, I struck out on putting all 3600+ samples into a drum rack.

In total, this Live Pack adds up to 3.7GB across 3614 samples recorded in 24 bits, and each piece has up to an unbelievable 64 velocity layers and up to 8 round robins. There are plenty of high hat articulations, several great cymbals, and multiple snares. You’ll be able to get some truly realistic drum “performances” with this rack, even if you’re just drawing on the piano roll. Although it was programmed with Sampler, it’s been converted to Simpler, so “lesser” versions of Live can still play the rack.

If you’re looking for other sampler formats, or would like to read more about the SM Drums team, or see more photos of the gorgeous kit (the closeups of the finish make me drool!), then head over to the main SM Drums site.

Compatible with Ableton Live version 9.7.2 and up