8-Bit Drum Kits 2



The audio demo above only uses drum kits from this pack. No MIDI patterns are included, and no games were sampled.

8-Bit Drum Kits 2

$29.95
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8-Bit Drum Kits 2 delivers a distinctive collection of retro-inspired drum kits, ideal for crafting authentic 8-bit music, chiptune, or adding a nostalgic edge to your tracks. This pack includes a versatile NES-style drum sample library featuring kicks, snares, toms, hi-hats, percussion, and cymbals, each carefully designed to capture the character of classic video game soundtracks.

Unlike the first pack, these drum kits emphasize the pulse/square wave combined with various types of noise, creating a unique tonal palette. This approach reflects techniques widely used in early NES games, while later indie titles adapted it to explore more creative tonal and amplitude variations, pushing beyond the limitations of triangle wave based drum synthesis.

This pack contains:

  • 61 8-Bit Drum Kits
  • 976 8-Bit Drum Samples (kick, snare, hi-hat, tom, cymbal, shaker & percussion)
  • 61 Drum Kit Patches for Native Instruments Maschine, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Battery, Kontakt, MPC Software, Logic Pro EXS24/Sampler, and TAL-Sampler
  • 24-bit, 44.1 kHz WAV files
  • 70 MB

More from this series

For more NES-style drum kits from this collection, check out:

Get all three packs together in the 8-Bit Drum Kits Bundle.



The audio demo above only uses drum kits from this pack. No MIDI patterns are included, and no games were sampled.

In the early days of drum sounds for the original NES sound chip, many games relied solely on the noise channel to simulate basic kick, snare, and hi-hat sounds. Other games began incorporating pulse waves alongside the noise channel to create "bleepy" drum sounds. In these cases, the noise served as the transient element, while the pulse wave provided a tonal component through downward pitch bends. The kick, snare, and tom sounds would all be similar sounding, with only the pitch being the main difference among them. Meanwhile, the triangle wave was typically reserved for basslines in music and only later adopted by sound designers for drum sounds (see the complementary pack, 8-Bit Drum Kits).

Over time, the limitations of the triangle wave (such as its fixed volume and lack of waveform options) became a challenge for creating more versatile drum sounds. Sound designers returned to the pulse waves, which allowed greater tonal and volume variation. By combining these with innovative uses of the noise channel, including both pseudo-white and periodic noise at varying frequencies and intensities, they crafted a broader range of drum sounds. This drum kit library includes both the straightforward and creative types of kits mentioned above.

All drum kits in this pack share a consistent drum mapping, featuring at least two kick drums, three snare drums, four toms, closed and open hi-hats, one crash cymbal, and additional sounds to complete a 16-sample drum kit. The Ableton Live kits follow the General MIDI drum mapping, matching Ableton's other drum instruments, while all other formats use the standard "finger drumming" layout for 16-pad interfaces.

Drum kit formatting provided by Uppercussion.

Instrument Patches:

  • 61 8-Bit Drum Kit Patches

Sample List:

  • 181 Kick Drums
  • 273 Snare Drums
  • 126 Closed Hi-hats
  • 62 Open Hi-hats
  • 246 Toms
  • 62 Crash Cymbals
  • 19 Percussion
  • 7 Shakers

Instrument Formats & Required Software:

  • Maschine Expansion Pack (.mxsnd), Maschine 2+
  • Ableton Live Pack (.adv), Live 9+
  • FL Studio FPC Patches (.fst), FL Studio 20+
  • MPC Expansion Pack (.xpn), MPC Software or MPC Beats
  • Battery Kit Patches (.kt3 & .nbkt), Battery 3+
  • Kontakt Library (Kontakt Instruments, .nki), Kontakt 4+
  • EXS24/Sampler Instrument Patches (.exs), Logic Pro 9+
  • TAL Instrument Patches (.talsmpl), TAL Sampler 3+
  • Single WAV files (.wav), usable in any DAW or audio software

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