Free 808 Pack

This free 808 pack holds 450 tuned 808 one-shots in WAV: round sub basses, warm saturated 808s, short knocks, tape-distorted tails and flat-topped square 808s that stay loud from the first transient to the end of the note. Every file is pitched to a real note between C1 and G2, and that note is in the file name, so you can load a sample and play a bass line without tuning it by ear first.

The pack comes in two halves made two different ways. 250 of the 808s were rendered offline with the synthesis code of our UDS-16 drum synthesizer. The sound passes through the same stages the plugin uses: a voice engine, its drive and machine-character section (bit depth, sample rate and companding), the output stage, the tape emulation and the master clipper. The other 200 come from a separate 808 synth we wrote for this pack, with a sine body, a two-stage pitch drop, optional click and kick layers and nine saturation recipes processed at four times the sample rate. Every file was checked for pitch, level and length before it was named by key.

We tuned the pitch envelope against reference 808 samples. Most of these start somewhere between 130 and 260 Hz and land on their note within 60 to 90 milliseconds, which is where the knock of an 808 comes from. Tails run from about one second for the punchy hits to three or four seconds for the clean subs, with a fade at the end instead of a hard cut.

The folders are split by character. In the UDS-16 half, Clean Sub and Butter are the quiet, round 808s for melodic trap and R&B. Punch and Tape Dist push harder, Magnetic uses a hysteresis tape model, Skrt Square is the flat, buzzing 808 for drill, and Lofi Crunch drops the bit depth. Circuit Tri and Rokton come from the plugin's Soviet-inspired drum models and sound noticeably different from a classic sine 808. In the second half, Round, Hard Knock and Tube Drive cover the classics, Clipper and Multiband Grit are loud while keeping the sub clean, and Fold, FM Growl, Lofi and Kick Hybrid add character.

The files are 44.1 kHz, 24-bit, mono, peak-normalised to -0.5 dBFS. They work as an 808 pack in FL Studio, Ableton Live, Logic Pro or any DAW that reads WAV. In FL Studio, drop one onto a Sampler or the FPC and set the root note to the key in the file name; in Ableton, load it into Simpler in Classic mode; in Logic, use Quick Sampler. For long notes, turn one-shot mode off and add a short release so the tail does not click.

The louder folders (Skrt Square, Clipper, Tape Dist) are already close to full scale, so leave a few decibels of headroom on your 808 bus before adding more saturation. If a mix sounds thin on small speakers, try a Fold or Multiband Grit 808: their upper harmonics carry the bass line where a pure sine cannot.

The ZIP also includes a short read-me and a PDF about our plugins. Like every free pack here, the 808s are royalty-free for your music, including commercial releases, with no attribution required.