InstaDrums

Free, open-source VST3 drum sampler plugin built with JUCE.

Features

Sampler

• 12 pads (4x3 grid), expandable by 4
• Velocity layers with round-robin (auto-detected from filenames: Ghost/PP/P/MP/F/FF)
• Drag & drop sample loading (single files or folders)
• WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG, MP3 support
• Kit presets (save/load .drumkit files)
• Smart folder loading with name matching (kick, snare, hihat, etc.)
• General MIDI drum mapping with configurable MIDI notes
• Choke groups, one-shot / polyphonic mode per pad

Per-Pad Controls

• Volume, Pan, Pitch (+/- 24 semitones)
• ADSR envelope (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release)
• Low-pass filter (Cutoff + Resonance)

Per-Pad FX

• Compressor (Threshold, Ratio) with GR meter
• 3-band EQ (Lo / Mid / Hi, +/- 12dB)
• Distortion (Drive, Mix) - tanh waveshaper
• Reverb (Size, Decay)
• Each FX toggleable with animated switches

Master Bus

• Master Volume, Tune, Pan
• Output Limiter (0dB brickwall, toggleable)
• VU meter with peak hold

GUI

• Dark modern UI inspired by hardware drum machines
• 3D metal knobs with glow effects (orange for sample controls, blue for FX)
• Waveform thumbnails on pads + large waveform in sample editor
• ADSR curve overlay on waveform
• Carbon fiber background texture
• Rajdhani custom font
• Fully resizable window with proportional scaling
• Animated toggle switches

Building

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (C++ workload)
• CMake 3.22+
• JUCE framework (cloned to ../JUCE relative to project)

Build Steps

git clone https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE.git ../JUCE
cmake -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build build --config Release

Output:

• VST3: build/InstaDrums_artefacts/Release/VST3/InstaDrums.vst3
• Standalone: build/InstaDrums_artefacts/Release/Standalone/InstaDrums.exe

Install

Copy the VST3 to the standard location:

xcopy /E /I /Y "build\InstaDrums_artefacts\Release\VST3\InstaDrums.vst3" "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\InstaDrums.vst3"

Sample Packs

The plugin ships without samples. Recommended free sample packs:

• Salamander Drumkit (CC0, acoustic, multi-velocity)
• Free Wave Samples (royalty-free)
• Samples From Mars (free drum machine kits)

Tech Stack

• Language: C++17
• Framework: JUCE 8
• Build: CMake + MSVC 2022
• Audio DSP: juce::dsp (IIR filters, Compressor, Reverb)
• Font: Rajdhani (SIL Open Font License)