Song Starters: 10 Sample Packs for Starting Your Songs
Inspiration can be tricky to come by sometimes, but song starters are great for solving this common problem.
Sometimes getting the creative juices flowing is just a matter of hearing the right riff, the right beat, or the right vocal.
This is where song starters come in handy. Let’s explain what they are and run through some of our favorite ones.
What is a song starter?
A song starter is any sound, sample, loop, or sample pack that can serve as a source of inspiration or a structural building block for producing a song. They provide you with a solid enough musical idea to build your own song around, or even the main musical hook.
Song starters can stay in your finished song (as long as you have the necessary rights), but they don’t necessarily have to.
The important part is that they’re developed and catchy enough to spark your creative process.
Now that you have a handle on what a song starter is, let’s take a look at some of our favorites across various genres.
1. Song Starter Vol. 6
This pack from Roundel Sounds offers a wide range of material for getting your songs started.
It’s pretty versatile in terms of genre, but we think it’s strongest if used as a general-purpose starter pack for pop and EDM.
From guitars and vocals to synth pads, drums, and percussion, there’s plenty to work with.
We recommend sketching out ideas with Creator, it’s a great way to get a sense of which sounds will inspire you most.
2. Synthpop Song Starters
With its infectious synth hooks and simple yet powerful rhythms, synth pop has been having a big moment lately.
Whether you already work within the genre or want to explore it for the first time, this pack from Bingoshakers offers an excellent selection of song starters.
When trying it out for ourselves, we found it surprisingly easy to get an iconic anthem going. As far as quick inspiration goes, we think it offers tons of mileage.
3. The Starter Pack
Sometimes it can feel a bit limiting to stick with a set of song starters that are too genre-specific.
If this resonates with you, then this pack from Diginoiz is well worth exploring.
We think it’s excellent as a general-purpose production toolkit, but it’s most suitable for pop, hip-hop, trap, and R&B.
It’s especially strong in the department of melodies and string sounds, so if that sounds like your style, you should definitely dive in.
4. Songstarter Vocals
This collection offers a small but powerful selection of vocal samples that make excellent song starters. They’ve been handpicked by us from a wide range of existing packs.
In fact, given their emotional quality, we think vocals are one of the best types of sounds to inspire the production process.
Whether you creatively chop them to generate captivating hooks or simply use them straight up, these are well worth trying out.
5. Songstarter Guitar Progressions
We absolutely love a good guitar riff. It can pretty quickly take you from “I’m out of ideas” to “which idea should I start with?”
For this collection, we put together a number of guitar chord progressions from various packs, focusing on the strength of their songwriting utility.
The collection is pretty diverse in terms of genre and vibe, so we’re sure you’ll find some powerful inspiration with ease.
6. Essential Starters
For a pack of song starters focused on hip-hop and trap, we highly recommend this one from Diginoiz.
While many song starter packs include a mix of loops and one-shot samples, this one focuses specifically on loops.
We like to reach for loops when we’re particularly hungry for inspiration, since they have a bit more developed ideas to go on.
This, of course, also makes them extra satisfying to put together in Creator.
7. Trance DNA Song Starters
If you happen to be a trance head, this pack of song starters from Trance Euphoria is a must.
In fact, Trance Euphoria provides quite a few trance song starter packs, and they’re all well worth diving into.
Everything you’d expect is here — biting synths, powerful melodies and harmonies, thumping 909 drums, and more.
8. Trap Beat Starters
While some might say that the defining characteristic of trap is its 808 drums and rolling hi hats, we think the melodic side of the genre is underrated.
This pack of song starters from Toolbox Samples focuses specifically on melodic loops for trap.
All you need to do is pick a melodic hook that inspires you, add some classic trap drums, and you’ll be in business.
9. Futuristic Techno Song Starters
We’re not gonna lie, this pack of techno song starters by Mainroom Warehouse is pretty addictive.
First off, it’s huge, offering over 500 samples that cover pretty much every type of sound you could want for your techno tracks.
Second, it’s ridiculously easy to group them together in Creator to get the inspiration flowing.
If you’re a techno producer in need of a spark, this is the pack to explore.
10. Supercharged EDM Drops Song Starters
Last but not least we have a killer collection of EDM song starters, also from Mainroom Warehouse.
While the name might suggest that it focuses on elements for drops, don’t be fooled, it has just about everything you need for full tracks.
You’ll find over 200 sounds to choose from, and all of them are of fantastic quality. Time to get to work and make some tracks!
Various contributors from the LANDR team of music mentors.
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