Using Sampled Drums in Windows PT - The best current options...

[Amerihudge]

I'm looking to dump my antiquated drum machine in favor of a software/sampler/controller set up and thought I'd get a little feedback.

I'm primarily a singer/songwriter/guitarist type in the style of James Taylor, John Mayer, David Wilcox etc. So, I'm needing some drums that sound good within the context of that style. Basically I'm looking for variety, realism, and ease of use.

Recently Sonic Reality came out with that Acoustic Drums/ST LE package which seems like a great deal at around a 100 bucks. I've played around with Sampletank Free and really like it so far. I've been thinking for some time about upgrading to some of the premium Sampletank packages.

Before I spring for Sampletank... What about other good intuitive sampled drum options that work well within Pro Tools? Is Sampletank the best current choice for ease of use and high quality sounds?

[banana boy]

I've had a lot of fun with ACID and their drum loops. Basically you can use a tempo-corrected single loop for your song, then when you have the structure worked out you can go into ACID and arrange the drum track, render as a stereo wave file and 'import audio to track' within PTLE. Haven't tried Sampletank properly yet for drums or rhythm stuff, but I'd be interested in hearing how you go with it.

[j20056]

I program drums in SampleTank. There's a decent set of kits in ST XL. I also purchased the "Acoustic Drums" library mentioned above. It does sound better than the ST kits. One negative of it is that it uses its own "I-Map" MIDI format, not General MIDI. So if you buy MIDI loops such as DrumTrax, it doesn't really work, unless you do the tedious transposing necessary. Apparently other sequencers have utilities to do the mapping, but not PT. Anyways, it does sound good. The only issue I have with ST is that it is a CPU hog, which means that you really can't use more than one instance of ST before performance gets killed (unless you have a supercharged PC which I don't). The problem with that is that if you wanted to apply different effects to the toms versus the snare, or compress the kick individually, you can't really do that, as the ST output is a stereo AUX track, not the individual drum kit components. I find this to be a severe limitation of ST (but granted, that would be the same with an outside drum machine).
I don't think ST was developed with the thought that users would want to use multiple instances, unfortunately.
So, I'd say ST and Sonic Reality will enale you to get good sounding drums, but it just is not a simple process. It is good to obtain great sounding drums, but it is inadequate to compose drum parts easily.
I wish there was a better solution. haven't looked into NI Battery. Comments anyone?

[Agug123]

I like using Reason and making tracks with the dr. rex and redrum then bouncing those into my protools sessions. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[IntelDoc]

I agree,
Reason 2 is a very nice product and easy to use.

[da BaSsTaRd!]

ok, here's the bleeding edge...

1 - for loops - ableton live
2 - for midi - DR-008

i use both loops and a midi sampler. right now i'm just using PT to sequence the loops. its a lot of work to sequence in PT if your loop tempo doesn't match your session tempo. i use reason's NN-XT as my midi drum sampler. the midi supports the loops well.

anyway, one day soon, PT6 will come out with rewire. ableton live has rewire as well. its basically just like acid, but since it has rewire, it will work WITHIN protools. that means you can audition and sequence in the context of your song without the need for a second soundcard. that's hot, baby... combine that with dr-008, which is WAY better than sampletank and you got yourself a rig...

i can't wait. i'll be a drum sequencing and programming fool...

[Amerihudge]

The DR-008 does seem like a really great option. However, recent posts seem to indicate that it's a bit difficult to get it up and going.

Is the DR-008 ready for prime-time or is it a bit too early to go with the DR-008?
How intuitive is it? The screenshots make it look like the cockpit of the Space Shuttle [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]
Are the included drum samples of good quality?

[Shan]

DR-008 with the "DrumKit From Hell" CD from www.soundsonline.com

Shan

[Antonio Tarantino]

The DR-008 does seem like a really great option. However, recent posts seem to indicate that it's a bit difficult to get it up and going.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">They have updated the program and I've read in the forum that it is working fine now.

Ciao,
Antonio Tarantino

[da BaSsTaRd!]

the greatest midi drumkit ever in dr-008 format...