Effects to mimic a huge crowd clapping

http://www.freesound.org/browse/

Not something I've tried (with clapping), but I might suggest utilising sends from the clapping tracks to 3-4 busses with varying reverbs, and try to get some depth by using short decays (front of auditorium) to long decays (at the back)

I don't think I explained this well. This is an audience clapping IN TIME along with the music, not just end-of-song applause.

There is no way you could make a sound effect like this with multiple overdubs and effects.  Not compared to a great sound effect.  I have got many sound effects libraries as I used to do a lot of audio post for TV mixing.  One of my libraries is a Canadian library which is amazing.  Anyway there is an affect of a very large crwod clapping in unison like waiting for a late act to come on etc...(recently Justin Bieber made a crowd wait 70 minutes before he came on. Rude IMO)
 
Anyway this effect is pretty close to what you are after.  But they are doing it faster than I imagine you want it but it would be easy to cut and fade these claps and put them in time with your music I am sure.  Just use say the first 7 or 9 and put them on beats 2 bnd 4 of your music in a round robin.  It will be many bars before the same claps are in the same place. There are two versions of this. There is atmos in between the claps and on the track and if I were you I would also fill the gaps quietly with this atmos between your edited claps to make it sound even more real.
 
The second part of this track sounds like a smaller crowd but the claps are slower and easier to cut but not as grand as the first part which sounds like a very large crowd though.
 
If you PM me I can send you the wave file through You Send It.  It is about 15 Meg in size. Or send me an email and I will make a decent MP3 of it and send it to you that way.  It is a decent stereo image too.

Actually if you go here:
 
http://www.freesound.org/browse/
 
and search for 'bigger group claps' you will find a sound that might work. Someone has manufactured this though, it is not natural or as natural as the effect that I have.
 
A very large crowd clapping in rhythmical unison is not that easy to get a hold of.  I have got a lot of sound effect libraries here and out of all of them I only have this one effect on a Canadian library.
 
But listening to the freesound effect one might be able to make it too. By using a large crowd applause it may be possible to shape the envelope in such a way as to make it sound like a large single clap. A sampler either hardware or VST that allows you to construct ADSR volume envelope shapes would be the go. You would not want each ADSR shape to be the same either. You also need some atmos in between too. Having them leap out of nowhere (with nothing in between) would not work that well either.
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks everyone! I decided to find clapping from a sound library. I am having to manufacture it from multiple instances of single claps, because this is a very smart fake audience, who knows how to clap on downbeats over rapidly shifting time signatures. 
 
As a thank you to all who helped me, I'm offering up this video I found while hunting for my clapping. Harry Connick Jr playing live. The audience is clapping along on 1 & 3, and in the middle of his solo, Connick adds an extra beat to get them to 2 & 4, and you can see the drummer's reaction in the background. It's so cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD3iaURppQw