It also maps to various digital drumkits that way, which is cool if you have one or a buddy who can play you some grooves. I can't record real drums at home and would need to borrow equipment left and right to set it up elsewhere but I've gotten pretty good "human sounding" drums by getting some midi parts from a friend. Usually it it involves adjusting velocities per instrument but it's still relatively quick.

So, equalizers, anyone? When do you use them and what are your favorite settings. Discuss.

Sanderxpander
It also maps to various digital drumkits that way, which is cool if you have one or a buddy who can play you some grooves. I can't record real drums at home and would need to borrow equipment left and right to set it up elsewhere but I've gotten pretty good "human sounding" drums by getting some midi parts from a friend. Usually it it involves adjusting velocities per instrument but it's still relatively quick.

So, equalizers, anyone? When do you use them and what are your favorite settings. Discuss.

I have an old Roland OctoPad that comes in extremely handy for playing and sequencing drums tracks. Plus I'm not all that bad on my Edirol PCR-500 keyboard controller for adding fills and things, and I've been doing step writing, piano roll editing, and adjusting velocities for so long now it comes natural to me.
 Some people even think I'm a killer keyboard player. Truth of the matter is I'm actually a guitarist who is a very mediocre keyboard player at best, but proficient at MIDI editing through years of experience. I learned all about MIDI programming and editing back in the 80's from my Roland MC-500 using a TR-707 drum machine, and a Casio CZ 1000. By the time I read through the manual and finished the tutorial on step writing Mozart's Little Fugue in Gm I had a pretty good handle on it. LUCKY for me that General MIDI spec was in a great deal based on how Roland's original MRC language was written. In those days it was a VERY BAD thing to try mixing and matching different synths made by different manufacturers with their own proprietary ideas on how to conquer the market. 'Till this day I have a  long standing love/hate relationship with Korg and Ensoniq, but they do have their magic sounds and we can still get to them today thru softsynth plugins, and they are MUCH better and easier to use than the original.
 I had an original Korg MS-20 pre MIDI analog synth with a 1/4" jack patchpay. It could take hours to get that great sound I was looking for, and the only way to save it was to jot the knob setting and patch diagrams down on a paper template and stuff it into a paper folder. Than there was a MAJOR breakthrough with the Korg Poly 6, with had 4 banks of internal presets which was cool, but if you wanted more you had to do an analog batch dump that could only be saved to a tape recorder. Talk about "THAT SUCKS!" Now the MS-20 comes in the Korg Legacy bundle with a whole gaggle of presets, and I believe I can get to the Ensoniq thru either Dimension Pro or Rapture right here in SONAR.
 
I can't say I have any favorite EQ settings other than not using it at all, but filtering or rolling off any and all unnecessary frequencies is a good idea, and maybe boosting the sweet spots to season to taste and adjust frequency bands off from competing for bandwidth for each other on different tracks.
Yep, and that bring up another cool Plus for X3's ProChan.'s EQ or EQ's I should say, is the very handy built in real-time frequency spectrum analyzer that pops up when needed with the click of the mouse. That's another killer cool workflow enhancement.