Good way to compose drum parts?

What does everyone recomend for composing drum parts in sonar 7? Using pre existing loops doesn't give me the control I need. I am currently playing around with session drummer 2 and the step sequencer but I'm finding it to be a little tedious. If you have to create a pattern for every group of bars that are the slightest bit different ie.. (different fills, symbol builds etc...) and session drummer holds 7 or 8 patterns does that mean I would have to insert several instances of ses drummer? Seems like that would be hard to manage. What does everyone else use for fairly complex drum parts in 4 to 5 minute songs?

I've never used patterns at all, except sometimes as something temporary while I'm building the rest of the parts. It seems to me that a drum part constructed of even quite a few patterns would be rather uninteresting. Although I'm certainly no drummer, I lay down the drum parts myself.

I do have some drum pads, but I usually find myself using a keyboard and input the MIDI that way. First I go through the entire song and just lay down the kick and snare - nothing else. But I concentrate on doing something interesting, just thinking about how those two drums work with the bass part and any other "interesting" rhythm stuff I have going on. After I've gone through the entire song, I go back and fix up the inevitable goofs that I put in there. Then I listen through and make sure I'm happy with just the kick and snare playing along with the rest of the parts.

After that I'll play through the whole song and put in nothing but tom fills, making them do something interesting but not overbearing to work with what's already there. Then I finally go through and fill in the cymbals and whatever else may be useful to the song.

Next, I mute everything except for the drums and listen to the whole song. This is the time to listen for things that don't work well together and to clean them up. I also listen for things that sound too busy and try to make it sound as much as possible like something a real drummer would/could have done. When it's done right, the drum part should be interesting in its own right without being too overwhelming and "showy".

Finally, I listen to all of the parts together and fine-tune. It may take several listens to get something that's kind of decent. Then I shut down and come back the next day, making sure I still like what I did, and cleaning up whatever doesn't make me a bit giddy.

Of course, this is not a fast process. For an eight-minute song, it can take several hours to arrive at something I like, and it will likely evolve over the next week or so. But it's a satisfying process and I'm not in any hurry. And when it's all said and done, it's the best way for a wanna-be drummer like to lay down something that makes me think, "Wow - what a cool drum part!"

The old classic drum-machine way was to create your basic groove pattern. Then copy it throughout the song. Then go back and create new fill patterns which have the original pattern as the parent/source. You can start with the fills only at critical places, then create more as time allows. The step sequencer should be good for this. Session Drummer at that point can be used only as the sound source.

I.e. One main 2 bar pattern throughout the song. Then take that pattern and create a fill pattern to go 1 bar before section changes - choruses and verses. Then try some slight variation patterns in the middle of verses and choruses. Etc...