BFD Eco and my padKontrol seem to be working quite well... but I used to actually play drums so that helps. My current method (which is still in development) is recording the structure of the song to a click track with my guitar then playing basic beats over top of it with the pK. Get everything tightened up in PRV. Record a better take of the guitars and then some bass then do a fancier drum track to that. Kind of back and forth but I like the instruments to play off each other.

Looks like most of the replies here are from people making non-electronic styles of music, so my response may not fit the expected style of the question. I make electronic music and have four methods to creating drum tracks, and usually it's a mix of all four with each part coming from a different source. The parts are: kick (usually layered) snare, hi-hats (usually 2-3 tracks of hi-hats), crash cymbol, reverse crash, sub-bass sine-wave, and percussion (attack synth or filtered drums). I use samples, reason, Fruity Loops, and my favorite -> Arturia Spark. I render them on a per track basis without much effects and as near 0 as possible, import them into my main sonar project and then mix, compress, and add more effects to them.

I'd like more than 16 myself but the pK works pretty well and it was soooper cheap. Pain in the buttocks to set up and program though.

Bub


You better sit down, cause you're gonna fall down laughing if you don't ...

After over a decade of trying to get my drums to sound real, the most realistic drums I ever recorded ... were with a set of Rock Band plastic drums. I played along with a click track and did my own thing.

It taught me that it's better to do what comes natural, rather than to 'adapt' to an unnatural point and click method of doing something that you really need to feel and has a rhythm.

Now, I'm sure I could go out and spend a few grand on a nice midi set of drums, but I just can't justify that. These 4 little pads and a faux kick work just fine for getting the actual 'feel' of playing.

There are free drivers out there, and it works latency free with Sonar using Session Drummer, and SI Drums, and the 'drums' can be had for $20 bucks at your local pawn shop since the whole Rock Band craze has died ... You can even get cymbals for them ...

Yeah, I have to go in and do some velocity adjustments after the fact, but nothing IMO compares to actually playing a beat. Heck, I've even tapped a beat in to a mic and used Audio Snap to convert it to midi and brought it in to Session Drummer.

Any time you can do a live beat, it's going to sound better IMO.

But I played out live for many years and I'm used to playing with imperfect humans ... it takes some getting used to play with perfectly timed drums done in Step Sequencer ... imo.

 
Brilliant Bub - I'm trying this out tonight. I didn't even think about using them as a controller.