Live drums (minimum of 8 mics) or midi/edrum kit in SonarX1c

Which would be a more practical and realistic scenario for a home/project studio?

Thanks for your advise.....

I mic real drums, a Mapex Saturn Pro kit, using Audix D-Series mics for Toms and Snare, Shure Beta 51A for the Kick, and a pair of Oktava MC012 with the pads in for overheads. This works well for me.  Although, I built a room isolated from the rest of the house that has its own foundation - pretty extreme but worth the sweat.  If noise was going to be a problem, I'd use a Roland TD-20 kit or something like that. 

vicsant


Which would be a more practical and realistic scenario for a home/project studio?

It will be hard to get the quality of something like EZ or Superior Drummer (or equivalent) without the following:
Nice Drum Kit (well tuned), decent drummer, great microphones, great pre-amps, great engineering skills, etc... etc...
 
That said. If you have the ability - recording your own drums would be much more rewarding, and exactly what you want.
You just need to identify your strengths and weaknesses (gear, room, skill level, money) and make a decision based on that.

Since you said "practical and realistic" as your goal, Superior Drummer 2 would be your best bet.  I've got an iso booth here at my home studio and I have the mics to mic up a kit but I finally just decided to give the kit to a drummer friend who needed one and go with Superior Drummer 2.  I have a TrapKat drum controller and even my drummer friend comments how nice it is to play and how good the drums sound.

I wouldn't advise you to give it a try any other way.  In a home studio, sampled drums will be your most "practical and realistic" method of obtaining consistently good sounding drums.

I recommend a TrapKat http://www.alternatemode....katxl/trapkat_XL01.jpg There's very little set up time and you have enough pads to create even the most complex kits. It takes up very little room. You won't get broken heads etc. I've got a kick trigger and a hihat pedal. I bought mine used on Ebay.

The electronic kit option really depends on who is playing the kit. I have had many drummers come into my studio who only know how to bang the bejezus out of a drum. This is bad for most electronic kits, as evidenced by two warped soft plastic cymbal triggers I have (recorded a punk drummer in an apartment...not recommended if it's your kit!). However if you have a drummer who can play (and play reasonably well: yay quantize) at the rather softer levels appropriate to electronic drums AND who can adjust their playing style to the  feel of the electronics then you may be very pleased with the results.
Of course, that also depends on the style of electronic kit you have. I personally have played my Roland TD-6 (bouncy rubber pads) live quite a few times (would really love the better kit with the more realistic feeling heads on), but I know too many drummers that have come through my studio who were incapable of adjusting their playing style to not kill the instrument. Quick and easy: electronics

Less stress about replacement cost: cheap drum kit with sample replacement

 YMMV.

I hate Magilla Gorilla drummers. The best reason to just write the drum parts. Someone posted above about getting the drums exactly the way you want. I write them out and they sound exactly the way I want. The only thing is, if I have to do more detailed writing than Sonar's notation will provide, I have to write it out in Finale.

StarTekh


I have (recorded a punk drummer in an apartment !!!

im not touching that 1 !!! awsom !!

My downstairs neighbor was...displeased: all they could here was the rhythmic tics from the drums pads and the elephantine- nay: Tyrannosorial- stomp of the kick. Learned a lot about diplomacy and building codes that week.   And also don't let a punk drummer use an electronic drum set if you plan on using said drum set on another project. Or another song.