jamesg1213
Genesis/Phil Collins used drum machines a lot, songs like Mama or In The Air Tonight.

 
well,
those were LINN DRUMS!!
 
not your average bear.
 
and i hated that sound.
and still do.
 

Not that I think this thread is about drum machine recommendations, but it's a fun side topic.
 
I used to have a the Novation Drumstation, that was cool. I used to mix that with drums from a and Quadrasynth Rack and use guitar pedals to create DnB beats. I picked up XLN's Reel Machines because of those days, but I haven't used it enough to voice and opinion.
 
Along the same lines as Sharke's putting it through and Ampifier, SonicCouture did that with their drum samples and and recorded from a room. That looks a great pack, especially as it goes on Sale and is Kontact Player too. I beleive Zo picked it up and was blown away by how friendly it was t pay and great sounding.
 

batsbrew

jamesg1213
Genesis/Phil Collins used drum machines a lot, songs like Mama or In The Air Tonight.

 
well,
those were LINN DRUMS!!
 
not your average bear.
 
and i hated that sound.
and still do.
 

'In The Air Tonight' was a Roland CR-78.
 
...and, OK then...

The 808, 909 and the rest of the Roland machines were all pretty basic and made pretty basic sounds. We’re used to hearing them after eq and compression and other processing. I can get a pretty good drum part out of my Machinedrum but it’s synthesis, programming and effects capabilities are way beyond what the old Roland machines could do.

There’s a three part series of Point Blank videos with James Wilshire about making drum parts using hardware and DAWs in combination. You might find it worth a look.

It starts here - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ct8kHZe4wPI

Ignore the idiot in the hat, the videos were made around Christmas time.

Incidentally the recent Roland “Boutique reissues” of their old drum machines aren't analogue, they use digital sampling. d16 do good plugins that model the synthesis of the original hardware, are far cheaper than the modern Roland stuff and sound pretty good.

Anyone thinking of synthesizing their drums from scratch might want to give Tremor a whirl. It's a multi-voice synth with oscillators and controls specifically designed for creating electronic drums and you can get some great sounds from it, process them with effects and sequence them with its pattern sequencer. Really great product, shame it's not being developed any more. 

I just watched a Tremor video, but I was expecting more. It's looked no more than a Novation Drumstation with a stepsequncer, then half way through he says 'then when you press on the synth buttom' the wow, I had a look for something like this a while back, and some looked interesting, but this looks fantastic.
 
Geist is in a sale at the moment, and after you recommendations I've thought about it a few times, it goes on sale. I'll be following both of these now I guess.
 
EDIT: That Step Sequencer!
EDIT 2: Does it use iLok or anything else that's funky? I can't see on their page

Nope no iLok. The only trouble I've ever had with Tremor is the very occasional crash. It runs in standalone as well btw. Great if you want to just fire something up and play with some beats without having to start a project. There's some really great kits included but it is loads of fun making your own. 
 
Geist is great but Geist 2 never gelled with me. It has lots of problems and isn't as well designed as the first one. Then development of it slowed to a crawl with no updates for a year. Maybe ROLI acquiring fxpansion had something to do with it, but people on the forums aren't happy. I still love Geist 1 though and use it all the time. I don't know, maybe if you've never used Geist you might get on a little better with Geist 2. 
 
I love the step sequencer in Tremor, especially how you can set different number of steps for each lane to get some polyrhythms going. 

sharke
 
I love the step sequencer in Tremor, especially how you can set different number of steps for each lane to get some polyrhythms going. 

 
Yeah, that was the point I Edited my post. It's amazing how something so simple can do something so unique and powerful. I love Sonars Step Sequencer and there are some tweaks (like being able to open more than one row at the time) that I'd think would help me a lot, but it's integration int Sonar is great (I bounce between Step Sequencer and AD2 Transfrom tool (for dynamics) effortlessly. But ther have been critical of it, but never clearly why. I wuld lve t see that function in Sonars.
 
I will need to Demo this t make sure my system copes
 

jamesg1213
Sometimes the sound of a drum machine can work nicely if it's right up front in the mix. It can give a cool atmosphere to a track. Genesis/Phil Collins used drum machines a lot, songs like Mama or In The Air Tonight. Rather than trying to get it to 'blend in', use it for what it is.

 
Phil Collins, best human drum machine ever!
 
Genesis - Live At Wembley Stadium (1987)
 
...the legendary duet with Phil and Chester:
 
Drum Duet (Chester Thompson And Phil Collins)
 
[tube]http://youtu.be/A3Q8KOkimE0?t=1h26m
[/tube]

I have seen that performance before. It wasn't the later Genesis or even the (IMO better) Gabriel-era Genesis that convinced me Collins was more than a pretty face, it was Brand X. Of course, he had some decent helpers in that band.

apologies to the OP for the derailment