I'm no drummer, but I know what I like when I hear it. I'm looking into the idea of combining pop/rock/world drum loops for original compositions.
A few of my observations thus far have been less than positive. A software drum program will have an excellent drum engine, in fact, most of them do. Some of them have a decent starting pack of midi loops for the basic rocker.Most of them leave a lot to be desired though, at least for me.
There are a few 3rd party companies that sell drum loops as midi to put into your tracks. The problem here seems to be they need to be mapped to your kit. I might load a loop and it plays something different on my drum kit.
The obvious choice is AD2 since it's what comes with Sonar Platinum. I sampled some of those packs last evening. I did come across one or two packs I thought would be helpful.It doesn't seem like an all compassing selection though for what I want to do. I don't really want a lot of odd irregular stuff, just good well played loops that fit what I'm going for.
I'm wondering if there are other options. maybe I could buy some loops from somewhere else and map them to AD2. I'm not sure what's involved in doing that or if it can be done well. I have BFD2 and I looked at the upgrade. To me though. it all looks like the same game. Buy our drum program to get what you really want, then buy all of our loops too, only loops aren't a one size fits all. Pretty much the contrary here.
I already have bread and butter loops in AD2. I'm looking for some kind of a universal way to use anything I might find and like in AD2 first, then maybe I would buy another program if the loops selection was hands down killer.
Open to suggestions or ideas. If you think you've found something better will you please explain why you believe it's better. What has worked for you?