I was watching some Lynda videos on songwriting techniques in various DAWs and noticed that Logic Pro X ($199) has a neat feature where one can lay down a drum track and choose the style of drummer, along with a x/y control of the drum loudness and the drumming complexity (a continuum from simple straight beats to ghost notes, etc.). At the end of each clip, a fill appears.
 
This seamed like a very nice and quick way to dial in the drum part while songwriting.
 
AFAIK, Sonar Platinum only has virtual instruments where you must cycle through a bunch of midi bars and piece together something to use (including separate fill bars, etc.). Does anyone know if there are quick and easy ways to choose from different drum parts so that the drum track creation doesn't take so long? If not in Sonar Platinum, is there a virtual instrument that behaves similar to Logic Pro?
 
Thanks!

EZ Drummer from Toontrack is my preferred drum VSTi
 
It has a song tool that makes quick work of building an entire track for a song.  It's not automagic, you still pick your parts, but the flow is quick and easy for both preview and "assembly"
 
 

jpaul
I was watching some Lynda videos on songwriting techniques in various DAWs and noticed that Logic Pro X ($199) has a neat feature where one can lay down a drum track and choose the style of drummer, along with a x/y control of the drum loudness and the drumming complexity (a continuum from simple straight beats to ghost notes, etc.). At the end of each clip, a fill appears.
 
This seamed like a very nice and quick way to dial in the drum part while songwriting.
 
AFAIK, Sonar Platinum only has virtual instruments where you must cycle through a bunch of midi bars and piece together something to use (including separate fill bars, etc.). Does anyone know if there are quick and easy ways to choose from different drum parts so that the drum track creation doesn't take so long? If not in Sonar Platinum, is there a virtual instrument that behaves similar to Logic Pro?
 
Thanks!

What might seem like an Easy road to creating drum parts in logic is really the same as anything.
it takes time to master a craft.
sonar comes with sample loops so you can piece together a lot of drum parts (audio wise).
sonar also comes with a lot of Midi loops to drop on the timeline and not only create great drum parts but its an easier way to manipulate them to your liking.
 
I agree with Bob as EZ drummer is a lot of folks go to drummer, as well as BFD and Sonar comes with a great one: Addictive Drums 2.
No matter what you end up doing, The piano roll view (or the step sequencer) should be your tool of choice when working with drums.
its 100 times as simple to move around and edit midi notes then it is audio notes by dragging transients in AutoSnap.
 
This is a simple Video I created a few years back that shows you how easy it really is to use the PRV to edit drums.
 
 
 

Addictive Drums 2 (that comes with Sonar) has some automagic beat tweaking options. I haven't play with it much but it's a little window that shows the pattern and you can manipulate it for intensity, swing and things like that (IIRC) as well as muck around the notes themselves. Then you can drag the altered pattern into the Track View and/or save it as a new MIDI loop in AD2's library.
 
However one program that seems to be considered to be the best "virtual" drummer is JamStix. From what I understand you just feed it some initial parameters and the program randomizes/works with it like a real drummer would. Like the program improvises by changing up the main beats, tosses in fills, etc. That sounds like it's probably what you're looking for. I'd actually really like to get it to use for improv blues and jazz stuff.
 
Usually though I just play my drum parts on my padKontrol and tweak/comp/edit the performances OR I just manually program the beats in the PRV. I am starting to get into the idea I should just use the nice MIDI loop libraries I've gathered up and mangle them in interesting ways.
 
Cheers.

Check out Drumcore. It offers lots of styles, including "celebrity" drummers, and includes both audio samples and MIDI loops. It's quite cool but flies underneath a lot of peoples' radar.
 

Thanks for all the responses and taking the time to make that video.

Beepster
However one program that seems to be considered to be the best "virtual" drummer is JamStix. From what I understand you just feed it some initial parameters and the program randomizes/works with it like a real drummer would.

Jamstix is the one I though of after reading the OP.

I have no experience with Drumcore.