I am having serious technical difficulties with Addictive Drums 2.  I know it should be easy, but I am suffering!  I cannot seem to set up, for the life of me, a universal track/bus combination that will work (and sound good) for various drum kits in AD2.  Between the regular kit pieces, the flexi's, the OH, the Room, the Bus, and the Master, the sounds are just too far scattered.  If broken into separate audio tracks (mono), for example to break out just the kick and use it for side-chaining and the snare to control the level, then the overall sounds is not very impressive.  Bringing the OH, Room, Bus, and Master outputs into an Aux Track (or bus previously in X3) just makes for a miserable, creativity-zapping experience.  My goal, which has been ongoing for about a year now, is to create a universal track/bus template that will work for all AD2 kits and kit-pieces.  To be honest, I just don't think it's worth the time.  AD2 sounds great by itself, and when it's broken down into pieces, the sound and cohesiveness seems to suffer immensely.  That's just my experience anyway.
 
I also have Microtonic and Tremor.  Microtonic is a versatile and easy-to-use/program drum synth.  In that respect, it is great.  However, the problem I have with Microtonic is that it sounds like Microtonic.  There is no escaping the sound it creates.  Spend about 10 minutes on the Patternarium (https://soniccharge.com/patternarium) and you'll know what I'm talking about!  Tremor, unfortunately, stays in the shadows on my computer.  It is versatile and sounds good, but I just find it a burden to program.
 
Overall, I need to start making music again and quit screwing with technical garbage.  Enough is enough!
 
I wanted to garner some feedback regarding the Roland Aira TR-8.
 
I know it could be regarded as a one-trick pony by some review sites, but I was thinking about nabbing one.  A decent deal can be had via one of the online vendors...and...it comes with a free TR-707/727 expansion (after rebate).  Therefore, it turns into a 808/909/707/727 drum machine for the price of one.
 
I've heard good things about the Aira TR-8...also some bad.  I don't care if it's not a true replica of the original units, so scratch those comments.  I have read, however, that it sounds great regardless...just different.  I've also heard much praise from one of my favorite electronic musicians (we communicate via email every once in awhile) on the TR-8.  He says it's enough for about 80% of his drum needs.
 
The TR-8 can do USB audio channels, with each of the kit pieces automatically parceled out into separate tracks.  I like that.  And there are not "magic" sounds associated with it either, unlike AD2 (e.g. OH, Room, Bus), or the threat of combined/linked sounds, or the double-threat of multiple versions of sounds (e.g. hit, double hit, open hit, closed hit, shallow hit).  The TR-8 does have some built-in FX, which is a nice touch if they're good, or I could simply toss on EQ, sat/distortion, lofi, verb, delay onto each track--no problem.  Yes, I can do the same with AD2, but again, I want to be forced into simplicity by having one sound in one channel.  You get what you get! 
 
I have read that saving settings on the TR-8 is a bit of a problem.  That's a bummer.  Roland pretty much phoned it in, with no real ability to save sounds.  Saving patterns is limited too.  But its not 1981, I'm not on the street jamming out with a group of breakdancers in NYC as the MC on the mic practices his skills, and I don't play live so the need to store patterns in the hardware isn't important.  Unlike 1981, we have great computers and DAW's (Sonar Platinum of course! ) that can save the [more complex] patterns.
 
I have the Reel Machines ADPak, which gives me that 808/909 flavor, and it does sound good.  However, it's still samples in the long run.  I do like the LinnDrum though!
 
So what do you think?  Go for the TR-8, or am I barking up the wrong tree?  Thanks for any feedback!

2:43AM
Overall, I need to start making music again and quit screwing with technical garbage.  Enough is enough!

That seems to be the nature of the beast. I find myself tinkering with Sonar, interfaces, plugins, etc more than actually playing these days.
 
As for AD2, I just can't seem to find the sound I want with it. I do use EZDrummer 2 though. With all of the expansion packs I have it's very easy to piece a custom kit together with control over each piece in Sonar.

I agree.  That's why I'm thinking I need to go a simpler route.  And my music style is definitely electronic, synth heavy.  AD2, for the most part, just doesn't fit the bill.  I have used it, however, for more funky drum patterns though.  I am struggling to develop more ambient/down-tempo music, but it is extremely difficult.  It's as if my brain only functions at 100BPM and above!

Electronic rarely seems to have "room" feel to me, or the kit bleed that is sort of hardwired into AD2. Never really tweaked it that much but you can tailor the individual pieces way outside their "normal bounds" or even run the individual outputs through synth FX (like Z3TA+ in the FX bin).

Are you set on hardware or would a sampler fit the bill?

mettelusElectronic rarely seems to have "room" feel to me...

 
I agree with this.  I thought that it could lend itself to be more organic, as some of the ambient/psytrance I am a fan of, has this feel to it, but it may just be actual samples used rather than a drum sampler and/or drum-synth VST.

mettelusAre you set on hardware or would a sampler fit the bill?

 
I'm not exactly dead-set on hardware, but I figured now would be a decent time to buy one, plus it go better with my current state of mind.  I thought about the D16 Group's 909 clone Drumazon, but it's just another boring drum synth modeled after the real deal.  For sampling, I thought about Maschine, but the whole hardware+software+learning curve may be too much (both cost and time).

I noticed in the OP that you have Tremor, which I have not used. I ended up getting Geist a couple years ago now when they were both on sale for the same price. As far as I can tell, Geist is sort of the "VST version of Mashine," and after seeing all of the issues posted about Maschine drivers I am glad I made the choice.
 
Geist is very powerful and worth the 10-day demo, and the factory settings come with 808/909 samples. It even runs stand-alone which is nice for composition and is really a DAW unto itself (it will even play back full length stems as a "sample" but takes a little finagling for this function). As far as "step sequencer" it is incredibly robust, and its sampling/slicing capabilities are impressive.
 
TBH, I am sort of done with the "learn new hardware" days myself, so VST solutions tend to win favor for me.

Thanks Mettelus!  I will take a look at Geist and demo it the best I can within the 10-day time frame.

I am currently demoing Geist and also watching the tutorial videos on the FXpansion website.  So...high level...Geist seems to be (or could be with an export feature) its own DAW, right?  I am quite unfamiliar with Maschine, but it appears to be of the same approach at song-making, no?  Basically, it's like Sonar's Matrix View, with each "engine" running one-shots and/or loop samples.  Maschine, however, takes it further and incorporates soft-synths, effects, and sound libraries.  But overall, all three are geared towards song-making in a non-linear way, right?
 
One key point that maybe I'm missing is that I still need to create sounds.  Geist does include some good-sounding effects though.
 
I've been sharpening my skills with AD2 a little bit further.  Using the Reel Machines ADpak (since I need to compare apples to apples), I'm sticking to using just the dry samples but really focusing on the sound shaping abilities in the Edit page (i.e. turning on ALL kitpiece controls--response, pitch, pitch envelope/tone designer, volume envelope, and cut).  The 808/909 samples can be tweaked to good taste by enabling NoAlts, adjusting the volume envelope, and trimming with the [HP/LP shelf] cut filter.  The various buses OH, Room, and Bus were also muted.
 
Despite the shaping strong points, the shortcomings are still present--the samples.  Getting down to the brass tacks, AD2 uses samples (duh!), while the TR-8 is a VA synth.  In AD2, the max length of a the 808 kick, to really go for that low-end boom-sustain/decay, is about 2.5 seconds, even though the volume envelope points are all maxed out (5 seconds of sustain and 5 seconds of release).  IMO, this is a very limiting factor.  Sure, most usable hits in beat-making are going to be much shorter than 5.0 seconds, but this is a limit on creativity.  For comparison sake, Microtonic gives a true 10 second sustain+decay.  But Microtonic is a synth not a sample.
 
So right now, I am still leaning towards the TR-8, or some other form of a good drum machine.

I originally came from all hardware, the old days.
 
you would buy a drum machine you could afford at the time and live with the 64 sounds it made.
 
I never could afford a 808 or a 909.  I have a lot of drum VSTs and samples, but wanted to have that device and sound so I bought a TR8 and I also bought a tb3 at the same time.
 
1st week I had the TR8 I used it standalone and just started playing and figuring it out.  my reaction was "wow", "that's so cool", "fun fun fun".
 
by week 3 after trying to put the TR8 into my hardware/software workflow I wanted to scream and throw the device out the window.
 
the whole 98hz only issue is really annoying I have no clue why Roland chose to do that but it really is a latency and killer for trying to configure everything I did to 98hz.  did not play well with my focusrite interface and settings never were syncing and right.  granted mostly it was me, trying to figure everything out and it was just frustrating.  don't get me started on the TR8 USB stuff!  oh my gewd so painful.  the TR8 would not play nice with my other hardware the TR8 wanted to be the star and I kept telling it that it was just a really good drum machine.  My NI Maschine got really jealous one day and just quit working with the TR8 at all.
 
I got Geist and BFD3 and I already have a NI Maschine MK II, also have a mikro mk II but rarely use that.
 
I sold the TR8 and the TB3.  stopped using them, they were pretty to look at but I don't play live and in my workflow and my setup they were more trouble than they were worth.
 
for electronic drums Geist and Maschine really work for me.  when I want real drums I use EZ Drummer / SD3 / Slate SSD 4 Platinum / BFD3.  Occasionally I will use the NI drums 70s and 80s from Komplete but I always forget I have those drum libraries for some reason.
 
Geist 2 is coming no real release date yet but I bought Geist on an incredible sale so you should look out for the holiday / black Friday sale thing.

Thanks for the input MachineClaw!  I'm glad you chimed in to report your feedback on the TR-8.  I have also read that the device is "hard-coded" for 96kHz and no setting to change it.  That's just stupid.  Why not have a more-standard 48kHz if they want to have just one setting, or give the best of all worlds and do 44.1, 48, and 96?  Dumb!  I would think that USB is capable of any sampling rate, as long as it gets the data fast enough and doesn't cause syncing issues.  Maybe it's because of the number of channels?  If the TR-8 outputs 8 separate audio streams at once, then perhaps 44.1/48kHz is too slow for that.  For comparison's sake, the Virus TI2 outputs 6 separate audio streams at once over USB, just barely IMO, at 48kHz.  So perhaps 96kHz is a requirement.  Just thinking out loud here...
 
But regardless, I think it would wreak havoc in my setup as well.  I absolutely must remain at 48kHz because of my Alesis Ai3 used as a sync source.  So I'm glad you brought that up because I think it's a deal-breaker.