I don't think I'll ever use the Sonar step sequencer for drums again (sorry Cake!). It's like everything I wanted Battery to be but wasn't (although I still love Battery as well - the two of them are a good compliment).
 
Noted. I used Sonar step sequencer to today for laughs and after a while had enough. The functionality is crying for a total overhaul.
I've recently bough Maschine and Komplete so I guess I'm going towards the NI route even though I haven't even loaded battery yet or figured out Maschine properly... one big ball of confusion right now, I just haven't had the time to get my head round it (other software to learn first).

twaddle
I'm not going to knock AD as it is what it is and I used to love it but if you've not tried any of the fxpansion drums (Eco & BFD2)
there is now a demo of BFD3 available so there's no reason not to give it a go and see what all the fuss is about.
 
For me it is now without doubt the most comprehensive, full featured, realistic and best sounding drum vst you can get.
Here's a link to their demo BFD3 Demo
 
Steve

I knew it :-)
knew you couldn't resist ;)
 
your right twaddle bfd is a great drum sim.
 
happy holidays man.
 
Chuck

mettelus

sharke
+1000 for Geist. I just bought it in the sale and am finding it to be one of the most well designed pieces of music software I've ever used! As a drum sequencer it's an amazing tool, especially if you're into electronic styles. I don't think I'll ever use the Sonar step sequencer for drums again (sorry Cake!). It's like everything I wanted Battery to be but wasn't (although I still love Battery as well - the two of them are a good compliment). With these, Addictive Drums, the NI drummer libraries and Jamstix I think I'm sorted for drum software for the next 10 years!

Hmmm, the Step Sequencer is my biggest chokepoint (i.e. PITA) now and I never had heard of Geist before. I just went searching and it says it is 60% off now ($99 vs $249).

Yep it's a no brainer at that price. I'd wanted it for ages but couldn't justify spending $250. So even though I was pretty much maxed out on the Black Friday shenanigans I went ahead and bought it. If you use the step sequencer for drums you'll love Geist. Of course you can use it to trigger whatever samples you like, not just drums. It gives you 8 "engines" each of which contain 16 pads. Each pad can have 8 layers of samples. And each engine has 24 patterns. You can trigger the patterns via MIDI or arrange them into a song within Geist. One of the best features of it is the "graphs" you can apply to each track, in which you can map velocities and filter cutoffs and panning and timing offsets and anything else, all fully automatable of course. Believe me, you'll never program drums in Sonar's step sequencer again. 
 
EDIT: I just noticed I pretty much repeated what dubdisciple said. Oh well, it bears repeating twice. 

CakeAlexS
I don't think I'll ever use the Sonar step sequencer for drums again (sorry Cake!). It's like everything I wanted Battery to be but wasn't (although I still love Battery as well - the two of them are a good compliment).
 
Noted. I used Sonar step sequencer to today for laughs and after a while had enough. The functionality is crying for a total overhaul.
I've recently bough Maschine and Komplete so I guess I'm going towards the NI route even though I haven't even loaded battery yet or figured out Maschine properly... one big ball of confusion right now, I just haven't had the time to get my head round it (other software to learn first).

Eli Krantzberg has a Battery 4 tutorial on Groove3 which I'm about to watch, no doubt up to his usual excellent standard. I haven't installed my Komplete 9 update yet but I'd like to get up to speed with the new Battery features, it looks pretty good. And I'm pretty sure it would be very easy to drive Battery with Geist if you so desired. 

By the way, has anyone tried the "Writer's Block" AD MIDI pak? It seems like an interesting concept and I'm wondering how well it works in practice. 
 

I was looking at that midipak myself. For 9.99 I may just risk it

At the very least it's got to give you something you can tweak to taste (i.e. like all MIDI drum packs). I have some of the Groove Monkee packs and it's rare that I'll use them "as is." Same with Jamstix, no matter what it plays you're always going to have to alter a few hits and accents to fit with your song. 

I knew it :-)
knew you couldn't resist ;)
 
your right twaddle bfd is a great drum sim.

 
I tried Chuck, I really did try
 
Steve
 
 

sharke
+1000 for Geist.

Damn, that was enough to trigger my GAS!  Can't argue with a 66% discount! :-)

sharke
EDIT: I just noticed I pretty much repeated what dubdisciple said. Oh well, it bears repeating twice. 

Hehe... it doesn't hurt to be told twice. I am actually glad you both had popped in here, when I first saw dub mention "Geist" I saw it as the German word and never clicked as a "product" until you chimed in. I just got it this afternoon