What is the best vs simpliest way to build individual Drum tracks?

I would use the step sequencer to create drum tracks. Its ideal for that. 

Glenn, if you're willing to spend a few bucks, you may want to consider an inexpensive MIDI controller to input your sounds one at a time from your Roland.  Or, use it to input sounds from Session Drummer along with your Roland unit for a wider palette of sounds.  Learning to use a softsynth, such as Session Drummer or a host of other drum plug-ins is quite simple, and could be learned in a few hours via any number of video turorials offered by CW.  The time spent would be well worth it in the long run.  But, if that doesn't appeal to you, if you can mute drums within your Roland, you can always record one drum at a time on separate tracks in X1.  Good luck, and I hope this helps.

Check out EZDrummer. Great sounding drums, nice price, expandable (with lots of great sounding kits), upgradeable (to superiour drummer if you want even more flexibility) packed with ready to use midi-drum-loops (recorded by a real drummer) right in the software ready to just drag and drop to your drum midi-track :)

Check out their videos and learn more :)
http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=7 (EZDrummer)
http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=30 (Superior Drummer)

DR880

Beepster


And yeah... what John said if you don't want BFD for some strange reason. SD3 is pretty good for what it is and relatively simple to use. I'd recommend watching the Drum Production Master Class that is in the Sonar University links to get a better handle on things. Just remember that Seth is using an older version of Sonar so anything that is different in X1 is described in text at the bottom of the screen. Cheers.

I just tried the step sequencer with BFD Eco and it seems to work fine.
Trouble is it doesn't give you anything like the number of articulations that Eco offers so unless you can add them in the step sequencer it might not be such a good idea.

Good question,  M_Glenn.   I actually started with a DR550(?) years ago with Sonar 1. It's been so long that I've forgotten the details of how I did it, but I think I basically programmed the drum track on the DR, played it, recorded the midi in Sonar, and used CAL script to split the midi note to separate tracks, then played them back one by one to the DR and recorded its audio out.  But I retired that approach a long, long time ago in favor of modern drum programs used in Sonar as VST instruments.

 There's BFD, as Beep said, Session Drummer, which comes with Sonar, and EZ and Superior Drummers from Toontrack which are what  I use, along with many other good ones.   Basically they solve the whole problem for you - just insert one as a soft-synth, tell it you want multiple audio track outs, and feed it from the midi track, either with loops (commercial or included), playing from an external controller, which could be the DR880 as far as I know, or the step sequencer (or piano roll) like John said. 

One of the perks of Midi is that you can be a terrible player, bang out the drum part on some pads, then fix it all up with Sonar's midi tools to get the timing and hits right before you ever go to audio. 

I'm not certain Session Drummer does multiple outs, but I bet it does, and you already have it with Sonar and could at least learn the ropes before deciding if you needed to move on to one of the other commercial offerings that many prefer - BFD, EZD/SD2, Slate, Battery, etc,

For me, the DR became obsolete pretty quickly after I moved into the drum-software paradigm and frankly,  I retired it.  I don't know what your motive is to use it,  but I suspect the stuff you're trying to do will be more difficult the more it has has to be part of the cycle - although as you get experience with MIDI, external controllers, sounds, loops, and softsynths, you should be able to work the DR into things, really, to whatever extent it is technically capable.

Not sure where you are in overall Sonar/production knowledge, but the tutorials on MIDI, step recording, and Session Drummer might be the way to get a lot of lightbulbs popping in your head without spending any money and pretty much just staying entirely in the Sonar box.   I think you'd be able to answer a lot of the qeustions yourself at that point, ad would have some new ones for the group here...

For a more natural sounding drum sound I use a Yamaha DD65 as the trigger for Session Drummer. You can play it just like an acoustic drum kit and have the same dynamic range you'd get from a normal drum kit. I also happen to like the Country drum kit built into the DD65 and can add that as an audio track rather than a midi track. It gives me options.
 
Even if you aren't a great drummer you can use it to add fills to make for a more natural sound to a programmed drum section.

  There are a couple of videos about using the tools in SONAR you might find interesting here: http://www.cakewalk.com/C...NARU.aspx/Master-Class

 Jamsticks by Rayzoon

Thanks so much guys
So if I understand, for me, Session Drummer would be worthwhile to learn at first? 
Then either BFD or Jamstix would be a reasonable step up from there?
I D/L'ed the Jamstix trial and will get into that. (the demos sound great)
Does BFD have a trial?

Do any of these require hardware for input?

My Dr880 drum machine does have pads and MIDI in and out so would that work as an input device if I got a device that would go MIDI to USB to get the signal into Sonar?
Or would I be better off getting a keyboard with MIDI in out and thru so that I could expand to other MIDI instruments after I get the hang of drums?

BFD2 does have a demo version so you're half right Beepster, for some reason BFD Eco doesn't have one. 
 
I think I said in another post that BFD2 was the only one that did but actually there is a demo you can get for addictive drums too.
To get both demo's I think you need to create an account first.

Steve

I agree that SD3 is a good place to start.
 
If you then want a different program, then I strongly recommend EZDrummer - sounds fantastic, lots of usable MIDI grooves, easy to use, expandable and can crossgrade to Superior at a later date.
 
Not sure about other MIDI controllers,but the Roland ones (I have the A300 pro) have velocity responsive pads for programming beats.
 
As to using the pads on the Boss, do they respond to velocity?  It's vital if you want your parts to sound natural.
 
I'm sure I've seen a video of one of the Cake staff do some pretty good, intricate sounding "Real drummer" parts using the step sequencer, so don't dismiss it out of hand like some of the posters.  I don't use it myself, but if I remember where the video is I'll post it.

BTW:  Another cool thing about Jamstix is that it lets you load up and use drum kits from some of the other bid drum synths on the market. 

I have to mention Battery 3, I make some of my best stuff with this....

shawn@trustmedia.tv


I have to mention Battery 3, I make some of my best stuff with this....

+1 mainly because it was the first virtual drum synth I invested in (before that I used an Alesis DM5 or a Korg 05R/W).


And since I've upgraded to X1 I have been using Step Sequencer more and more, just to get a basic beat down, and then I'll convert to MIDI and switch to PRV to add fills, grace notes etc and do my best to tweak velocity and timing to try and take away the stereotypical robotic MIDI drum feel.


Also now have BFD Eco in my arsenal, and I bought some additional kits for SD3 and, as has been mentioned many times above, it's all good stuff.


Not tried the Superior stuff yet, so can't comment on that.