Have you tried the One Shots in the Audio Library under Cakewalk Content in the Media Browser? There are 25 different claps there. Some are weird, but many are real-sounding and would sound good stacked with another clap one shot. ("Clap 22" sounds more like finger snaps.)

For handclaps and more typical eighteis sound I go to the free Hydrogen drum machine, there are library for the old dr. rythym drum machines.

konradh
Thanks, Matt, but setting up the mic and room and recording claps throughout a song every time is not very practical or flexible.  I would like a sample for the same reason people here want samples of snares and kicks.
 
Anyone have an idea?

I was making a joke, but was also serious at the same time haha! I've never looked in to samples and always recorded my own claps. Layer upon layer. I'm so far happy with the results. But it depends on what style of clap sound you want - recording might not always cut it, especially if you're looking for a produced/stadium/crowd type clap. I wouldn't mind getting a nice sample of that.
 
I wrote a little about how I do mine in another thread once - http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2816292

konradh
Thanks, Matt, but setting up the mic and room and recording claps throughout a song every time is not very practical or flexible.  I would like a sample for the same reason people here want samples of snares and kicks.
 
Anyone have an idea?

I also always record my own hand claps. You really don't need to record it for the whole song. Just record maybe 10 bars and make it into a groove clip.
 
I have pre-recorded claps of both myself alone and also with a bunch of my friends clapping together (not applause, but controlled at the same time) that I can drag into my projects and place on the beats I want them and then just convert them into groove clips. I really think it's the best way of getting a nice hand clap performance. :)

Hand  claps only sound convincing when you record two or three people several times and combine them into a comp. Record about 8 measures and copy them on down the line.  
 
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Good ideas ,the cake ´s have here about hand claps.
Has  anybody here tried to trigger(gate aso) handclaps with pink noise?
Just an idea.....
Have fun
Pragi 

I like a lot of the ideas bounced in this thread & may even have a go at a few of them myself, especially the suggestion of recording your own clap & maybe a few others & layering them all together!
 
However, until now I didn't really like what I had so I found a couple of samples I liked the sound of in my trusty old Roland JV-2080, played with the pitch & envelopes & then sampled those into Session Drummer 3 where I panned & layered them slightly out of sync & slightly different pitch to each other to give more "grit".  They sound fat & funky now so I've got what I was looking for.
 
Basically, the samples in my JV were gritty noise samples, but I can't remember whether they were originally a percussion sound or a sound effect.  I can check tomorrow when I'm back in my studio if that helps but I found noise samples to be particularly good at this sort of thing!
 
BTW, I also filtered out the low-end to help them sit in my mix better as there was quite a lot of low end noise and crunch ( I expect you probably know that anyway).
 
Hope that helps...

mattplaysguitar
Hands.

LOL!  That's what I was about to put.  I actually did this for the very first time just this week.  I did two tracks on one tune and four on another, but ended up using three.  I believe I did about 8 measures and looped them just in the choruses.  I also did finger snaps as well.
 
Donny

Depending on what I want, I would sample a clap or two on my K2000 or Ex5R then create a patch with the filter cutoff modulating the filter cutoff (and in the case of the k2000, I would also modulate the hifreq stimulator, distortion, or shaper modules). I also set the pitch keytracking so that I streatch out a pitch octave to two or three keyboard octaves to given me more variation. Most of this can be replicated on soft synths.

pianodano
Hand claps only sound convincing when you record two or three people several times and ...

This is exactly what Native Instruments did for their Studio/Abbey Road Drummer libraries and they did it in a VERY expensive studio using a VERY expensive microphone. But I wonder why the resulted claps in most of the kits included sound rather weak...