Drum Machine Advise.

[Lunkhead]

I think you're best option is to go with a MIDI controller and a software drum sampler. That will give you the most flexibility. You can get a cheap 1-2 octave MIDI keyboard for a controller, and some cheap software if you're on a budget. (Or you can maybe get the software for a 100% discount, if you're unscrupulous.) I'm not sure what the best software is though.

I got Reason Drum Kits, which is a relatively cheap but extensive and high quality set of drum samples and preconfigured sampler patches for Reason. It sounds way better than the samples and patches I had before. I used it on these songs:

http://people.geneticmail.com/sam/meris ... neelse.mp3
http://people.geneticmail.com/sam/meris ... threat.mp3

You have to have Reason first for that to be an option, though, and it's not that cheap (though it's not that expensive considering how useful it is).

[HeuristicsInc]

Are you needing hardware? You might have some luck with the software machine Guru.
-bill

[Billy's Little Trip]

http://people.geneticmail.com/sam/meris ... neelse.mp3
http://people.geneticmail.com/sam/meris ... threat.mp3

Damn, you two harmonize so good together. Sounds great, but the drums are just ok in my opinion. I mean, they sound good, but cold for such warm songs, if that makes sense. Which is no big deal, really.

But I love BFD as far as a drum programs. Take a look at the demos. When you have lighter hits, the decay, mics and room respond to it. When you hit hard, the room lights up, when you play fast, you're not slamming a solid hit all the time, etc. I know those are minor details these days in home recording and electronic music, but I like drums to have feeling and human response as if I was playing the kit myself. I just found out that I can actually add a squeaky drum stool if I want, lol, and I have quite often added floor/room "gak" to my raw songs.

BFD2 is out and I will be purchasing it soon.
Also, if you guys haven't seen the BFD zen drums yet,(on the left hand side of the page, BFD zen drumming) you really need to check out the demo. I played one of these thing at a table top presentation at guitar center. If you have any sense of timing, you can jam on these things like a pro drummer. I could easily see Spud getting into this thing. Plus you're running through the BFD program, so you can build and archive loops and fill loops, tweak your sound, fix mistakes, etc.
There is a matter of price and BFD is a lot of work to get set up, for me anyway. But once you build your kits and design your recording rooms, you're set. Plus, they have pre sets for people that aren't as picky as I am. If you want a DW kit all mic'd up by a pro, just pick one. They are great. But after you realize that you can have a 18X22 DW kick with a Noble & Cooley 4X14 snare and room mic of choice set as far apart as you want, the sky is the limit for creating your own sound.

[obscurity]

If you're after a hardware drum machine, and you liked the SR16, you might want to check out the SR18 that Alesis released earlier this year.

If you want to go the softsynth route, then the best one for you wll probably depend on what kind of drum tracks you want to produce and how you prefer to go about producing them. My advice is to start downloading demos and find out which one gels with you. Guru is certainly an excellent choice, I haven't used BFD personally but I've heard good things about it. I'd also recommend checking out Battery, although you'll need to drive it from a sequencer but I'm guessing you'll have one anyway.

[Lord of Oats]

I will be recording some...taboulis.

I never thought to use bulgur wheat as an instrument before! Brilliant!

[Lunkhead]

Damn, you two harmonize so good together. Sounds great, but the drums are just ok in my opinion. I mean, they sound good, but cold for such warm songs, if that makes sense. Which is no big deal, really.

First of all, thanks! Second of all, the drums definitely aren't great by any means, but I'm actually pretty happy with them, all things considered. They're definitely better than what I could do with comparable effort before I bought RDK. Lots of these sample sets have demos that sound exactly like live recordings of real drummers playing real kits, and when I heard them I though, "Wow, I'll be able to do that?!" My experience has lead me to believe, though, that it takes some combination of things that I lack, namely real drumming skills, a better input device than a keyboard, and many hours to spend tweaking the MIDI, to get that "real" sound. Still, I want a "real" sound, rather than an electronic sound, so I settle for the closest thing I can get in the time I have.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Damn, you two harmonize so good together. Sounds great, but the drums are just ok in my opinion. I mean, they sound good, but cold for such warm songs, if that makes sense. Which is no big deal, really.

First of all, thanks! Second of all, the drums definitely aren't great by any means, but I'm actually pretty happy with them, all things considered. They're definitely better than what I could do with comparable effort before I bought RDK. Lots of these sample sets have demos that sound exactly like live recordings of real drummers playing real kits, and when I heard them I though, "Wow, I'll be able to do that?!" My experience has lead me to believe, though, that it takes some combination of things that I lack, namely real drumming skills, a better input device than a keyboard, and many hours to spend tweaking the MIDI, to get that "real" sound. Still, I want a "real" sound, rather than an electronic sound, so I settle for the closest thing I can get in the time I have.

Actually, the more I listen, the more they sound fine. I think on my first listen I was listening specifically to the drums because that's what we were talking about. But I put those two songs on my ipod and when I listened to the songs as a whole, the drums didn't do anything to change the flow and feel of the songs. So I think I was being too critical of them. You two make beautiful music together.

[signboy]

Halen99, if you have a midi keyboard, plug it into Reason and use the NN-XT as your sampler.
I think you will be hard pressed to find a better software solution. If you can afford it, get the Reason drum kits refill. If not, pm me and I can recommend a whole bunch of great alternatives.
Reason has a quantize as you play function, as well as Multi-sample functionality. What I mean by that is that it will take, say, 5 snare sounds, and randomly play one of them when you hit the "snare" key. That way, you avoid the cheesy machine gun sound of all the snares being identical. As far as which keyboard or controller, it's all preference. They will all work with Reason, though crappy ones may require you to tweak Reason's settings a bit.