Reply To: Using Addictive Drums (or EZDrummer or Steven Slate, etc.)

[Arthur LabusModerator]

Hi Jim ! Welcome !
Thank you very much for kind words, it is hard work 🙂
At first: what OS you are running ? Windows, Mac or Linux ?
I am using Hydrogen and MIDI/Kontakt for programming drums.
Hydrogen is stand alone drum machine, freeware, for Linux, Windows and Mac.
You have patterns, and a matrix of patterns to create a drum track. Mixer for every single instrument.
You can export whole track as stereo file or all instruments to single files. Or MIDI.
There are dozens of free drum kits available.
I am also using the same drum kits with MIDI in my DAW (Reaper) via Kontakt (Native Instruments) due there are some features not possible with Hydrogen (round robin is featured just in last version of Hydrogen for example) but also Hydrogen is partially superior to MIDI programming. It is all about your workflow.
You could try Kontakt Player for free (works for 15min, need to restart) with Drummica samples for example.
There is a also free VSTi plugin: MT Power Drum Kit 2 - for free. It is quiet good for staright rock stuff too.
Last but not least - i am using drum kits from Analogue Drums. It is not that "global player" but hell yeah the samples are just straight from drummers heaven. Meanwhile i have them all, there are not soo expensive.

Any questions ?
If you would like to try some options i can guide you 🙂
Arthur