That being said, I find third party developers like Toontracks to be killer. If you're looking for some good kits and you've got Cubase then those will do for a while.Īlso, if you have any version of Komplete, they've got some killer kits. Highly recommend watching their detailed walkthrough videos, which are (to me) entertaining in themselves. And rather than coming with a library of generic patterns, they come with pattern creation tools, including a polyrhythmic one, which are quite cool. And they all just sound so lush and characterful. More recently I've been using Soniccouture's lovely Moonkits and Electroacoustic, both of which are quite flexible and customisable and (with Moonkits) have a large number of velocity layers including soft ones, but each kit is mapped straightforwardly to a couple of octaves laid out in a sensible way.

I find it kind of overwhelming and it limited the extent to which I felt able to improvise or draw-in much myself. Something that may be a pro or a con is the large array of articulations splattered across the keyboard. especially making use of their built-in library of drum patterns. for some time I used the various NI Komplete Abbey Road kits. I've never used it but glancing at it now it has kits suitable for pop/rock, so if you have it already that would seem the cheapest and most cheerful starting point. Cubase does come with Groove Agent SE (a not-full version of their drum software, I guess).

Superior drummer orchestral