The problem is that it takes for-fucking-ever to do it. It's insane. I can't believe how much time and energy it takes to make fake drums sound real, but I do understand why some people have to do it that way.
It does take forever (for me anyway) to get a midi drum track to sound half-ass real (again, to me....with help from you guys that I pester the fuck out of with 'em...), but I don't have a real kit, & couldn't play good enough (unless I practiced 24/7) anyway, so the midi drums are about the only option I have here. I'm sure some of you drummer guys here would lay down a song here/there if I asked (I'm about positive a couple/few would), but where do I go, & what do I do when that doesn't happen??? Back to the m-idiot stuff, but that's just how it is for me, & lots of others...
But the EZ Drummer shit, for me, is pretty useful for writing and arranging. I can write my drum tracks, move shit around, and play with drumming ideas without actually having to beat on the drums for hours and hours. When I'm satisfied I just sit at the kit and track it for real with real drums. At that point it's like playing a cover song and I can just breeze through it. The "writing" was already done.
That's a big plus (for me) about using fake drums, you can slide/move shit around, & change the whole song pretty much with little effort (as far as song structure goes....), & I'd never thought of it that way Greg, by the time you have everything worked out (with your workflow you described here), you know the song inside/out (which we should anyway, but just sayin'), & it basically just falls into place...Cool point man, I knew you fucked around with midi drums a little here/there, but I didn't even think of you using it this way....
The plus side to all of this, if you're one of those "if-it-sounds-good-it-is-good" mongoloids, is that your listener, if you have one, doesn't give a shit about real drums vs fake drums. They can't tell the difference. You can spend hours adjusting velocities and timing hits or leave everything stagnant on the grid. They do not know the difference. All this making fake drums sound real is a first-world home recorder issue. Only we notice or care about shit like that. And for some genres, like modern metal, drums don't sound normal at all unless they sound like a robot playing a typewriter.
I'm very, very guilty of the "do they sound real enough???" thing, probably more so than most. But, I think I do a pretty good job with my fake drums compared to some people's stuff I've heard using the same software, but, I've got some pretty good drummers giving me tips/pointers here too (when I pester the fuck out of 'em....sorry guys...
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Mr. Clean: I second Miro's recommendation on Superior. I have SD, a bunch of SDX expansions, plus a shit-load of other drum samples (Abbey Road 60's - Modern, Studio Drummer, Steven Slate Platinum 3.5), & I like Superior better than most of 'em. They all do something a little better than the rest, & they all lack something the others have, so just finding what works for you is the biggest thing IMO, but again, I like Superior a lot, & IMO it's just easier to use for me because I'm used to the mapping of the hits, & how the whole thing works...