I can't play drums but I spend alot of time listening to drumming in songs to (try to) duplicate the vibe. I use Acid Pro, and use all one shots. Have some loop/one shot CDs but there's all kinds of drum sounds on the net I've downloaded from various places. Then I program it much like a drum machine except I can have lots more variations of patterns and dynamics.
I try to think about it in the sense that a drummer has 4 limbs (except that Def Leppard dude), and can only play so many things at once. First tune I tried where I attempted to be as realistic as possible took me 40+ hours of tweaking before I had something that might pass to the untrained ear as real drums. Tedious, but the farther you get the easier it is.
The thing I like about an Acid like program is I can have multiple tracks of the same drum or cymbal. For instance, I use 3 rides. One is normal volume, next one a little softer for the off beats, and a 3rd one turned way down for tripplet stuff. The sounds can overlap so they ring out. Also cool for double shots on the snare or toms. You zoom way in for 1/64th or 1/128th notes and stagger one snare for a double shot effect. Since they overlap it doesn't sound too shabby. WIth the hi-hat I might use 8-10 different hihat sounds so it sounds like the "drummer" hits the hit hat differently each time just like a real drummer might.
Dunno how good it sounds since you loose your frame of reference after listening to the stuff over and over but I think it sounds halfway decent...
but it takes a while to program one.
