For the most part, I've recorded only rock and metal for the past couple of years. My current MIDI drum setup is a Roland TD-12 and NI's Steven Slate sample pack. Pretty much perfect for that style of music, but... I want to branch out and try a little electronic/techno.

I'm a Cubase user and I think their built-in drum samples are kind of crap, so I'm wondering- what do people use? I've done some Googling and found things like Wave Alchemy's Drum Tools, but rather than play the guessing game I was hoping someone more familiar with this genre could offer some helpful advice here.

Thanks in advance if you're able to help.

Are you looking specifically for synthetic sounding drums?
I too am on the look out.

Now I use EzDrummer and Addictive drums, the latter better for prog rock, EzDrummer have more kits, better control.

I did some googling

Yup, looking specifically for synthetic sounds. Nice squashed, almost static-y snare sounds. Soft/deep kicks... Stuff that specifically sounds not-real. (I think it will be fun to merge that with my acoustic-sounding kits should I ever want to make a song that goes back and forth. Something like Celldweller's "The Last Firstborn")

The sounds like in the video you posted are definitely along the lines of what I'm looking for.

I used to use Drum Kit from Hell / Superior 2 so I'm familiar with EzDrummer's interface style. I like NI's Steven Slate sample interface a bit better, but mostly because it requires less setup/tweaking. But, as is the case with either, the sounds don't quite fit for electronic music.

I started working on a new electronic song last night and realized that the drum sounds I have available to me just don't fit at all.

Denis: Have you tried Reel Machines (for Addictive Drums)? It seems relatively cheap (if you already have Addictive Drums, which I do not).

I'll check it out
Cheers

I had some good sample sets on my old Windows+FLStudio setup, but that harddrive is dead and gone. I'm hoping that whatever sample pack I buy doesn't require me to learn a new, cumbersome plug-in (or even worse, buy a piece of hardware).

This video you just posted is pretty awesome I dig the sounds. But I don't want to have to learn/use that controller (let alone pay for it).

Edit: This guy's samples also seem kind of promising: http://www.goldbaby.co.nz/products.html

At this risk of turning this thread entirely into a "Brian talks to Denis" post... check this one out also: http://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/drum_tools_teaser/pid55

It's a free sample pack someone on Reddit pointed me out. Has some pretty awesome sounds on it! Not a lot of them, but hey it's free. Definitely has me interested in buying their full pack after playing around with it a bit. I hope to post a song (made with these samples) in the Audio Review forum by the weekend.

I'm using MediaBay + Groove Agent currently (for the electronic song I just started earlier this week) but just haven't been happy with Cubase's stock sample library. (I'm not a huge fan of the Beat Designer. I prefer to just work with the GM map midi editor.

Can you import your preferred sound samples with it? - There is an import button, what it does I've no idea?

Edit***
My question of importing single hite was answered thus in a forum

"Many drum n bass producers work by importing single hits straight into cubase audio tracks and arranging into drum patterns, so 1 track for kicks, 1 for hats, 1 for snares etc etc

This means that you can eq and effect each component of your beat individually which is very useful"

So how else can you do I wonder

Scusses for butting in ... I was going to suggest importing your own samples.... it's in one of the films too

You seem to have a good idea of the sounds you like ... so put your own sounds in your favourite sampler.

Most drum machines / samplers have a way of sending each channel to a different track or automatically creates more mixer channels
And as Denis quotes the more detailed you work the more control you have.

But then you can do so many things in so many different ways in a program like Cubase

What I ended up doing was using MediaBay to browse all of the WAV files/samples I have on my hard drive. When I find one I liked, I drag it over into Groove Agent and drop it onto one of the trigger "pads". At that point, I can do all sorts of things, including:

• Right click on the pad to assign a specific MIDI note to it.
  
• Shape the sound by modifying it's attack/decay, pitch, volume, etc. - even reverse it.
  

I pretty much ended up building a custom kit with modified samples for "Red Light, Green Light". Learning that I could do all of this relatively easily was pretty encouraging actually.

Furthermore, if I add Groove Agent as a VST Instrument (via the Media menu) instead of just as an instrument "track", then I can add multiple output busses to it (I think up to 24? I can't recall). Then I can specify which bus to send each pads output to, and apply EQ and effects/Inserts to individual samples or sub-groups of samples. Pretty hot!

@Kings - Yup, that seems to be the way to go.