Hey, it's 1:30 in the morning here in Mexico and in order to keep away the demons that are wainting for me in my dreams, i came up with the idea of this thread.  So, I was talking to JimK about the importance of making your own loops instead of downloading the already made loops and cut, copy, paste and add fills, etc.  For him, there's a really creative effort needed to construct a drum track based on pre-made loops, and of course that's something obvious for anyone who tried it.  However I've found that by downloading (and getting from cd's) single samples I can give to my tunes a more personal sound, plus the fact that having to start from scratch with the drums gives me a better understanding of the rythm I'm working with and the accents needed to improve the overall sound.  That's obviously important for me as my music is at the end basically about the percussions, but I don't know how relevant it is for other genres and styles.  So I'd like to know wich members do make their own loops and wich ones use loops made by others, and how do you feel about that choice in both cases. 
I think there are just a few bands around the amp this days and therefore most of us have to invent ways to sound like one... or not...

I write out my drum parts in a drum editor window ..then sent that midi to a drum machine (i know old fashioned with the new vst and drum in fl and stuff ) but that's what I'm used to so it works for me.. I am limited in the sounds i have because it is a drum machine/keyvboard..   I just got FL7 this last weekend and I am experimenting
with the drum sounds in it so I will probably start writing my percussion, keys and bass lines there. 

Excellent thread topic

I"ll use the velocities in preset loops but Ill move the patterns beats to fit the song most of the time.The way I generally write drums when using FPC loops is that I"ll look for the closest hats and kicks a that fit the song the best as far as velocities and general beat.Then I'll add the cymbals , snare,fills and kicks to were it fits the song basically becoming a new pattern except by the velocities which I also tend to tweak a bit too.I' write this loops in different patterns on the playlist and then once done I'll Copy and paste all the drums into one general pattern track and delete the original ones.That way I can make sure all my levels are balanced for each part of the song.
The other way I write is a lot more time consuming because when its from scratch (no preset loops) the velocities tend to be very complicated and tedious to work with.I generally use this for more progressive music!

In general I try to use what ever does the song justice although I don't always make the right choices. I also try to keep the drums as original as possible even when initially using presets which eventually I reconfigure into a new pattern.
HHmmm
Well actually I have used just the preset with no modification many times too now that I think about it!!

Examples
1-Preset patterns! http://forum.bandamp.com/Audio_Review/5309.html

2-Modified patternhttp://forum.bandamp.com/Audio_Review/5250.html

3-Original Patternhttp://forum.bandamp.com/Audio_Review/5209.html

Cool post  Aetheris!

Marino

I like to use a mixture make some of my own, from scratch or from slicing other loops, like marino says, whatever works best for the track, or can mix and match beats take hi-hats from one loop and write the kick snare, it's easy to manipulate loops into something that is your own by slicing them into the individual hit's, i usually make my own loops if i've got no inspiration for a song and just save them in my library for later use, I also like sampling all sorts of sounds instruments etc, just depends how you use them..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac

watch that, all about the amen break drum loop, interesting stuff

Great Link Devo! Actually got me thinking about the collage as a form of art.  Authors like Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes among others have written largely about it, as it seems to be that our times are not longer times of creation ex nihilo but instead times for re-combine.  It's about copy and paste, but it's also about making new lands of meaning out of something that already existed.  So, that may change my point of view on this but I'm still more confortable constructing my own loops...although I may have copied that Amen break sometime... a little bit... come on, i didn't now it existed! 

Im with Devo, in that I go about half and half.  Especially in the genre that Devo (and I recently) writes in, it is called for.  I will usually start by writing my own loop and then atleast 2 to 3 variations of it.  Then Ill layer up some loops and filter out some of the lower frequencies so that it becomes more of a percussion loop than a drum loop and layer that over my existing drum track.  It adds depth and character to the track.  Anyway, thats my take.