OK, I'm trying to make a decision about what program to use for my computer based drums...I currently have an Athlon 2GHZ, with 256MB RAM (Soon to be 512MB) - bearing this in mind, as I'm going to be on the absolute minimum for some of these...

- Drumkit from Hell 1 + Battery (Not sure whether to go for v1 or v2?)
- Drumkit from Hell Superior
- Drumkit from Hell 2 (pretty much decided against this option as I've heard almost exclusively negative things about it)
- BFD FXpansion
- Groove Agent

I've heard a lot of good thinks about DKFH1's samples having already had some processing done on them so they sound really good without having to spend too much time processing yourself...

I really wanted DKFH2 - seemed like an ice cheap option, now I'm looking at spending more than twice that, haha, this is such a headache! lol. My overall intention is to get some drums together for metal and I want to be able to assign my different samples to different midi keys.

Any recommendations out of these? (or if you must confuse me further, through in another option)

some opinions: Battery 2 is much improved over Battery 1. Actually, the library that comes with Battery 2 is pretty good. Also, the NI Studio Drums thing has some very nice drum sounds. They're unprocessed raw samples, recorded very dry, which I like, since I can do my own processing then.

DKFH Superior: do you have 2 GB of RAM? No? Forget it. The kit loads huge amounts of samples into RAM, the VSTi that comes with it does NO diskstreaming (what a joke!), and the thing is generally a resource hog. I ran into problems and I have 1 GB RAM in an Athlon 2600+.

BFD is supposed to be not so much for metal sounds. But who knows. I didn't buy it.

Groove Agent: the samples are nothing to write home about. The grooves are kinda nice, sometimes, but I think the whole package doesn't compare to dedicated multisampled drum sample sets.

Another alternative is StormDrum from Quantum Leap. Some rather good samples in there, some very nice kits. Might need some tweaking to get it to sound like you really want to, but some of the samples are dang good.

Some examples from my songs:

http://www.trueper.de/music/tammo_truep ... 92kbps.mp3 drums are Battery 2 with one of the industrial kits from the library plus some distorted snares.

http://www.trueper.de/music/tammo_truep ... 92kbps.mp3 StormDrum samples in a pop/rock instrumental

NI Studio drums
- in a prog rock context (Beware: Big download!): http://www.trueper.de/music/tammo_truep ... 92kbps.mp3

- in a quiet, ambient context: http://www.trueper.de/music/tammo_truep ... ky_192.mp3

- in a kind of industrial metal context, put through distortion: http://www.trueper.de/music/maniac_192kbps.mp3 (this tune has some other heavily distorted drum samples that I've been using for years. Don't know anymore where I got the original kicks and snares before I mangled them).

I have Battery 1, never used it. I used to use Kontakt instead for drum samples, since it would disk stream and had better processing abilities. Battery 2, now, that is much better, I see myself using that a lot in the future. Very nice to use, very powerful.

hope that helps a little.

You can stream the songs, too, with 192 kbps sampling rate, if you want. The streaming links are on my site: http://www.trueper.de/music/musicdownload.html

Tammo

I've heard a lot of good thinks about DKFH1's samples having already had some processing done on them so they sound really good without having to spend too much time processing yourself...

That can be a blessing and a curse. The bad one is that everyone will sound the same, the good one being that it's easy to throw in.

I'd have to recommend against DFH Superior as well; the interface is crap, and you need a LOT of ram for the big kits. It sounds great, and has all the drums you'll ever need, but it's just not convinient to use on any level. Also, 35 GB!!! Christ, that's half my hard drive. I mean, it's good, and you do a lot of diverse styles then maybe it's what you want, but I don't think it's worth $300, especially with the horrible interface.
I use DFH 1 with the add-on pack (extra cymbals and snares) with Battery 2 and it's absolutely awesome. The kicks are VERY metal, and the samples are not really over-processed; I detect some EQ in them, but they're not squashed or anything. Run them through an 1176 and WOW.
I haven't used DFH2. It comes with the Kompakt player, though, and it seems many of the Native Instrument Kompakt instruments can only be opened in Kompakt. It's not a bad program, Kompakt, but I'd rather use something else that I'm very familiar with, and if I understand correctly, this isn't possible (anyone want to confirm? Are there WAVs included or just .NKI's?)
I'm not familiar with BFD. I've heard demos that sound great, and it's a big library (9 gigs), but I too have heard that it's not the best choice for metal drums.
Lastly, Groove Agent.... it sucks. I'm sure it's good for jamming along to, but preset patterns and only so-so drum samples probably isn't what you're looking for. It's more of a really big loop CD than a sample library. I can't recommend it in any way for actual recording.

It comes with the Kompakt player, though, and it seems many of the Native Instrument Kompakt instruments can only be opened in Kompakt. It's not a bad program, Kompakt, but I'd rather use something else that I'm very familiar with, and if I understand correctly, this isn't possible (anyone want to confirm? Are there WAVs included or just .NKI's?)

There are usually no wavs included with those sample sets that come bundled with the Kompakt player. The samples are all in big container files, and you can't directly extract them from those files. However, if you have KONTAKT, you can open the Kompakt patches in Kontakt and then edit and process all you want. Since Kontakt is my fav sampler anyway, I rather like those "Bundled with Kompakt Player" things, since I can just open the programs in Kontakt anyway.

Tammo

That's what I figured; NI usually uses their proprietary .NKI or .NKS format for big sample libraries. I think Battery 2 can open those. Oh, I can check now:

Yes, it can.

Even so, I prefer wave files. For example, I have a Kompakt instrument with two big .nki libraries. I do not own Kontakt. A few of the samples, ones that I wish to use, have clicks or glitches in them. I could fix this in a wave editor, but I can't access the waves. That's why proprietary file formats suck. Sorry for the thread hijack, back onto the topic:
DFH 1 + Add-on pack + Battery = SUPER.

I have to admit, FL Studio 5 is pretty good. The rest were crap but you can do some really good shit with FL. I think its only gonna get better...

Overall... buy a mac.

haha, looks like the most expensive option is going to be the best, haha

thanks for your replies everyone and boogie - thanks for taking the time to include all that!

I definately dont want loops, I want something that can cope with odd time sigs, time changes etc plus, it's way more fun playing keyboard drums

Drumkit from Hell 1

definitely (I use the '2' but I"m disapointed)

I use DFH superior... it's not bad at all... also not for everyone, since it IS a hog for your PC.. 35 GB..., i use it with ease now, took me two months to get used to it, since the drums are not equalized for ya... you have to do that yourself... so if you have the memory, the money, and the time, and are willing to learn this from scratch, then you might want to look into DFHS.. i know i can't do music without it now, it is superior... also i have no problems with the interface, looks fine to me.

But, if you are looking for a more simpler way to get your drums going, go for DFH1! i don't have it, but i'l tell you, i wish i had it the first two months working with DFHS... now i still want it, since it's way easier to use.. less samples, less of a learning curve, but easier... (i can't compare the sound)

So like said before, just get DFH1 with battery or FL studio and you are all set!