Hey all. My primary setup is an ENGL Fireball head on Mills Acoustics 4x12 Cabinet. I really want to start recording soon, but right now I can't afford to drop a few grand on good recording equipment that will let my amp shine through. So I've decided to get a Pod XT to hold me off for a year or so, so that I can record and it'll still sound decent. However, my problem is I don't know any good drum programs. What would you guys suggest? And how is an easy way to go about actually laying down drum tracks...MIDI Drum Machine?

There's always Drumkit from Hell. And I'm sure Alucard will be here soon to tell you about Addictive Drums.

DFH is way bettar then AD imo.

You should read up on impulses. You can use your Fireball head with impulses. But recording equipment doesn't cost a few grand, at least not for guitar. A presonus firebox and one or two SM57's should be more then good enough. Go to the ultimate metal and read/ask about guitar micing and you could probably get some awesome pointers.

Superior Drummer is amazing (big brother version of EZ drummer).

The new Metal Foundry expansion is also very sweet - comes with Devin presets too if you fancy that sorta thing.

To be fair, I haven't tried Impulses or AD, but Superior does everything I need it to.

edit: As far as MIDI goes, if you have a legit copy, you can register it and get loads of different loops etc which you can tweak to your hearts content afterwards.

Last summer I bought myself a mac mini, protools 8/mbox2 mini, and Native Instruments Battery3.
I still don't really know Battery3 that good yet, but I think it's really versatile and probably the best buy if You want an easy way to program and edit drums/samples.
But then again, If You're aaaaaall Metal, Ezdrummer-Drumkit From Hell is probably more easy-going and faster/more intuitive!
(And You don't have to do that much in the mix to get a great sound... But mixing around is the way to go for a aspiring geek like myself! )
But I think the drum-solution depends much on Your d.a.w. (And of course Your knowledge of programming, midi, routing and so forever on!)

Battery 3 is great for quick and no fuss programming, I use it all the time for my demos.

It depends how you like to sequence and what your the best at (or quickest)

DFH/superior 2.0 is awesome, with or with out the metal expansion its really great.

I think if you truly want an original sound, its always good to record your own snares and hits and see how you go using just a drum machine or midi sequencer, i think messing around with multiple programs gives you the best variety, but i would recommend DFH drummer superior. BFD is good, not as good as DFH in my opinion, never used AD, messed around with battery a bit and thats a good seq, i use reasons redrum and use my own hits in the sampler, its the quickest for me sequencing wise, then i usually upload it in DFH vst. also if your working with midi seq, you can save your midi files and just open them in other programs, you may have to move the midi notes around to match up with the right trigger but the sky is the limit if your gonna try drum seq in a program, midi is god!!

If you are bored and got some space on your disc install Ubuntu then use Jack Audio Connection Kit, record into Ardour and plug in Hydrogen as Drum Machine. From what I have seen so far, Hydrogen runs circles around all others.

If you are bored and got some space on your disc install Ubuntu

There's a version of Ubuntu specifically for the creative and artistic folk, called Ubuntu Studio. It's just for stuff like this, recording music, editing video and stuff. http://ubuntustudio.org/

I have very very recently tried out addictive drums ... seems cool.. sounds fairly good... my drum programming skills arent that crash hot... though i can set keys on my midi keyboard controller and just play the drum on that... velocity sensitive and everything.... im still new to using it and havent written anything using it yet... tho i think it will be good

I'm using the stuff from Ubuntu Studio and I think it's very suitable for home recording. I'm no Linux pr0 but I still get stuff to work somehow by clicking around or reading instructions from the Internet. With good instructions it shouldn't take too long to have Hydrogen working for example. You just have to have a little sense of humor sometimes if something doesn't work. There will always be a way to fix it. And updating Ubuntu can sometimes mess all the settings but it hasn't ever taken too much time for me to get them fixed.

The best part about it is that it's FREE

Know this thread is a bit old, I'd recommend superior drummer 2 with metal foundry, theres even a preset kit by the dev himself