I found this question on the Cockos Reaper Forums recently.
What’s the best drum software VST to start with?
Here’s another question: Do you want to spend $250 straight away?
If not, why not try some freebies first, and see what you are most comfortable with.
FREEBIES
The Free Addictive Drums demo has nice sounds and a good selection of demo kits and some beats (midi files) but a basic set up (Kick, Snare, Cymbal and Hi Hat only). Worth a listen. I found it a bit fiddly to set up at the beginning.
Drumcore FREE has a big library of loops and patterns 1.5gb – you can drag and drop the patterns (Midi and Audio and Rex Loops) into Reaper and make a backing track very quickly. There’s a choice of 2 drum kits (Rock & Hip Hop) – Great if you don’t mind a big download. I found it easier to set up than Addictive Drums (it took a while for me to figure out where the demo presets were in AD). More patterns than AD Demo too.
MDrummer Small (Melda Productions) – good choice of beats and nice kit sound, demo is worth a look – I found Drumcore a little easier to use.
GTG Drum Sampler II – a modest freebie and popular and tiny download (no loops or patterns included though) Very basic but will play your midi drum patterns on a track. Limited by only one kit sound.
If you get Computer Music Magazine there’s a basic mono sampling drum machine called SR-202 (a bit like Reason’s Redrum) and an electronic kit called CM-505 which is quite fun – both FREE on the cover disc every month. The CM-505 has a novel electronic sound and is worth tracking down. The SR-202’s sound are pretty basic (not a patch on AD), though you can add your own mono samples if need be.
$50 BUYS YOU…
Another couple worth a look for a few bucks are Cakewalk’s Studio Instruments SI-Drums ($50 with strings, piano and bass too) and SessionDrummer2 also for $50. I recently got SessionDrummer 2 for $10 in a sale but its now gone back up in price. Both Cakewalk drum machines come with Midi files and a selection of nice Drum Kits. Watch some demos on YouTube and see what you think.
For all round ease of use and choice of loops (which you can export) and its handy drag and drop feature I would start with Drumcore FREE.
Other alternatives could be:
1) UVI Workstation (FREE) which will play several drum loops / Rex files at once. Great if you have access to a FREE Loopmasters library or similar. You can click and drag drum loops / Rex files into it. Not sure how you could sequence a whole track with it on, (you would probably drag the ones you like into Reaper as you go along) but great for auditioning loops and hearing how several play together. The latest version (v2.0.7) wouldn’t work on Vista 32 bit but the previous version (v2.0.5) does.
2) Oops. It’s NOT a VST BUT…
Acoustica Beatcraft ($40) is a standalone sample based drum machine which is very easy to program but won’t run inside Reaper – You would need to create your own patterns, render to audio first and import them into Reaper. OK if you don’t mind programming your own patterns, but I mention it as I find it the easiest to program of the lot and you can build sequences with it quickly that you can jam along to. Comes with a good selection of samples in Ogg format. Note, there’s no midi with it – it won’t play midi patterns. It’s Audio (wav/ogg) only.
Finally:
3) PERCUSSION LOOPS
If you want some excellent percussion (Bongos, shakers, and mixed percussion) sounds to compliment your drums, grab some FREE loops from esoundz (from the freesoundz page) they have a great FREE pack for download called the RAW PERCUSSION PACK in Apple (.aiff), Rex (.rx2) and Wave (.wav) format.
You will need to open an account with esoundz to download the freebies.
Posted at Cockos Forums at: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=111528&highlight=drum+vst