[Koolkat]

Can someone please point me in the direction of a reasonable PC based drum machine? This is just to get me through the initial stages of a songwriting project. If all goes well, I will look at something a bit more professional (like a real drummer even!) Basically I just need some blues drum patterns. Hydrogen has been mentioned elsewhere but this seems to be Linux only. Any help appreciated.

[Schavuitje]

To use on a pc I have ezdrummer. Not sure what the cost of it is these days. It'll give you

a decent substitution but of course like everything else. It's just not real drums.

It will give you a great idea of how those real drums might sound though

[Ramshackles]

You want something with built in drum fills/patterns?
I'm not sure if many vsti's have in-built grooves?

But in terms of VSTi's that you can just write your own midi grooves for, steven slate drums 4 is probably the leader of the market now. From the videos Ive seen it's more aimed at drum replacement (in conjunction with Trigger) or for using a midi drum kit. But you can probably just write midi parts aswell.
Off the top of my head there is also:

fxpansion BFD
Storm Drum
Groove Agent
Jamstix
Abbey Road Drums
addictive drums
Battery (Native instruments?)
Toontrack Superior Drummer
and of course EZ drummer.

There are plenty more out there and probably free ones too. I hate using them all  (thats just cause im crap; they can probably be made to sound great)

[mihkay]

Hydrogen for windows. Was available here
http://en.utilidades-utiles.com/download-hydrogen.html

[nfelockhart]

I use Addictive Drums for all of my solo work so far.
It does come with a bunch of patterns and fills but I don't know how good they are since I never used any of them. As far as sound samples and adjustability of the sounds go, I'm pretty satisfied with it

[Koolkat]

I have Guitar Pro 6 which I have been learning to use for producing drum backings. I have only heard the results through PC speakers so not really sure of the quality of the drum sounds. How does GP6 compare with other/dedicated drum software?