I'm trying to record some hard rock tracks, which requires some pretty splashy/heavy drum parts.

My friend uses Fruity Loops alot, so I borrowed her computer and had a play around...man, programing drum sections is the most boring, soul draining thing I've ever had to do! And I had to soft boil and peel 180 Quail eggs before, so I know what I'm talking about.

What programs do you all use? Are any of them better in your opinion than others? The samples I was using were all pretty techno orientated. What's a good program for rock/metal drums? I'm after a Deftones/Linkin Park kinda sound. Or any ideas where I can get some meaty samples?

Peter

Best PC Drum Pattern Creator is definitely "Hydrogen" It's free! Yes honestly, free.
It's open source software and I use it on my Linux system but there is a Windows version too.  
Lot's of advice and drum sound-fonts for it on the web.
Worth spending the time on the slight learning curve.

Have a try.   ]http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/

I use Redrum in Reason.

find it REALLY fast and easy

I second that with Redrum, it's very user friendly and fun to use.

Flossie

Just installed Hydrogen - impressed! Thanks Mihkay - good call!

Use a real drummer?

Why not collaborate? I am a drummer and I'd be more than happy to help you out

But if you want to do it yourself then I recommend BFD 2, BFD eco or Addictive drums. Both have a massive library of midi loops and you can simple drag and drop into your DAW. 

Using a real drummer is the ideal, but while I'm in the beginnings of a song, organising a rehearsal room, getting a small group together and jamming my ideas is just too difficult. After all, I and almost all the musicians I know are amateurs and have to schedule music around work and family. I'd play the drum part's myself but the neighbours might not be best pleased.  

However my style of creation really can't be done with a single or couple of pre-programmed loops. My drum patterns need a feel or groove for me to be able to develop the song properly. I usually iterate around the drum pattern / rhythm guitar parts a quite few times to get the feel right and have been known to scrap a song and start again as the feel of a certain groove finally hits me.
So a drum machine is required to get a new song into an advanced enough state to take into band rehearsal and it has to be flexible enough to work easily in odd time signatures and with enough dynamics to allow me to groove a song well enough to get the feel over to other musicians before we all hit the rehearsal room.

Now if I was creating a song within a band structure as a collaborative effort then a real drummer is my first choice, but while I'm writing in my spare room, on my own...... Until a drummer can turn up in my garden, with his own soundproof booth (within 2 minutes of me having an idea at 9am on a Sunday morning) play the same part over and over while I try out ideas then sit around while i develop the idea for a couple of hours............ then I will discard my drum machine.  

I tend to use Guitar Pro to write drum tracks on, since you can get a more "musical" layout of the beats (although I write in the mindset of tablature), then I import the midi data of that into whatever I'm recording with, which in this case is GarageBand. There I can edit the velocity of drum hits and tweak everything

I'll sometimes just write directly in GarageBand if the beat is very much simple. After I posted this I managed to pick up ableton live with some discounts at my local music store using a Groupon deal and this is amazing if not a little beyong me at the moment!!!

You can also export midi drum patterns from BandinaBox.  Easiest way to create cool drum patterns, then you can customize them in your DAW's midi editor.

I metioned Band in a Box in another thread somewhere. Can be a very useful tool.

I have been using EZdrummer. For a few reasons. It is so simple to use even I can do it, You can choose not only from various

preset kits but you can individually change any of the components. So you have a choice of different snares, crashes etc... Then you can choose whether the lkits should

be roomy or dry to the point where you can mix the kit yourself and alter each component individually again.

Plus there's cool add-ons like the Drumkit From Hell or Vintage Rock which would suit your purposes perfectly. If you have a keyboard... instead of useing one of the myriad

patterns that there are to choose from, you can play your own pattern. Of course you can program the drums as well but like you say that is so boring and time consuming.

EZDrummer is well worth looking at.

I'm going to have a look at Hydrogen, thanks for the heads up with that one

Bit late in the day I know, but I use JamStix http://rayzoon.com/.  It can be a simple or complex as you like, and its very easy to knock up a rhythm track in any style..  Give the demo a go.
P