For playing realistic drums, I’m fully onboard with Roberts suggestion with Addictive Drums 2.
But I honestly really like the less realistic style of having one-shot samples for playing drums where you can pick and choose and may end up with very creative drum sets. I wonder what the preferences here in this forum are.
My own preferences go like this: Overall, I like WA Triaz a lot, especially now that it got a native version out that doesn’t rely on Kontakt. It’s not only a good drum VST, it comes with a really good one shot library (I think my favorite one of those I have) that I also use elsewhere. Sequencer is also very good.
Unfortunately it doesn’t do loop slicing. Here I could use NI Maschine, but I find Apisonic Speedrum to have a much quicker workflow if you don’t use the hardware. So far I have only demoed it, but it makes a very nice impression.
Then there are the drum VST with AI categorized drum samples like XLN XO and Algonaut Atlas 2. The idea to discover drum sounds visually or by similarity is really nice and can lead to nice happy accidents. But the more “oldshool” VST like AD2 or Triaz make a more complete and well rounded impression to me, as they also have very good effects and mixing included.
I use XO more and more. I then drag the sample into reaper and just copy paste Sometimes I use a native reaper plugin to play the sample with midi but most of the time it’s just something like an extra layer of claps or something.
I am starting to realise that for more modern sounding stuff I probably should get myself some nice sample packs. I really like this guy Austin from makepopmusic.com and will probably buy some of his stuff based on the vibe of the song I need to make. So that’s not a program but just the sounds.
XO is nice - I really like the visual browser and how well it categorizes the samples. But the limitation to 8 sounds is not working for me, so it’s drag & drop from there - as you also seem to do
With samples: You already got Maschine 2 + some expansions with your hardware, right? All those samples are on your disk on .wav format, so you can just copy and re-organize them together. I did split it into two sample packs actually - one only containing drum one shots and one for the rest (like chords, transitions). Too bad, that you cannot do this with the XO factory samples, they would have been nice.
For organization I prefer to have bigger, consistently organized packs than many small ones. Besides the samples from Triaz (which are really well organized), I also got the “Samples from Mars” complete edition very cheap. The “Essential WAV” pack is already well curated and a good starting point. So those 3 (Triaz, NI Maschine, Samples of Mars) are the ones I use almost exclusively as they cover a lot of ground.
Those three packs are very versatile with a lot of less common, more creative sounds in them, too.
I definitely prefer using complete drumkit virtual instruments over individual samples. My current favourite is Native Instruments’ Abbey Road Drummer - a great selection of kits from the past and present, each with a good selection of mixes, plus the ability to modify and adapt the sounds. And it even includes a 1960s kit with teatowels to muffle the sound like Ringo did! But fundamentally, they are very well recorded and balanced samples, extremely usable in real tracks.
Sometimes I use a native reaper plugin to play the sample with midi but most of the time it’s just something like an extra layer of claps or something.