Drum programming/sequencing software for PC?

You need nothing else.

I've found it *utterly* intuitive to use. It looks JUST LIKE a drum machine and a a mixer and all the stuff that musicians use anyway. If you've ever used any kind of studio equipment at all, it's a breeze.

I suppose to someone coming from a programming background, as opposed to a recording/musicians's background, it might be confusing. But you can pick up the basics in an afternoon, make good music, and still only have scratched the surface of what it can do.

Standard answer-

Reason
or
Fruity Loops

Both have demo versions. Both have their fans and their haters. Get the demos for both and have a play.

They both work in very different ways - most notably that in Floops you have one bar on screen at a time and in Reason you have the whole song laid out before you. It's two different ways of looking at things - and I find that most people either find one or the other to their liking - cf. Kates answer

Words of warning - Floops got bought out by Cakewalk a while ago and has since had a million silly fluffy features added (although the recent addition of the Slicer allows you to do a few things that Reason could only do) and it's native sounds are incredibly dreadful. The quality of sounds you get with Reason straight out of the box are very, very good for what they are. However its native effects are woeful, its interface is arbitary and some basic things take a lot more work than I feel they should.

So, yeah, try both demos out first.

Somethings occured to me - Dahn, you're after drum programming. Are you looking add to existing instruments or are you going to be using the beats as a basis for what you're doing? If they're going to be additional then I'd go with Reason as you'll be able, as I've said, to see the whole track in more detail in one screen. If you're trying to "get a groove thang a-goin' awwwwnnn", making a beat from scratch as a basis for a track then go with Floops as it works with one bar at a time.

SCG - NEVER use the 3xOsc for bass - it suffers horrifically from phase problems. It's very badly made synth. You'll have your mastering engineer informing you that you've got to book him for another £500 quid session as that bass sound won't cut to vinyl.

And a second on the "REWIRE dammit!" point

Same with the Cakewalk Pro Audio family, although the Sonar releases all support loops and shit ever since Cakewalk bought up Floops.

If you already use some multitracker that supports VST or directX instruments, and you don't want to drop the bank for Reason or really just want something for drums/beats only, I cannot recommend Native Instruments Battery enough.

http://www.simbioticstore.com/valentine/index.html?c=viewalbums&ssid=0

Hehe.

The King Of The Castle is Novation's BassStation - top notch sound quality, does all you want it to do. Pricey though.

Korg have just brought out a top of the range set of softsynths which look good - although they're processor hogs like no other.

Really, its a tough call - if you want pristine quality with high levels of control then it costs. For a cheap way around it in Floops - get a sample of a decent sound in there and impose whatever controls you want over the top using plugins - filters, low-end ramps etc. - to get what you want.

Is the phase problem that the volume of the base changes dramatically? Could you disupt this by flanging or phasing the base sound with an effect?

http://www.maxxclaster.com/programs.html

Otherwise do a search for this subject in the forums and database at:

http://www.kvr-vst.com/

which is the best music plug-ins site.

Why the Wavestation kills things so much I'll never know. It should be well below the complexity of some things I do with equivalent synths.

The 3xOsc - The 3 oscillators do not work well together - especially when using it to create long, pure sine-y bass sounds. Here's how its done - a pure sine wave doesn't cut through enough to be effective, so the standard practice is to introduce another oscillator thats squared or tried or whatever and then filter the sound down so it retains the purity of the sine but has some of the properties of the harsher waveform. The 3xOsc is good for doing this as you can have sines on 2 different octaves plus your fattening, harsher waveshape. However it invariably leads to phase problems at the export stage - it'll sound fine as you play but will sound very different when you export. Ok, this is down to the export functions of Floops (which are notoriously awful - for God's sake use the higher quality export modes, the default is woeful) rather than the 3xOsc itself, but obviously it's an issue.

Let's clarify - on higher octaves it's fine, it's when you use it as a pure or semi-pure bass sound that it becomes a headache. I might be spreading paranoia hear, but just try solo'ing then exporting the 3xOsc tracks and playing them back and just see if what you're hearing on playback is actually what you're getting on export.

I've used Logic heavily only once for a MIDI-based project with a lot of racks of soundbanks and the like. I found it easy to dive into - except for the setup of the external midi stuff. Apprently though it's the easiest piece of software to set all that gubbins up with but I still had problems. I've since countered this by making any setup I use as simple as possible and making everything as software based as possible.

To be honest the deciding factor with Logic these days is that if you're using a Mac then go with it, if you're on Windows then don't. It's not made for Windows anymore.

That's one of the things that made it attractive to me. Does this include drum sounds? I am on mac, so....

If you want to shell out for Sample CD's then Best Service and Zero-G are the ones you want. V. Good quality.