I'm looking for a good tool to help me construct midi drum tracks. It needs to be able to output to VSTi, or at least to DXi with a wrapper (I'm using DFH Superior for drum sounds). I need to be able to map out a measure or two on a piano roll or similar grid, and then construct the track by laying out those loops in specific order.

Interface is important, as I need something intuitive and easy to use for this specific purpose. If I didn't need VSTi output, PC Drummer (http://www.pcdrummer.com/) would be a good example.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a tool that would help me accomplish this task easily?

You're looking for a midi drum machine. I've been bleating about the lack of one for yonks.

Nobody listens, nobody cares. Can't they feel my pain. Heartless bastards.

Have you looked at sonicbytes ERA? I've been using it for drums and it's excellent (at least to me): http://www.sonicbytes.com/

I use it with RMIV and it makes things a lot easier...

- go

there is nothing better than the musiclab products
http://www.musiclab.com
chao
Chris

If you mean SlicyDrummer and FillinDrummer, I'm not sure I agree... they just don't seem like quite what I'm looking for.

I haven't tried ERA. How does it handle alternate time signatures? I sometimes go between 4/4 and 5/4, for instance. And how does it fare when chaining loops together to make a final track? That's what I need -- something that lets me easily edit a pool of drum loops and chain them together with the click of a button, without having to copy/paste specific phrases... maybe Project5, or something similar? I really don't know...

Jammer doesn't have VST support but for generating cool drum tracks, it's as good, and in my opinion, better than anything out there. I use it constantly to generate my midi drum tracks. It's extremely fast, flexible, and most importantly, not robotic sounding. When I'm satisfied with the MIDI track, I just export it as a MIDI file, import it into n-Track, and then send it to my RMIV VST plug-in. In my opinion it's the best thing out there. It's so simple to re-record song sections, measures, and even beats until you are totally satisfied with the part. It's literally a one push button operation. Plus the really cool thing is that it does much more than just drums!

ERA will do that & more no sweat, but it doesn't work in stand-alone; you route it to whatever you want to have it drive within your sequencer.

look for Orion instead of Project 5
Chao
Chris