Where are the Electric Guitar Soloists ??

Thanks for the quick response,

I already laid out a chunk of change for my last upgrade to 2009.5. My upgrade to 2010 is going to cost me $250. I don't think there are many SOLOIST upgrade . . . well, not $250 worth.

I've tried all the handful of soloists I can find in the 120 tempo range and none of them work well. Metal and blues just does not work and the slides are too bluesy. I already used it for the first song, but I might use the "Dire" solo to write the solo by editing it after its recorded into a DAW. At least I can create a guide for the studio soloist give him a good idea of what I'm looking for.

I am surprised that there are no generic "pop / rock" guitar soloists in 4/4. I would have thought that the first "Guitar Soloist" would have been the generic "pop / rock" style soloists in slow, medium and fast tempo. Even if its just "clean electric" sound can be easily altered to add distortion later.

I just don't understand that all the work that was put into creating all the wonderful Real Styles but did not create the soloists using the same players used to create the Real Styles. If a particular Real style had Bass, B3 Organ, acoustic guitar and clean electric guitar, that particular Style should have a soloist for the Bass, B3 Organ, Acoustic and Electric guitar with matching sound for solos. I don't think there is a single B3 Organ soloist at all.

The lack of matching soloist means that there is going to be a HOLE in every song that does not have a soloist for each instrument used to create that Real Style. The other way of looking at it is . . . Any Real Style isn't usable in a Studio Environment unless there is a matching soloist available or the particular song does not have a solo break. A solo break in a song happens more often than not.

Now I am realizing that SOLOISTS is the big WEAK LINK in the Real Styles. Replacing MIDI SOLOS is possible with keyboard sounds like piano, EP and Organ Sounds, but trying to create a MIDI based stringed instrument is much harder and require very extensive MIDI editing to even get them to sound passable within any Real Styles.

The next best thing is to write the stringed or wind instrument solos using MIDI instruments and have the studio musicians learn the solos. But with wind instruments like sax or trumpet, the character of the sound itself is a product of THE particular instrument used to record the Real Style. There really is no way to match an acoustically recorded instrument in the solo parts recorded in a studio. In this aspect, Electric guitars and Bass can be EQ'd enough to come close to the instrument played in the rest of the Real Style. Any electrified instruments can add a different effects in the Solo parts make it blend well enough to work with the rest of the song. Acoustic instrument solos would be a lot tougher to get them to sit well in the final mix.

With the exception of the time and expense of having to record SOLOS in the studio to match the rest of the Real Style used for a song, BIAB does eliminate the rehearsal time and expense of hiring a real band. BIAB Real Style is still a "god-send" to singer / songwriters who can afford studio time by saving a great deal on production cost.

I wish there were more soloists. Specially Soloists that match a created Real Style.

I do realize that I am trying to get a "Consumer" software to work in a "Professional Studio" environment. But OMG . . . Real Styles are so close being a "professional" tool . . . with the exception of the "weak link" I am up against.

BIAB . . . its a great software. It is probably the most under-rated software for professional use. It is second to none for writing songs for a band.

Thanks

I would also like to see more guitar solos across more tempos. I agree with some of the other posters in that you can squeeze more juice out of what is already there by running the existing solos at half or double time and/or using solos from other styles, but having a greater choice of solos to start with would be better. Something recorded specifically for the style and tempo you are working with will usually sound best.

I guess that PG have come a long way with realtracks in just a couple of years but it is obviously time consuming and expensive to produce new realtrack styles and they seem to be working at full capacity. Personally I would support any initiative from PG to speed up the rate at which new realtrack styles are delivered and would be happy to shell out more money for bigger and/or more frequent new batches of styles (perhaps independently of BIAB releases?).

If PG were able to find some way to open up the architecture so that other content providers could create realtracks, (under PG's quality control and even perhaps distributed by PG in an 'Appstore' kind of approach), then that would be brilliant - both in expanding the number of realtrack styles available and perhaps by opening up genres that have not been PGs natural territory in the past.

Meanwhile I have my fingers crossed that 2010.5 will come soon and deliver me some useful new goodies on the realtracks front.

Regards, Aubrey

jazzmammal,

Thank you for your informative response regarding Real Band. I must admit that I am a total novice when it comes to Real Band. I never really got into it. From what I can understand from your post, it sounds like its a part of BIAB that warrants some time investment to get to know. It sounds like Real Band can save a lot of time "composing" solo parts to match an existing Real Style.

Since the available "soloists" are quite limited, I'll be writing solos using bits and pieces from where ever I can find the "Pieces". When something is written in this manner, the finished composition will still have to be played by a studio musician to record the finished solo.

When recording a solo, a passage or the entire instrument part for a song, its rare that I encounter a musician who can "play through" without error. Typical level of "musicianship" of a session player for a typical demo studio usually requires a number of takes. I just have to make sure I have enough "good parts" that I can comp a finished track later. After the "parts" are recorded, I would export each "good part" as a WAV file to be edited in Ableton. Once in Ableton, it has a feature that allows me to edit each WAV file to quantize a each beat point of an audio file. Once all the pieces are quantized, I can comp the finished solo in Ableton. Then its just a matter of exporting to the DAW for mixing. Therefore, all the import / export process I mentioned previously is in regards to the required process for completion after the tracking session is finished.

As much I dislike reading manual, you gave me enough incentive to go through the Real Band manual. I just did not get around to doing that because BIAB seemed to be doing what I needed. Now I have the incentive to explore into Real Band.

Thanks for your help.
Ed Layola

Yoda,
We do plan on adding more guitar soloists. What specific ones do you have in mind (sample tunes). Basic Rock can mean different things.

Thank you Peter. And thank you Yoda for bringing it up. I had just put a note on the Realband wishlist forum last weekend requesting more lead and riffs for those of us who don't play lead guitar. I'd like to have lead riffs that match each tempo range guitar style - as part of the set. So in addition to the a only, b only, a and b, rhythm tracks for a particular guitar real track - we'd also have a soloist track that goes with it.

I think if the soloist are more riff based than song based - with a variety of more complex riffs and combinations of riffs for the genre - that would work for a lot of different songs. Just something to consider.

Peter

Perhaps this is a bit of a cop out, but for me, the most useful thing would be to have soloists that can cover more of the splended "matched sets" of rhythm tracks issued over the last couple of years. For examples, the matched sets on disks 67 - 69, and 78-82 have given me masses of ideas (and pleasure), but there are no matching soloists. Sometimes you can make do (and I do try to use all the ones you mentioned earlier in this thread, as well as some more imaginative choices like cutting and pasting "background" phrases from Dobros etc to make "solos") but not always.

I do have an electric guitar but it is more a form of musical therapy than a bona fide contribution to my music making!

To sum up, ideally, for me, each matched set of rhythm tracks would have a matching soloist. There are already examples of this (e.g the faster Dire Straits RTs and the splended Driving Country Ballad set) and I'd love a few more. If I'd to pick one only, it would be the rock waltzes. It is hard to make do around these, and trying to play solos in anything other than 4/4 does my head in!

My 2p

Brian

I agree with Sundance that riff-based Soloists would be great.
I've done the cut and paste thing, moving phrases around, changing a single note in a phrase, etc.

What would be really cool is a Soloist generator where you can program the speed, intensity, range, direction (up and down), and number of notes for a solo - in much the same way that Holds, Shots, etc can be programmed for Chord progressions - With Selectable Preset Soloists and/or create your own.

Currently, the Real Tracks pretty much blow away MIDI trying to do anything similar, not to mention that they sound better than what most of us can do with real instruments.

PeterGannon,

Thank you for your's and PG's interest in this matter.

Having worked with many musicians in the studio for the last 30 years, a solo can be divided into 2 main types of solos. "Melody based", and "Ad-lib / Free-form" based. A "melody based" solo is nearly impossible to create for this type of a program like BIAB, since there is no way to predict any lead melody line. What we have so far are the "Free-form based" solos for the soloists. Please remember that I don't have any idea of the required production process to create ant Real Styles or Real Soloists

If I was the producer in charge of creating new soloists, I would start with "generix" type of solos covering the tempo range of 60 to 180 as slow, medium slow, medium, medium fast and fast. I would also start with the most common time signatures of 3/4 and 4/4. By "generic", what I mean is the typical solos played by any performing band that does not "emulate" any particular "well known" artist. I do understand that when asked to perform in a "generic" style, every player can not help but bring in their "own style" of playing into such a performance. That should be fine as long as the player has a large number of solo riffs in their arsenal. A "generic" style should work with almost any Real Style within its genre (Rock, Metal, Pop, Country, Jazz etc.). In the case of guitar solos, regarding "clean" or "dirty, I would start with clean. Many of us have the capability to add desired level of distortion as needed.

The same concept of production should apply to all solo instruments. Guitar is a good starting point since its the most common instrument. Then wind instruments that are most commonly found in a "Band". Then keyboard instruments with vintage sounds that needs to be a real track, like a couple of variations of B3 Organ.

After that is done, then move on to the "emulated" soloists, much like the "Dire" type of solos. The problem with "emulated" soloists that they are too "recognizable" when doing an "album" of songs. A solo used for one song is "too similar" when used in another song in an album.

Currently existing Soloists have too narrow of tempo range. In the example of the "Dire" soloist, there is only one tempo, 140. If there was a temp of 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180, then the "Dire Soloist" would have been more useful for many more song. Of course, with each recorded tempo range would naturally create different riffs. This will further enhance the "variety" in the soloists while still retaining the "Dire" feel.

Believe me, I can imagine the enormity of the production process I am suggesting. I am also very excited about the future of where Real Tracks is headed. I'm sure that with the advancement of the recording software and computers, the cost of production process should continue decrease.

Other minor things I am noticing about Real tracks and Real Drums is the amount of recorded "ambiance". In general, IMO there are too much "room ambiance" recorded with the tracks. For example, the "sax tracks" have too much "room reverb" included. If it was recorded in a more "dead" room, it would make "mixing" a bit easier. With the Real Drum tracks, if a "gate" was included in each drum input (snare, toms and kick / bass drum), the "ringing" of the skins will be more controlled to match the type of music these drum tracks were intended for. The Real Drum tracks don't sound like any "gates" were used in the recording chain. Of course, cymbals will not be gated. I might be getting a bit too "nit picky". Lastly, a larger variety of "fills" for Real Drums would be nice. For slower tempo Real Drum tracks, some triplets in the "fills" would be nice too.

I was not trying to create a "wish list" but I thought I should say enough since we have the attention of PG Music in this case.

Thanks a lot for your attention Peter and PG.

Ed Layola

I don't know what to think about the previous post. Obviously the theory of time stretching and the reverse elude the author. Part of the perception that there is a problem is exacerbated by the fact if you chose a tempo of 92 and the realtrack is recorded at 90 you get the equivalent of an error message via the dastardly flashing yellow box. I urge that this be thought through and the error message only appear if the track is being stretched past it's limit.

The technology of melody based solos is already part of the PG arsenal. In fact, try putting a very prominent melody you know well and mute it and play the real track and see if you can spot it. In many of my songs it's there, hinted at, fooled with, and becomes part of the style. This I believe, and I'm sure Mac will jump in here, but is the difference between using a realtrack fill and a realtrack soloiist.

As to how something is recorded, ie the way a drum kit is done, will vary with almost every studio, and every song. I think given the artists involved, the people involved, and the company you are going to get a group who have a good feel for what they do and how they do it. I'd like to see you walk up to award winning people like Terry Clarke and tell him it's being done all wrong. He sat in the studio, and no doubt listened to the result, and I doubt the recording was done in the back room of the Seattle Radio Shack Store with stuff from the shelves.

We have a wish list forum, and normally Dr. Gannon and his crew go through, with Dr. Gannon answering the wishes personally, at times with explanations.

The new prevailing wisdom of the 'recording' community here seems to have a track for every part of the drum kit, and then they will argue over how it was recorded.

REMEMBER, some of us are USING this software as an end product. WE don't want to spend hours tweaking some cowbell so that the ring is right for the size of the room when it's 21 degrees C with a relative humidity of 72 percent and an east wind at 12 kmh.

At the end of the day, the need for more variety in the RealTracks offered is trumps the tweaking of the existing stuff, even if on or two users think it was done all wrong and needs a total redo along with the interface, the support for everything apple, and making it work with a 128 channel mixer that I store in my garage.

Hello John Conley,

Gee . . . my intention was not to ruffle anyone's feathers.

The first paragraph was to try to clarify what I had in mind as "Basic Rock" as mentioned in the previous post by PeterGannon.

The paragraphs following the first one starts with the statement "If I was the producer . . ." Its just what I might do if I was in charge. Its just a guess as what I might do without knowing all the requirements set forth by PG Music for creating Real tracks.

Nothing I said was meant to be a criticism about anything that was done. All tracking engineers, including myself, all do things differently. As long as the result works, there really is no "right" way or a "wrong" way. All I wanted to do was present another "production food-for-thought". My years of experience of tracking, mixing and producing would lead me to trying to achieve a result that is most versatile. Therefore, I would not include too much room ambiance . . . IF I was the producer . . . but thats just me.

I apologize if you thought something I said was a criticism. That was not my intention. It is not my opinion that anything was done "wrong". What exists for Real Tracks are all great. I'm just human . . . I want more. LOL

Well . . . you know about opinions . . . everyone has one. The Forum is one of those places where we can express such opinion. And thats what it was . . . just an opinion.

Thanks
Ed Layola

While I agree the more soloists the better, consider the primary mission of these Real Tracks is to provide high quality backing tracks, not a complete finished product. All the pro's at PG HQ and there's more than you probably know certainly know that a finished song will have well written song specific lead lines, licks, rhythm figures etc that would be impossible to create a RT for because as you said there's no way for the creator of the RT to know ahead of time what you're going to come up with. There are things that are simply part of the deal when using RT's that don't lend themselves to a finished studio product such as the fast/slow leslie on the B3 or the sustain on the piano. Since these programs allow the user to put in their own chords, there's no way for the chords on those two instruments to flow smoothly from one to the other whether it's the leslie ramping up or down or the piano sustain. They both sound choppy in certain places and that's just the way it is.
There's already a huge wishlist for more backing tracks. Strings and horns are probably in first place right now but there's all kinds of people requesting mandolins, harmonicas, orchestral instruments, accordians, more country, more bluegrass, more rock, folk, jazz fusion, all kinds of stuff. Those probably take priority over more soloists but of course that's PG's decision. The other thing is we're already at 80 gigs now for the WMA UltraPak and what 2-300 gigs for the audiophile version? It's getting overwhelming now to go through a lot of that to try different things out so to create soloists in all those styles and tempos would quickly fill up even these new 2 TB drives. We've had discussions about the best way to organize and retrieve a specific RT and it's not going to be easy.
I'm certainly not predicting what they're going to do, and I totally agree it would be way cool to have a soloist to go along with each style with lots of tempo variations. I'm just pointing out it's big now and to add what everybody wants would make the RT library absolutely ginormous like my daughter says but it sure would be fun to play with.

Bob

In order to provide perspective.

1. The docs are trying to get me as close to dead as possible and stop.
2. I take a LOT of narcotics.
3. The original guts of the software involves adding chords, picking a style, and then going from there by taking your mp3 or laptop on the 'road'. Or using it at home.
4. We are getting more and more 'mixer' types, who I sort of understand, but don't. I'm often curious about how producer A) did the setup and recording and how B) did the same thing. The two uses are totally the opposite in many ways. IE mixer crowd vrs Band in a Box crowd.

Taking the cowbell as an example, one could record it about 500 ways. For use in Band in a Box it needs to be generic, midi one would presume, and then you get control if you understand midi and all the gyrations you can go thru with velocity and other stuff I don't care to know. Or want to..

I want to play! If they give me a bunch of blank tracks and a scale grid and tell me put a quarter note here for cowbell, and a box pops up and I get to chose midi or RealCowbell, pitch, attack, volume, etc from the dropdown menu, then comes the effect menu and I get to add warm or ambient, or cowbell in the monastery, well, maybe I'm interested. But dang I wanted a cowbell on beat one for 3 measures and that does what for the audience (Dig?)

I'm better off, even as a one man band, to haul up an audience member and have them come up, explain when I pat you on the but you hit it. Pick..never mind...way more fun, start out with Mary had a little lamb (ding), and then do the actual song. Mess it up and laugh.

Not enough Laughter.

And I throw cow patties against the cracked worn barn door on a hot summer's day and the wasps congregate. The border collie wants me to throw a stick and the cicadas high pitch ebbs and flows in the soft afternoon light as it filters through the old barn wall, the dust in the warm breeze floats while flies buzz around us.

Don't take anything as a shove, take it as a question to be answered, for you don't state your gear, your starting nor ending point, no pointers to your work, and no examples of what you've done with the software.

Been around a while, I have, and many of those here have heard the few songs I post, I use the software to make backing tracks for friends, rehearsals, and myself for fun and practice. In reality the wife and I play gigs as a duo, flute (her) and keys (me) and we do ancient Celtic Music, most of which people don't get. They think Robin Hood. So I do a diddy on this piece was in this movie, for example Suo Gan, and some of them realize where they heard it. My wife does melody and improv, every 3 rd or 4th song she rests for a verse or 2 and I improvise, and due to more than 1/2 of it being in 6/8 12/8 I have never managed to put the sets into Band in a Box and end up happy with the end result. If required my wife, with too many years of training, and a bit short of a Masters in Music Ed at university, can lay down a piano backing track I write for 2 hands, and we use that to get us to the 'commercial' level. We were getting $250 for 3 hours, and I decided that the setup, take down, and other work did not equal the cash outcome, and I've cut that back to 3 or 4 times a year.

We have a light jazz set done with Band in a Box, it's pick nik music, and I enjoy that a lot more, play in a park, I just have to have the foolproof covers ready for my big Bose system, it would kill me if that got wet.

Yoda,
Just a thought... There are complimentary programs that PGMusic sells at a very low price which has tons of electric guitar riffs. They also have wav and midi files on the disc which can be used in Real Band or BB. I don't know how RB imports a section, wheather it's a midi or a wave, but someone here on this web page could probably explain it better. The programs I am talking about are Guitar Star (Brent Mason-Country), Rock, Blues, and Jazz Guitar Band. Each one of these programs contain approximately 80 to 100 riffs which could be used and some get pretty dirty, musically speaking of course. Most of them can be chained together to form longer riffs. Hope this helps. PS You do have to know how to use Real Band though.

One thought is that there are some quite nice guitarist around here these days. Some might be interested in laying down a track or two for you over a BiaB arrangement for a reasonable price.

Ask and ye might receive!

Yoda,
(I'd just like to add I don’t read your first post as a criticism.) I think your ideas are well worth PGMusic looking at given your background experience.

I agree also that additional riffs are the way to go rather than solo melodies. I have used the blues ‘solo’ chordal riffs to good effect so far and some more clean guitar would also be useful. Of course with a clean sound, FX plug-ins could then be applied to these clean chordal riffs to broaden their application even further. But more riffs of what ever kind would be great.

e.g check out these 100 riffs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNq94ZaZ0Yk&feature=related

Cheers F

We are at a 'crossroads' of sorts. Band in a Box can't use riffs, fills, etc.

This should be in the RealBand section or Real Band and Beyond.

That's my point in all this, Band in a Box was made so you can pull out you laptop on a break, enter the chords for Sweet City Woman, and play it next up, and do a decent job of it.

The other stuff is for people who want to fiddle around and step enter a lick or whatever. I understand why you might do that, but I still don't get it. If as a one man show, I wanted that tune so bad, I'd just cue it as a break song. I know my rendition of Whiter Shade of Pale isn't just like the original. But we are back to having people who've not heard it for years come up and thank you, and on the other side the one in a hundred person who remembers the thing the way it was, and comes up and wants you to change bars 40 to 44 with this...that my friends is YOU. Not the audience.

That's the part I will never get....

Now if it's your original composition don't you write the whole thing? Because if it gets anywhere near published THEY will changed it big time.

Somebody mentioned this earlier and I'll expound on it a little bit more... You can definitely get a good guitar solo out of biab in it's present state by compositing solos (I'm talking about version 2010)... Basically you have to generate as many solos as it takes and under different chord progressions, then export all those solos to a daw program... Putting each in a separate track and stacking them, you then go through each individual solo, muting the parts you don't like and keeping the parts you do like... You may have to cut and paste some parts... After a while, you will come up with a good solo...

Also, used judiciously, great solos can obtained from the metal guitar soloists...

I would strongly recommend springing for the latest biab since the soloists there will help achieve what you want... Also, the ability to automatically port files over to your daw will help immensely with time issues...

Just my 2 cents...

Frank,
No offense is intended here but the link you posted should be titled "signature licks" as you are able to name the song each one of them comes from as he plays.

A generic riff is one that is common for the genre and is heard in many songs.

Just pointing that out to keep down confusion of term "riff" in the context I was using it.

John, no offense to you, but not every one uses the program just for backing tracks. It is great for that but it is also marketed as a songwriting tool. In fact it's recommended to songwriters in the number one selling songwriting book right now.

If I was only using it for accompaniment of covers, I would still want more lead guitars. Why, because the ones that are already in there make me want more.

I agree with Bob about the size but that hurrdle will have to be addressed somehow as it's going to increase no matter what new instruments are added. I'm sure PG is aware and working on that. Which is why I suggested generic riffs based on genre - because that might cover more ground with less lead tracks.

However they decide to do it, I"m glad more lead tracks are coming.
This is a wonderful product. I love it.

Hello,

I have to agree 100% with what sundance said.

I understand that some of us use BIAB as backing track for live performance. Some use BIAB as backing track just for their own use to record their own composition.

I have been helping with different local bands using BIAB for many years. A band usually has one or two song writers in the group. BIAB can easily come up with the FEEL of the song when a new song is presented to the rest of the band. It serves to save hours of verbal description by the song writer trying to explain the FEEL of the song. One listen . . . and everyone in the band GETS IT. They go through the song an make changes and in short order the song takes on the character of that particular band. BIAB always saves time for any band to put a new song into their live play list. Its is not unusual to present the band with several variations of usable styles. The few bands I helped out all ended up buying BIAB.

From time to time, they are back in the studio to record their song that they used BIAB to learn and refine the song. Mind you, these are local unsigned bands playing gigs whenever they can get one. All I can say is that, after BIAB, the band isn't writing and playing songs that all sound the same any more. How many "local" CD releases have you heard where nearly all the songs sound the same ??

For any songwriter, BIAB of any version is the best thing available to "audition" a style for a new song. In many ways, just playing a new song using BIAB in various styles often ends up improves a song by new inspiration. With BIAB new changes and experiments become very simple . . . which allows the songwriter to concentrate on being musically creative. Using BIAB as a song writing tool can't help but expand the writing palette of any writer.

For studio recording . . . I don't get to use BIAB very often. Most studio clients are "bands". But from time to time I'll get a singer / songwriter without a band of his own. Thats when I fire up the BIAB. Back in the "only MIDI" days it took a lot of work to make the tracks sound acceptable to record. It required another DAW to Groove quantize and edit individual MIDI tracks. With Real Tracks, BIAB usefulness in a studio has increased 10 fold. My first use of Real Track for a studio project is what started this thread.

Real Tracks and Real Drums is in its infancy. I can't wait to see what it would be capable of in 5 years. Currently, Real Drums is stereo, but its quite usable. I am able to re-EQ the stereo tracks by creating 3 or 4 stereo drum tracks with different high pass, bi-polar, and low pass filters applied to each track. There are other "stereo" tricks that are available to gain control over a "stereo" source.

BIAB is a very versatile software that can be used for many purpose. The addition of Real Tracks and Real Drums is probably a milestone and probably the best thing ever to have happened to BIAB.

I understand that its just a few of us that have a recording studio set up available, but if you do. BIAB's Real Tracks and a good session player for solos can produce a very good sounding final product.

Thanks
Ed Layola

yoda.
re drums.
couldnt you also do this.
lets say you wanted to build a lib of one shot drum hits.
viz..do lots of generations of stereo drum traks.
then convert to mono traks. snip out the drum hits you like ,
put em in your special drum lib , condition em further
n then drop the hits you like
into various points in the song ??
for example lets say you like a certain cym sound.
cut it out n put it in the lib. then just slot it in on the time line
where you want it in the song.
in summary , you could have RB generate a drum trak n then add
samples of drums youve made or got from somewhere
to add further variety etc etc.
just sayin you dont HAVE TO use stereo drum traks.
for example , lets say you want that 50's drum sound.
turn the trak to mono, or even slam it thru a tape machine
n record back in before you add other traks.
for even more variety, and its a trik ive done in powertraks
in the past. is to fill a trak with a midi drum pattern
or a pattern ive built, then move the midi pattern up or down
one or more semitones et voila with an external midi multi timbral unit..
get a bunch of different sounds or say use a plug in.
its a neat trik to try cos suddenly a boring midi pattern might get
interesting with a likle editing.
its all experimentation eh ??
in summary..loads of options i would suggest.
real drums plus your own custom drum hits plus midi drum traks
driving a plug in and/or external midi unit that has lots of drum
sounds in.
another way to get one shot drum sounds is to rent a few midi modules
with loads of drum sounds n record as one shots n add to the one shot lib.
some people also augment with drum sounds from around the house.
the rubbermaid lid, tapping a mic in ones pocket can yield sorta a kik
drum..lol. sample manipulation is interesting n fun mate.
for a nutty dragon song i was doing once i recorded a vacuam cleaner for example.
for the baby dragon sound (who the heck knows what one might sound like..lol.)
i recorded my siamese cat n then changed the key of the audio sample.
made it higher. for example , lets say a certain real drum cymbal is sorta there.
nothing to stop you getting a one shot of the audio n changeing it.
as jazz said..for all the above experimentation...RB is the product to use.
mebe rough out song idea in biab, then add all the song details n iceings in RB.
all the best.