I wasn't crazy about real drums at first, but I think it was because I had done so much midi sequencing that I was conditioned to the midi drums. The real drums didn't sound bad, just different. Then when I went back to playing live, and recording some of the practice sessions, I realized that the midi drums were just too canned. You can still do a lot with them, by first converting to audio file then using various effects, and even separate them to diff trax prior to making the audio conversion. But the real drums sound very realistic, especially if you choose the correct real drums for the song you are working on.