EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

I won't be able to answer your questions about good natural drums in EXS format, but when it comes to drums, I can only recommend
getting a dedicated drum sampler.
Not only do they usually come with a good array of properly multisampled and mapped kits - they will also make your life easier in a
lot of other ways.
The main thing being that tweaking of individual drum instruments inside a kit is WAY easier than doing so inside the EXS.

An example: You may want to route your velocity to sample start. That way, say, a snare would only playback with the full "twang"
when being hit hard. In the EXS such a modulation is only possible for the complete set (and it might not make much sense on quite
some instruments but snare, toms and kicks). In almost any dedicated drum sampler you can easily set up these sorts of modulations
on a "per key/instrument" base.

Or well, another one: Try to detune a single snare or whatever. In the EXS you'd have to enter the instrument editor, select the
appropriate zone, alter the tuning and save the instrument under another name. This is even getting worse when dealing with velocity
layered snares as you'd have to do the tuning job for each zone. On a dedicated drum sampler you'd just adjust it after selecting
the appropriate "pad" and be done. No need to resave anything either as everything will be saved with your songfile.

The same goes for using multiple outs. You'd have to alter your EXS patches and be stuck with the output assignments unless you'd
resave the patch again. On a dedicated drum sampler this is done easily and won't require resaving.

As for now, there's two drum samplers I could recommend: NIs Battery 2 or Linplugs RMIV. As said, both are coming with a good
assortment of kits as well.
If you got some time, you may want to wait for FXpansions Drum 9, which might appear end of the year or so. Should be the "mother of
all drumsamplers" if I got the teasers right.

In any case, for anything drum/percussion related I couldn't live without a dedicated sampler anymore.
And btw, while both Kontakt and HALion do a better job on things such as altering samples or assigning them to different outputs,
they still don't come close to the comfort of using a drum sampler.

Regards,
Sascha