A USELESS NERD DEBATE TO WASTE YOUR TIME

Both. There are a myriad of both software and hardware, and costly and cheap, samplers and drum machines.

Personally Ive got a Syntakt, Triaz, a vast sample and .rx2 library, maschine2 + mk3 hardware, a handful of random software samplers and drum machines, and my latest find — Monkey C's Rando. Rando is one of the most amazing little things I've ever put my hands on, and right now I can use its 88 note sample bank to "rando" my ENTIRE 1.2 million sample library with filters for loop/1 shot/drums/melodic/etc. The sampler automatically locks to a key that you can set, locks to project BPM, and keeps all 88 samples in sync with the playhead at all times. (the "magic" option.)

With Rando and its internal step sequencer, you can write midi arrangements for 88 samples at the same time on your piano roll, and it has many other fx and features that Im having a great time with. I dont usually look for "randomization" type samplers, but this one is amazing.

So yeah — samplers + drum machines. Why not? At this point I can produce DAWless or with my DAW, samplers or no samplers, and I love every minute of it.

Without a doubt I'd use sampled drums since I rarely have any need for synth drums in the kind of work I do. You tend to pick the tools that are appropriate for the kind of work you do. That's why plumbers rarely need a volt meter.

I don't care much for the sound of drum machines in my music. There was a pack released for Live that contains samples of a variety of well known drum machines and I listened through all of them and I heard few sounds I would want to use. Some kicks, that was it. I make electronic music and don't dislike the sound of drum machines, but I do not find they work well for me.

This is not a comment on the quality of the sounds or whether they will suit your music.

I can't afford to hire a drummer and even if I could I don't think that would work out well. So sampler it is. ‘Sampler’ includes dropping loops into Live's session view and jamming with them to make a new arrangement as well as individual hits in Live's drum racks with programmed midi.

Regarding the original debate: there is no argument for the original machine being better quality. A good sample library made from the machine will be indistinguishable in quality.

Flexibility is a different story. It is possible to design sample libraries, with the right sampler engine, to be very flexible. Whether they can be made flexible enough that there would be no notable difference in how you can manipulate the sounds is uncertain. Any extra flexibility on the original mattering to anyone but a music nerd is unlikely.

Flexibility isn't everything anyway. I get flexibility with samples of real* drums by having many. There's not a lot of flexibility on a real drum set** and drummers do amazing things without it.

*and synthesised – some of my sample libraries have these, though different in design to what I have heard from drum machines, and more suited to me.

**you can change the tension on the drum heads, but that has more limited results than synthesised drums, and is not something drummers tend to do much once they have settled on how they want their kit to sound.

I guess this is why I have so many different drum sampler libraries from different sources. There's just no one drum kit that's perfect for everything. Likewise, studios and producers can make a significant difference in the overall tone and feel of how a drum kit gets captured, not to mention the artist being used to create the samples. I even have some kits that were captured in well known acoustically unique recording locations in London by Hans Zimmer using orchestral mic'ing techniques.

As a non-drummer I don't know everything, but I know the sound I want when I hear it.

I have to admit I have a lot of curiosity myself about getting more deeply into the synth world, but like you I'm typically on a fairly tight schedule to get something finished, so learning something as complex and deep as modern synthesizers is time I don't really have. And that's saying a lot since I'm actually retired. But being retired means you become available for all sorts of other duties like kids and grandkids and doctor's appointments that get in the way of just having some fun time.