This is my drum pad that I use to put together my awesome beats in GarageBand. I use a simple drum loop as a metronome and I record a new track of my pounding along on this. It usually takes a few tracks to get the sounds that I want, since I’m such a terrible drummer. I’ll start out with just a snare and bass drum performance, then I’ll record the next track of hats and another track of odd off beat extras to make it interesting. Then I cut and paste throughout the rest of the song.
Here’s a shot of the entire set up with GarageBand on the monitor. This is how I do it!