For a long time, I have outsourced the drum-writing for my tracks (using pre-made loops or asking someone else to do it for me).
Funnily enough, in the last year or so I started getting more into drum writing by transcribing and rearranging videogame music from the 80s and 90s. I found this ideal because:
- The original beats are very simple (due to hardware limitations), so I can use them as a starting point to build upon.
- The music from that era inspires me a lot.
Production was basically non-existent, so composers had to do the best they could with just rhythm, melody and harmony. - The limited number of voices (3 channels + noise on the NES) makes the music perfect for a bare bones rock or metal arrangement with just drums, bass and a couple guitars.
My rough process for putting together a drum track, at the moment, is:
- write the kick and snare first, for all sections
- add cymbals for each section
- add (simple) fills and “hits”. For now, I am just using the fills to anticipate the style of the next section (e.g. fast fill before a fast section, slow fill before a slow section).
This is my most recent work using this process, where I managed to write the full drums from an empty slate (inspired of course by whatever the NES noise channel was doing 
).
Most of the part should be playable in real life, but I’m sure some of the bits I wrote will not make sense for an actual drummer. But hey, I like the way it sounds
This is the original for comparison:
And these are - I think - the best tutorials if you want to get started writing your own drum parts:
