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I have thousands of drum loops archived away (some even paid for), but as my Producer Experience Level gets a +1, I've decided to use individual hits instead of drum loops.

But drum loops can still be used as templates for rhythms, right?
Often drum loops have a particular bit of syncopation or groove that makes then interesting.

But what is the best/easiest/most accurate way to do it?

I've tried lining the drum hits up to the waveform - that's fine for kicks and snares but high hats etc aren't always visible.

Apparently, Logic has a "Replace drums" function. Live 9 is supposed to include an "Audio to MIDI" function. But will these one-stop-shops work for full drum loops?

There are a few options.
Drumagog works as does Reatune & JS Drum Trigger.
Another option is selecting from the actions list

"Item: create chromatic midi from selected items"
That is Reaper as well though.

http://www.intelliscore.net/ also works well.
Toontrack Drumtracker
Slate digital drum replacer http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... lugin.html

for live: import audio and in case ableton doesnt detect all the transients automaticlly, add the missing ones manually (you can try to slice the the loop into tiny bits and then amplify the parts where those "hard to see"-hats are). then go for "extract groove" and drag the new groove from the groove pool to a new midi track. easiest way i can think of.

you could use recycle, makes it easy to rip the midi (and the groove) in reason.

In logic theres the convert to sample track option, can either convert via region or transients.

cubase/nuendo - can use the make groove/create regions option in the sample editor (slightly different but still useful), theres variaudio, or loop mash

theres also ssd trigger - http://www.slatedigital.com/products/trigger

Logic also has the covert audio to midi template function.Used it a bit but found it fiddly.

I don't know about other DAWs, but in FL's audio editor "Edison", you can convert audio to midi. It's a rough conversion, but with some editing, you can make it work. It's great for getting midi from stems and using your own synths.

So many useful ideas to investigate!

Thank you Electric_Head, kreutzbube, lightshapers, lloydy and Katharsis