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I need help processing sampled drums. How do I make them sound realistic?

To get realistic sounding drums will you will need to use multisamples for each element of the drum kit. Spend some time playing with the sampler (something like Battery or NN-XT) so that the right samples play at the velocities you play/program. Then tweak their volumes. With Battery you can set it so there is a minute random varition in the playback pitch, which helps - but only a minute amount of variation.

Secondly you will want create the feel that a human is playing the kit, which means that hits don't fall exactly on your quantise grid. No human can keep perfectly in time! So try nudging hits a few samples to the left or right, but not so much that you can hear the hits out of time.

Hope that helps

Firstly, as Sonic mentioned the pattern itself is key. You'll want to make them feel right with a quantization function. This, and multisamples, are especially important for rolls and ride patterns. I like to have at least two samples that are almost the same and alternate them when doin ratatat fills and repeating notes. This is key for hats. Thats why my sample packs usually have two versions of each sample.

Make sure the samples you use are from the same set. If you grab a snare from this pack, and a high hat from another, it won't sound realistic. This also goes for fitting the rest of the song: If you have a grungy lofo recording but then put in these pristine studio-sampled drums, it will sound tacky.

Once you get that right, I find it helps to glue the drums together with some tight compression on the whole drum submix, as well as a touch of reverb that all the drum sounds can be sent to.

stomachache
Once you get that right, I find it helps to glue the drums together with some tight compression on the whole drum submix, as well as a touch of reverb that all the drum sounds can be sent to.