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I would like to create drum fills in some rock songs I'm recording on the OASYS that sound like Neil Peart or Bill Bruford. Can anyone give me advice on how to do this?

Do you mean "technically" as how to record them or "musically" as how to play a nice drum-fill?

I guess I'm interested in both. Technically, I don't know how to insert drum fills of any kind in a song unless I manually program a measure and replace a measure of the existing drum track. That seems really cumbersome. Musically, I would like to get a spontaneous, nonmechanical feel to the drum breaks. I single out Neal Peart and Bill Bruford because I also want to have a very crisp, precise style. I also want to have a feeling of the unexpected, for which Bruford in particular is legendary.

Understood. I can't give much of musical advice (difficult via a forum - and I'm not a drummer ) but technically here is what I do:

Usually I have 2 tracks: 1 for the basic drum-patterns, 1 for the fills. I play the fills manually on the fill-track, sometimes at a slower tempo, and then I edit them via Midi-Event-Edit or might quantize it. I set the 2 locaters on the track-edit page 1 measure befor and one after the "fill-in-point" to work on it until I like it.
Another possibility is using the drumfills provided by Karma. You can record a Karma track for 4, 8 or more measures. Usually they come with a break/fill-in in the 4th or 8th measure. Find a style that suits your purpose and cut this part out of it and place it in your fill track.

Hope this was of any help.

Thanks. I've already been using your technique of having a basic drum track and a drum fill track. I've done the composing of individual breaks, but I find it hard to get a feel that seems very natural. As far as using the Karma drum fills, I have been doing the following. I create a dummy song and incorporate into it a lot of different measures of the drum patterns that are available in the song template feature. Then I choose what I like the most, and then I copy them into the real song I'm working on. Is this what you mean by using the Karma feature? I have not learned how to use "random seeds" yet, and I wondered whether they are a way to generate fills.

You confuse me
First I write about Karma - then you write about template songs (these have nothing to do with Karma) - then you write about random seeds (which are Karma again).

What I ment was: create a new song in a song slot of your choice. Copy your drum sound there including Karma. Go to the Karma page where you can change the Karma GEs. Select the Karma GE of your choice. Manipulate the Karma module using the buttons and sliders. Save all scenes you like. And then record them - usually 4 or 8 measures per scene. And then you will have lots of different fills all 4 measures. You can copy these to any song slot of your choice and you can edit them as well.

What you described is another method for getting preset drum fills. All the template songs and rhythms have fills (little ones all 4 measures and bigger ones all 8 measures). Of course you can use these too. But what I like about Karma is that I can manipulate the rhythm easily by myself and the fills are created accordingly to the "style" I created in the rhythm. So it might be more "personal" and less "preset".

You are correct. I was confused. I have since starting learning the power of Karma. It opens up a huge panorama. I have not mastered scenes and Karma sliders yet, however. Will try that this weekend. I've had the Oasys a year now, and I still feel like I have only scratched the surface of its capabilities, despite having composed and recorded about 80 songs on the instrument in that time.

I know this feeling very well

Never mind. I was trying to give you an idea of how to (mis)use Karma for just extracting the fills of the phrases. But actually Karma is much more powerfull and I really enjoy it esp. for creating drumtracks with a personal touch and at the same time not having to play everything by hand.

If you like Karma and your focus is on drums I suggest to use it not only for extracting drumfills but for creating the whole drum-track with it. There are much more grooves available (= Karma GEs) than in the template songs and you can alter them as you wish. For this you don't have to dig very deep into Karma, as you will need just one Karma modul within the sequencer. Start with the "thin" manual, chapter "Karma and sequencer" and you will achieve your results quickly.

I still prefer playing bass, chords etc. by hand though, esp. once harmonies get more complex and bass should be in sync with the bass drum (ever tried to find a perfectly fitting pair of drums and bass Karma GEs? ).

Using the Bounce Track function, I created some interesting and complex drum patterns by using two or more Karma patterns. I merged the data onto a single track. This technique does a good job of creating the Neal Peart or Bill Bruford drum sounds that I was looking for. Thanks for all the useful comments.

You're welcome - and I thank you in return for the merging-idea!