ORIGINAL: MykillCox

2) the ability to easily “ride” the crash. You know…smashing the crash on every beat when the song picks up and needs powerful, repeated crashes.

It happens all the time in many rock/pop styles. When you try in SD, it cycles through articulations and doesn’t sound natural.

I don’t think that’s the problem.
All samples in all software drum products are sampled from a standing start so to speak, So a crash is silent, then it’s struck and is sampled.
When you are crash riding, the crash is already sounding, and importantly already vibrating quite a lot. This results in a different sound than starting with a silent, non vibrating cymbal.
I’m not sure what the basic recording workaround would be, but the playback workarounds that are typically suggested here seem to work ok.