if you tried emulating rhythms you´ve heard, why do you always end up with the same thing?
my tip: take a song and program the beat (the main loop, most songs have one) as close as you can. then take a another song and do the same, then compare and figure out why they are different. take a third song and a fourth and so on...
start with kick and snare, concentrate on the main parts of the groove (boom bap boom boom bap), those you would sing.
a good one to start with is "Billy Jean" from Michael Jackson´s album "Thriller"
takes a little time but hopefully you´ll gain the ability of imagining a rhythm; like you place the midi-events and know how they will sound like.
later you will come to micro-timing (as we drummers say). that´s about milli-seconds that single notes are moved forth or back. it gets really deep into the groove then.
a friend of mine uses to play hihats with his keyboard. it is not as exact as quantized but adds a lively thing to your rhythm (needs some practise also).
another tip is to take some drum lessons to really get into the theory, but insist on NOT learning drum techniques (otherwise you´ll probably end up practising snare drum rudiments for a year or another
)but only this rhythm thing.
that odd meter thing Lo-Fi Massahkah mentioned is also very interesting but I think it´s better to know what you´re doing.
have fun and maybe report your progress
