Hi everyone my name is Yulin and I am speaking to you all..
well I come from a cheap line sorta drag and drop software background and I wanted to sorta get a package that would allow me to create my own sounds,beats and more because i'm a hiphop/rapper artist. My idea behind getting this package was the pure fact of producing and introducing a total new sound in hiphop that I can write to and perform as i'm sure you all know that getting a beat made by even a lower sorta class studio/engineer could still cost you a pretty buck, so my plan was to avoid all that, get the software take it home and install and register and start getting the process rolling.
little did I know what I was getting myself into after spending all my savings and my bonus from work that I was about to buy something that I would not be able to navigate and use. I feel it's not user friendly although cakewalk prefers it for beginners, i'm really worried because I haven't been on stage for a while nor have I dropped any new music on soundcloud for a while, I guess I need some help guys at headquarters and I refuse to spend more money on this product, if you are willing to post me some stuff 'perhaps' that can tutor me properly as to how to create a beat for egzample using your instruments or anything else then i'm all for it, I don't have a midi keyboard or device only THE PROGRAM that come in a grey orange box stating SONAR X3 on it so I guess I speak for majority on this forum that we are willing to support this product if you are willing to assist from a non plugin view meaning people who do not own a midi device as most of your videos contain midi setup type of tutorials.......think on this please. I don't mind posting my email on this forum if perhaps you'd like to give some feedback on my concern around this matter.

Hi, Yulin,
 
you can start here: http://www.cakewalk.com/CakeTV/SONAR-University
 
 

I am not sure exactly what you want but a quick search on youtube and I found the following that might be of help.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DGlHM8TT7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafE_byZVfs
 
And there is Cakewalk's own help videos
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/CakeTV
 
The manual is also very helpful if there is something specific you are trying to do.

Hi Yulin, I'm a novice at this as well, but as the above mentioned post, I would suggest viewing the many videos on the Cakewalk YouTube Channel. If you're basically into mixing samples, you may want to study the Matrix view.
It will allow you to drag/drop samples for arranging, the you can recording into the track view for actual mixing.
Have fun!

Go here and watch the Session Drummer video.
You really should have some kind of MIDI input device, but if you don't want to get one, watch this video on the step sequencer. You can make beats with just a mouse.
 
SONAR is powerful, complex software that takes time and effort to master. A lot of folks here will be glad to help you with specific questions, but you have to read the documentation and do the basic work yourself.

I don't mean to sound like an ass, but I get the feeling that you don't yet have a strong background in music theory or music production. In that case, I think the workflow of a program like FruityLoops or Reason would be much more productive for you, at least at first.

Sonar is more powerful as a "complete solution" than either of them but as you noted, it's quite a lot to grasp if you don't already have a solid background.

To expand on sanderxpaner's thought.
 
Would you buy a car before you had taken driving lessons?
 
You may know what beatz are, and you may have made them in another software tool, but you may not know how to accomplish that in SONAR because you have not taken your "driving lessons" yet.
 
Watch the tutorials listed above. Those are the best starting place.
 
Also be aware that X3 has now been discontinued (it is over two years old now) and can be upgraded to SONAR Artist. I say this because if you got an orange box for X3 that is the entry level version of X3 and the modern equivalent is SONAR Artist. 

Watch these 50 videos of instruction:  
 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKRYWdEpbc5PgUgvrNuSvVyfv5qkll0qj
 
You bought professional level software that can make very impressive music production.  You can do it without an external controller, but it is going to be challenging and time consuming to do so for most people.  
 
If you had purchased platinum you could have used your keyboard as your controller.  But that didn't exist on X3.  
 
Where did you find at new boxed version of X3?
 
 

You have wandered into the nightmare realm between loving music and making music.
 
In the traditional music culture, this was initially at least, a sadistic game for children, who were chained to piano stools next to scary old crones and forced to repeatedly press keys in a predetermined order to match the arcane symbols on dusty five lined sheafs for years until they had mastered their meaning and achieved the facility to turn them into songs.
 
By the mid twentieth century, this tradition had morphed into self-harming teenagers picking up six stringed boxes and struggling for thousands of hours learning to force their bleeding fingers into inhuman contortions that would match the little drawings in their Mel Bay books until they could produce something that might get them laid. 
 
In today's modern world of the future, it has become an inscrutable video game challenge, that requires young masters to hone their skills acquiring the magical tools of the maven's lair that will allow them to create armies of notes out of electricity and send them through the air to the waiting ear of the digital world. 
 
The difference between the music in your head, and the aural ambrosia of the angels, is still a huge commitment of time and effort to learning to use your tools. It helps if you take a systematic approach to that struggle. You can shorten the process if you have a solid understanding of what you are personally trying to accomplish. You can probably skip a lot of the classical appreciation, theory and analysis if you just want to make "beats," for example, but you are going to have to do a lot that seems tedious and unfair in the process of training your questing mind. You do not reach the highest level of any game until you have learned the basic moves and played a lot at a slow pace. And it is easier to grasp the rules and skills of Angry Birds than to master Dark Souls. The thrust of the development of SONAR in the past decade has been toward your style of music and there is everything in X3 that a master of beats would need, but you must struggle to achieve it. 
 
 

I've been using Cakewalk sequencers/DAWs ever since Cakewalk Professional 3 in the mid-1990s and Sonar X3 was the least stable one of them all. It crashed every other time I ran it. the only solution is to upgrade to Sonar Platinum.