Adq

Moradbipbip
I am a beginner to digital recording and bought Sonar Pro 

Moradbipbip
Addictive Drums only gives me one Kick, one Snare, and one Crash and that's about it. Not a single Tom so don't call this "one kit included".

You must activate your AD2 serial number given by Cakewalk. With Sonar Professional you can choose 1 ADPak, 1 Midi pack, and 1 Kitpiece. Now you have only demo sounds from Fairfax Vol. 1 ADpak.
 
To program drums use PRV and Smart Tool. To arrange it use Track View and Clips. Use help on this topics if you have trouble with understanding how it works.

Absolutely.  First thing you need to do is rectify the missing drum kit.  If you bought professional, you have a full copy of AD2 and you get a Kit, one Midi pack, and one extra kitpiece.  Except for hearing the sounds to ascertain quality, the demo kit is near worthless.

Go to your account page above the forums and you should see a serial number for AD2.  Then go to AD's website, download their installer and put your serial in there.  Then browse the examples on their site, listen to the options and chose a kit, midi pack and kitpiece.  Once you have done this you can start programming AD2.

I suggest you go to youtube and search on Cakewalk Sonar Session drummer 3 or Addictive Drummer 2 and see how they work in Sonar.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-sF4jXiodI
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsYMmkIfvqE
 
https://www.groove3.com/XLN-Audio-training-video-tutorials/Addictive-Drums-2-Explained
 
 

Thanks Everyone. I had a nice breakthrough last night and I have lots of material to learn, so ill keep everyone posted. Nice to see so much support

When it comes to drums, there is absolutely no replacement for a real drummer.  End of story.  Period.  Programming drums with AD2 is very difficult and very time-consuming if you are shooting for pro quality with nuance.  XLN does sell midi tracks, as well as Groove Monkey, etc.  Those are good starts, but still don't get you around the time-consumption and difficulty.   To program drums you have to think like if not be a drummer.  There is no way around that.  For starting out my advice is to go get some drum loops.  I have found the Drums On Demand product to be quite useful for songwriting and arranging.  What you don't want to do is get frustrated, because frustration inhibits creativity.  You want to be able to slap your ideas together and get them down on tracks ... and then .... go figure out all the techno stuff.  Pop a suitable vanilla drum loop on and clone it 80 times the length you need, and get on with making your creation.  My 3 1/2 cents.

GregGraves
When it comes to drums, there is absolutely no replacement for a real drummer.  End of story.  Period.  Programming drums with AD2 is very difficult and very time-consuming if you are shooting for pro quality with nuance.  XLN does sell midi tracks, as well as Groove Monkey, etc.  Those are good starts, but still don't get you around the time-consumption and difficulty.   To program drums you have to think like if not be a drummer.  There is no way around that.  For starting out my advice is to go get some drum loops.  I have found the Drums On Demand product to be quite useful for songwriting and arranging.  What you don't want to do is get frustrated, because frustration inhibits creativity.  You want to be able to slap your ideas together and get them down on tracks ... and then .... go figure out all the techno stuff.  Pop a suitable vanilla drum loop on and clone it 80 times the length you need, and get on with making your creation.  My 3 1/2 cents.

You don't need to replace drummer, you need to do your own electronic drum beat. If you use someone else's loop and just put it in yous track, you do someone else's music, not fully yours.

Jamstix is pretty good at coming up with reasonably realistic drum patterns.

GregGraves
When it comes to drums, there is absolutely no replacement for a real drummer.  End of story.  Period.

Same from pianist, trombonist, xylophone player, and every other musician.  But we can't always afford to have a live band come in and record.

Adq
 
You don't need to replace drummer, you need to do your own electronic drum beat. If you use someone else's loop and just put it in yous track, you do someone else's music, not fully yours.

This is the 2010s man, "your music" has become relative.  I agree you might not be the musician in this sense, but you are the artist that arranged the pieces and that is still musicianship.

That said, I play 99% of my own drum beats via my E-kit and cut and slice loops from that but rarely do I "play all the way through" a song.  Still my original creation and still my original song.  When I need non-kit percussion and such, (bongos, ethnic percussion etc.) I will often use a pre-made midi file from elsewhere.  It in my mind is no different than hiring a studio musician, just a lot cheaper and has no ego.

I'm 100% sure adq NEVER uses a preset on a EQ, Compressor or Reverb else he is not the "entire engineer".

I have a live sound engineer friend who works for a top Grammy winner artist and his brother is a pro drummer.
I played him a recent tack of mine where I selected MIDI grooves (with some minor edits) from my vast drum MIDI libraries and he was dead certain that I used a "real drummer" on the track. He's been a live sound engineer for over 25 years and has worked with multiple "BIG NAME" artists, so he's just not your average friend who is "impressed" that I can create music as a hobby.