Can someone point me at a tutorial of some kind about how to do drums in Cakewalk Sonar Platinum without needing a PhD in MIDI and electronic music theory?  (or at least one that would walk me through the baby steps that are apparently obvious to everyone else that are not obvious to me).    I have been using sonar since they counted versions in numbers, and every time I upgrade to the latest version, I go on a quest for a day or two (or more) to figure out how to replace Fruity Loops (that I got free with Guitar Tracks pro, way way back in the day), and to date, I've not been successful at laying a single drum beat on a song that I didn't import as an externally generated loop or played live (or had someone else play live).   I know it can't be this hard to do drum tracks in Sonar - so I know I am Ignorant and Doing it Wrong(tm), but I just don't get it/can't make it go/don't understand it. 
 
So, please, a tutorial, something that's like from scratch, that a guy who doesn't speak MIDI can understand, that doesn't skip steps that are obvious to people who know a bunch of stuff I don't. 
 
And if it matters, the setup:
 
Virgin install of Win7 64Bit, Sonar Platinum, Roland OctaCapture for midi and audio in/outs (and the only sound device on the system).
 
Thanks,

Hi. Are you talking about using MIDI with a soft synth / vsti (AD2, Session drummer 3, etc.)? If so, here are a youtube clip to get you started. It essentially works the same way with any soft synth / vsti. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbwECnzKI1g
You will need a soft synth / vsti inserted, and a MIDI track to route to the soft synth / vsti.
Hope it helps you get started. Best of luck.

Open Sonar, press F1 and the help file opens on the tutorial page. Select the tutorials that will help you most.

Its very easy to make and produce drums in sonar. All you need to do is 'insert a soft synth and then select drum patterns in the drum program (soft synth) that  fit your song. Then when you feel more comfortable, you can edit them and make your own.
 
Also, The tutorials arte great, its how I learned

And the step-by-step Session Drummer 3 Master Class series from CakeTV.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X-fIfLFtvM&list=PL249B20A0F1C21B77
 
Extend what you learn here into Addictive Drums 2 later on.
 

I made some progress, but I am still finding all this just total insanity and a bottomless pit of wasted time.  
 
I finally got SD to let me poke out a drum beat (yay) on a step sequencer interface.   I cut and pasted that beat across the whole song, and then un-linked the measures so I could change one without changing them all, and put in custom drum fills to my taste, and then proceeded to put about 6 hours into getting a pretty decent 'record a song to test the new stuff' track together.  Result was scratch-track-y, but I was just over the moon to get something to function drum-wise.  I mixed it down to share it with some fellow musicians.   I hit 'save' (and it did), and exited. Mixed track sounds exactly like I programmed it.  Yay!
 
I come back today and load the EXACT SAME TRACK, and go to lay some tracks over it... and... weird as all get out... drum beats drop out intermittently.... like
 
1 2 3 4 / 1 2 3 4 / . 2 . 4 / 1 2 3 4  <- no beats on 1 and 3 ...
 
And I'm like really?!?!?!?  Go look at each individual bar in both the step sequencer, and in the little crude midi visualization it puts on the track view.  All the beats are all still there just like I programmed, they just don't always hit during playback or record... it's consistent, exactly the same spots it doesn't work... screw this... I delete the whole SD track, start over, re-do the basic beat (3 beats per count, 4 counts, basic blues shuffle in triplets), copy + paste to get a whole song worth... and... it does the same damn thing... same places.. same beats... same silence... What the heck?!?!?!?!?  How the heck?!?!?! It's right there, I can see it... just like I programmed it... it's the same track I saved after mixing it out to a WAV, and it worked fine then.... no clue... check time signature, all is still 4/4, didn't end up with something like time change or anything... sight...
 
Anyone have any idea what's going on here before I trash the track and start from 0?  
 
Thanks,
 
 

Dropped MIDI notes are almost always a sign of too small a playback buffer. Try increasing the "Prepare using nnn millisecond Buffers" setting in Preferences > MIDI > Playback and Recording. The default of 250 is often too small and increasing it to 500 or 750 fixes the problem. Some have had to go even higher.

Ding ding ding!  We have a winner!!!    Since it was always the same measures at the same spot, it never occurred to me it was a buffer thing (and never would have).    Drum tracks restored!
 
Thanks!