You should really give soft synths a try. It's certainly way easier to work internally ( in the Box)
There's not much that cannot be duplicated with a soft synth that any hardware synth can do.
Your doing things the hard way and it gets confusing.
There are good reasons to use hardware too, but if you haven't tried soft synths you really are missing out on what using a DAW is all about.
Once you have a drum track you can shut the metronome off.
Insert Session drummer or even TTS-1 and get some drums going, even just a hi hat.
But the metronome is highly customizable.
I use the audio metronome. When you use the Audio metronome it does not send via midi ports. I have a Korg 05/RW as well as my Yamaha DTX drums.. I have to be careful about sending midi when not wanted..otherwise I'm haunted by midi ghosts.
Most templates like Normal include the metronome as a buss.
If it is not included in the buss pain it is easy to add.
Insert a stereo buss and name it METRO
Assign it's output to your audio interface 1/2 or 3/4 to hear it in your studio monitors.
Now open the Metronome settings and choose audio metronome and set the output to your new METRO buss.
Now you can control the metronomes volume and even mute it.
If you assign it to your Master buss and it is set to sound during playback, it will be recorded to your exported mix. Some times people actually want this.. but most don't want it in the song so therefore sending it directly to the interface avoids this from accidentally happening.