Normally, I play real acoustic drums on the recordings I collaborate on.
Unfortunately, my wife is working a different shift so she is always home now and I can no longer play drums and make noise.
My solution is to set up a (cheap) midi kit and use Kontakt, AD or Session Drums for the sounds and record the midi hits into Sonar.
I need pads and a midi converter box. (lowest cost) I don't need it to make any sounds on its own; just midi output.
 
What is the cheapest equipment out there that will do this? (5 piece pads plus a few cymbals and hat, and midi converter box).
I will do my homework and do some searching but maybe someone knows the "tried and true" equipment for this?
I will buy used on ebay. 
Thanks for your suggestions.

You can probably pick up an Alesis D4 for under 150.00 on E-bay. They're decent to monitor through while tracking because latency is pretty much at its minimum. I used one with a very old set of pearl drum pads and I was very surprised how well I could dial in the D4 for subtle hits against false triggers. I'm a light player too.

I have a Roland set with a TD-7 brain, Gibraltar rack and Visulite cymbals - pieced it together years ago.
Of the lower end non-mesh-head pads, I've found the Roland pads trigger the best (compared to Alesis and Yamaha ..but those might be better nowadays).
 
I have PD-7 & PD-9 dual zone (think: drum head+rim) non-mesh pads which trigger 100% when mapping through drum vsts.
The worst part of non-mesh pads is you're hands will hurt after a while since the pads don't have a lot of "give" and are pretty bouncy.
 
Here's a TD-5 set that gets you most of the way there for $400:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Roland-Electronic-Drum-Set-TD-5-Percussion-Sound-Module-PD-5-KD-7-FD-7-Stand-/291854665298?hash=item43f3e4c652:g:iy4AAOSwU-pXvZju
But....the PD-5 pads are single zone (I think) and are very bouncy - more so than the PD-7 or PD-9 pads.
You could "soften" up the PD-5s by sticking on some adhesive foam sheets like this:
http://www.michaels.com/creatology-value-pack-adhesive-foam-sheets/10104248.html#start=14
 
You would probably want a better kick "pad" than the one you'd get in that set (it's a single kick 2" "button" thing).
I didn't want to spend the $$ for a kick setup, so I use a regular pad mounted sideways, since I have dual kick pedal and need a few inches.  
 
You would also need cymbals ..or more pads routed to the cymbal outs on the TD-5.
Looks like the TD-5 has 8 pad inputs.
 
 
..or piece together bits & bobs to get better pads, rack, brain, etc. 
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2374313.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xtd-7.TRS0&_nkw=td-7&_sacat=38069
 
My first set was something I built from a Remo practice kit with piezo transducers similar to this http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/making-your-own-drum-triggers
I cut 5" or 6" circles from thin sheets of metal, mounted the piezos to it, put it under the pads, wired to 1/4 inch plugs then plugged into the brain.
Worked ok for a ghetto setup.
 
Hope that helps!

Have you considered Aerodrums?    I used many pad-based kits over the years (Trapkat, Drumkat, Zendrum, Handsonic HPD15 and HPD10, homemade mesh kits, Yamaha DTX multipad) and now have a set of aerodrums to mess around on.   Feedback from "proper" drummers is generally very good and they are completely silent.  You can use the built in samples or feed a drum VST (I use Addictive drums).   Use youtube to have a look at people playing them / reviews etc.    May or may not suit your needs.  All the best.

Wow! Thanks for the suggestions all. This is all real good info.
 
And slavedave, I had not known about Aerodrums. I'm going to watch all the videos.
It looks like it really works once you master the stick technique with it.
This might be just the ticket. I only need to record drum tracks, no live playing.
The price isn't too bad and they have a 30 day return.
http://aerodrums.com/aerodrums-product-page/
 

slavedave
Have you considered Aerodrums?    I used many pad-based kits over the years (Trapkat, Drumkat, Zendrum, Handsonic HPD15 and HPD10, homemade mesh kits, Yamaha DTX multipad) and now have a set of aerodrums to mess around on.   Feedback from "proper" drummers is generally very good and they are completely silent.  You can use the built in samples or feed a drum VST (I use Addictive drums).   Use youtube to have a look at people playing them / reviews etc.    May or may not suit your needs.  All the best.

lol. At first I thought this was a joke. That's pretty cool though. Sort of a WII drum kit.

Aerodrums is a slick idea. I watched those first two videos and that is an excellent solution to both no space and no noise. For me that method outshines a MIDI keyboard, but wondering how easy it is to set up. Definitely give us feedback if you get that please.

Ya, would be great if those actually work for real drummers. I can see someone who never played drums getting it to work faster as you would not have to untrain yourself. 
 
The problem you quickly run into is basic digital drums or pads are very limited in the nuances of real drum sounds. They are more or less on/off buttons you hit with a real drumstick. Kick drum is a pretty easy one as it has limited changes anyhow. But think of the million ways to hit a snare or use a hi hat.  So only the real good kits come close. 
 
I have a DTX 500 kit which was the best deal at the time. It was around $500. It certainly has made a huge inprovment to my drum tracks but on some important recordings I still use a real kit,, or parts of a real kit. 

I just watched a few more videos on these, and realized the kit is light-based which was not what I initially assumed. In videos with real drummers, the precision with which they are hitting the "invisible drum head" is impressive; e.g., if you watch the stick head, they are incredibly consistent with the rebound location. That aspect alone makes real drummers have a distinct advantage, although the software seems to only be concerned with X/Y location, and the Z (vertical speed) being the velocity of the note. There are limitations to the kit (which for me personally could be done after the fact, but they have workarounds for people gigging with them - made me think the drummer can now bolt after the singer at gigs ).
 
Aerodrums is definitely an offshoot of the gaming community, but highly innovative. This video of Luke Holland at NAMM 2014 actually shows him using VR glasses, but I never saw those used in other videos I came across - not that those are required/desired, but I found it interesting. The best review/talk through of the program that I have seen so far is this one where he says the technique is not as paramount as one would think. In fact, he mentions that when he is practicing with sticks, he has been using the preferred Aerodrum technique anyway; and younger players with non-preferred technique had no issues with them.
 
From my perspective, a real kit doesn't get enough use to be warranted (plus it needs to be dusted!), and getting MIDI data for drums from body motion would be highly preferred over a MIDI keyboard.
 
I would be interested in how these are setup in SONAR. Their site only mentions Addictive Drums to tap into, but is the MIDI itself visible to SONAR?

You send Midi out to whichever host you want to use it in.  I personally don't record the output into a DAW - I just play them live (using Addictive Drums mostly but occasionally using the internal samples if I want a really simple set up).   
The VR option is in development and they hope to support an number of devices (though they are concentrating on mainstream options in the first instance).  I would recommend going onto their forum and looking through all the experiences of users to see if it may suit your need.
The most interesting thing for me at the moment is the possibility of using IR instead of visible light because it would remove a great distraction and source of interference for live playing.  I think that is on their list of updates for the new version.
PS - I love playing all the other pad-type controllers too, either hand activated or stick activated.  Horses for courses!