Using Loops and samples

This is an extremely wide ranging topic -- there are kind of two separate trains of thought here : Loops vs samples.

In terms of using samples, my personal recommendation to get you on the right track is to consult the help file in sonar. The tutorials in the help file really helped me understand soft synts and utilizing samples better. Go through the tutorials on tss-1, cyclone, MIDI, etc to start getting a broad overview of the topic. Sonar comes with some samples to get you going, and depending on your system and soundcard, you may have some soundfonts as well that you can tinker with.

As far as loops are concerned: again, in the help file you'll find tutorials on loops, the loop explorer, and the loop construction view.

Hopefully these things will get you started. I'm sure you'll have plenty of questions as you work further into it. I used to be an audio "purist" and would shy away from loops, samples etc.. but once I saw the true power and flexibilty sonar (and soft synths) give you, I never looked back!