Well, it all depends upon what the definition of "Beats" is. In the industry, and off the top of my head, beats is the backing track, the music that the artist raps over. I think that is what you mean, but you seem to be confusing it w/ a synthetic drum kit.
SONAR X3 P comes w/ Addictive drums and previous versions came w/ Sessions. Both are virtual drums you can "play" from a midi keyboard or manually input the midi hits on the midi editor page(s). Other than upgrading to SONAR Producer, you can add in a vst drum machine and play your beats away. One of my favorite drum synths is Ironhead from Ugoaudio.com Cheap and is not a sample-based synth, but a synth like the old roland drum stuff. It is probably too industrial for raps, but it will make beats for sure.
Essentials comes w/ the standard Cakewalk midi & audio clips bundle. The audio clip includes a bunch of drum loops which are ACIDized files - groove files in Cake speak. ACid files follow the project tempo and pitch. A loop that was recorded at 120 bpm can be stretched to fit a 98 bpm song w/o changing the pitch, or the pitch raised/lowered w/o changing the tempo. As such, you can take a bass loop for the "beat" of a song and use that pattern for changing the chords w/o losing the tempo. Or a drum loop will follow a tempo change. You can find these loops in the Browser panel - it should default to Cake's location for same - C:Cakewalk Content/Audio/ You can also buy loops - SONY has a great collections that are ACIDized for different genres. But you can find free ones or cheaper ones on the internet. It is very easy to make beats w/ these - some are practically finished for you. But you can simply drag an element you like onto the time line. Say a 4 bar drum loop. If it is acidized, it will have curved edges in the time line - a simple wave file will have sharp edges. The acid file can simply be pulled out, reapeating the 4 bars for as long as you need. Then, find a bass loop. Repeat the process. Keep adding loops until you get a song you like. Some of these loops, like I said, will be almost finished and include drums, bass and other instruments that all play along. Or you can drop in your own guitars, sax yada yada yada. And once on the timeline you can move these loops around, cut them in half, erase them for a drop, etc.
I don't know if essentials has the matrix, but this is a grid w/in SONAr that you can assign midi or audio (loops or one-shot waves) to pads. You can start a column, add pads w/in it, then move on to the next column. Once you find your Cake beats you should check it out. Kinda cludgy, but it will work.
Other synths offer "beats." I'm use Heavocity's Mutation bundle for kontakt. It has loops assigned to keys on your keyboard already. You play a C and get a basic beat, play a E and get a complementary drum beat. You can record your performance like a regular keyboard. It is more cinematic than hip hop, but there are plenty of sampling synths that will do that kind of thing.
Guessing that you want a grid-type environment for 4 on the floor beats, you should really look at FL Studio (aka Fruity Loops). They have a kind of Matrix type set up, which is a lot of fun. Little buttons that you click on to fire a sample arranged in a matrix. 4- 16 beats long and the buttons light up. Assign a bass and hit the 1st button in every 4 beats. insert a snare and hit the 2 and 3. So on. You can use FLS and export the audio into SONAR to do your vocals and sweeting and mixing, or you can rewire FLS into SONAR and they will play along together. FLS is cheap, simple and fun.
I hope this has helped, and good luck on your choices.
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