I took delivery of an AKAI LPD8 Pad Controller today and I haven't the foggiest clue how to assign a drum sample to each pad. Plugged USB in (it lights) and installed the editor. And I'm stuck. 

I'm using Sonar 8.5 Producer and I have hundreds of samples in Session Drummer 3 but not being very technical, I don't know what to do next. I downloaded your Quickstart guide but it's not simple enough for me to follow, sorry! Any ideas?
 
http://www.akaipro.com/product/lpd8

I figured each pad is mapped to a key on the keyboard, and you'd take a sampler synth with those mappings (or mappings that can be set) and load in the samples

The samples aren't assigned to the pads - the pads are assigned to midi notes which the drum sampler will recognize and play, just like a keyboard.  If you load any drum sampler into sonar (like session drummer) and assign the akai as the controller for sonar and make sure the midi channel is set the same in the akai and drum sampler, the akai should already be mapped to the drum notes.  My novation pads were. 
 
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Thanks for your advice guys - into the breach!  :)

Nothing happening. I just can't figure out how to trigger a drum sound from the pads on the Akai.  :(

Use the editor?  At least to check the midi channels.  The Akai needs to send on the same midi channel the drum sampler is on.  The Akai might be set to midi channel 10.  Look in SONAR to see if the track is set to the right channel, tho it should default to Omni.  Add in a soft synth and see if the pads trigger any notes on it. But first, check to see if the Akai is a controller option in the midi preferences in SONAR.