Wow! you guys are great! If I could figure out how to use the "quote" thingy, I'd have three quotes in this post. I'm sorry if I misled anyone, I couldn't remember the term "drum loops" (early onset alz I guess, or maybe not that early heehee). But loops is what I've been looking, for until now anyway. Daveny5: I can't find the loops that I thought would've come with this app. I used the online upgrade, but maybe I need to re-install the program. Scook: I appreciate and apologize for my misinfo ( refer to the early "alz" noted above). I haven't checked out your link yet but tell me....how would you lead a person in the direction of MIDI if he was broke and can barely fumble his way around a piano keyboard (takes me about 30 mins to find middle C)? Robert_E_Bone: That step sequencing sounds really interesting! Where can I find more info on implementing a pc keyboard? Sounds like a great way especially to get the fills and intros. I appreciate everyone of you guys trying to lead a newbie down the path of righteous music. Thank you for your time and patience, all of you that have posted

Sorry for the garbled post, don't know if it's the site or this new pc (Win8). gonna re-boot now, brb

There are a couple of ways to work with MIDI without a MIDI input device like a keyboard or drum pads. Some combination of MIDI loops (X2 has a bunch of those and more are free on the web), the step sequencer, the Piano Roll View and Staff View will be the way you get MIDI data into your projects. Studio Instruments and the other softsynths will provide the sounds for the MIDI tracks.

Scook, I don't know how to quote in this forum but I'm looking mostly to lay down drum tracks so I guess drum pads would be the way to go. Keeping in mind that I'm definitely working on a budget....what would you recommend for a beginner?

Sorry for this but I keyed on the drum pad thing and then went back to read the whole post. I have not found any drum loops in Studio yet. I think they're there, I'm just not looking in the right place. But when you say "keyboard", I'm guessing you're talking about the keyboard on my pc that enters alpha/numeric characters...right? Sorry for my lack of knowledge, sure hope there aren't any "dumb questions" posted here :)

The Keyboard mention with the drum pads would be a MIDI keyboard not the PC keyboard. You will however, use your PC keyboard and mouse to interact with the PRV and step sequencer.The audio drum loops (and MIDI loops too), if you installed them, should be visible in the browser in the media tab. If you need help with the browser, check out the video in the link I gave you above.

I am a piano player.  I use my computer keyboard and mouse in the Step Sequencer to create drum clips.  One of my midi controller keyboards also has drum pads, but I find no trouble at all just clicking on the little boxes in the Step Sequencer to specify drum/cymbal hits.  To undo an errant click on one of the boxes just right-click on the desired box and it erases the box.

By hitting the play button up at the top, it will loop through the beats for that clip, and you can keep adding/undoing drum/cymbal hits with your mouse until you are happy with that particular clip.

Cakewalk does NOT intend to have you use a drum map for any clips created with the Step Sequencer, and editing problems will occur if you do attempt it.

That means then that you will end up learning the note names and numbers that correspond to the various drums and cymbals and such for the given drum synth you are pointing to for the midi output for the track.  That does not take long to master.

Also, you can preview a drum/cymbal sound by clicking on the left side of the Step Sequencer, in the place where the note names are.  That way you can make sure you are triggering the right drum strikes when you are going to enter say kick drum.  Clicking on the note name at the left will let you hear the drum sound for that row, without actually creating an entry into the matrix.

Bob Bone

Also, formatting posts in the forum does not work well with newer versions of Firefox.  I use Chrome and formatting paragraphs and such work fine.  Unfortunately, it does not auto-correct any stupidity in whatever I happen to be typing.

Bob Bone

i am not a midi guy either, i wud recommend the free software "hydrogen", this is a free drum machine you can easily create drum beats with. and then export them as wav-files to an audio track within sonar!

this a whole video from start to finish shows you how to insert studio drums and use basic midi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k83UVo1OiKA