Hi so I'm not a complete beginner with audio software but I'm still trying to figure things out. So basically right now I have no MIDI controllers of any sort or preamps to record instruments. I've been working with recording hardware for years and decided to check out some "computer" based stuff. I got my hands on MC5 and right now I'm trying to do some MIDI mapping and create some synth/bass/percussion patterns. Now I'm encountering a problem where I line everything up perfectly by 4th notes or 8th notes or whatever yet nothing seems to be playing in ryhthm, especially when I set loop points. Can someone tell me why the notes aren't playing EXACTLY when I've set them to play? Oh and also I've noticed sometimes the software just seems to take over and start creating patterns and crazy notes where it sees fit. A little help would be appreciated.

Welcome to the forum.
What synthesizers are you using? Hardware synths or software synths?
What is your sound card or audio interface?
Probably the notes are playing at the proper times, but if you're using a stock sound card, the data takes more time to be processed resulting in latency, which is the note(s) sounding many milliseconds after they are played, resulting in a delay. That could also explain the mishmash of notes; some are playing late while others are playing correctly.

As Greg points out, there are a number of things that could be causing this. 

The most likely would be the sound card. A computer factory sound card working in midi with synths will often have pretty obvious latency, the result is you hear things totally out of sync and time. 

Another issue may be the resolution of the notes. When entering notes manually, you are able to set the default resolution to common note values, such as Whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and all the way up to 128th triplets.  If the value of the notes you intend to enter do not exceed sixteenth notes, be sure the resolution is no higher than sixteenth notes. Otherwise, you can drop notes into the measure at any given point.  Right clicking on a note opens the note properties window, and from there, you can manually adjust the parameters of the note. However, this works well for editing notes, the goal is to drop them where you want them to start with. You don't want to spend the time editing every note manually. 

I would look first at the sound card. 

Try this: freeze the synth and then play the tracks. freezing converts it to audio and removes the synth and the big latency factor. If it plays in time, it was the latency in the factory card.....If it's still out of time, then it's probably the timing issue I addressed.

Thank you both very much. It would make sense that my sound card would be causing the problems ... I have a very slow basic computer. Oh and yes I am using software synths.

Slow computer aside..... back in the day, I used to run the old cake software on a computer running Windows 95.... it was a very slow machine by todays standards, but it did work pretty good. I recorded a bunch of songs on that machine.

I believe the processor was a pre-pentium and it's speed was measured in Mhz not Ghz like todays chips.