Ok, I went through the tutorial which suggests that the usual procedure was to start with the "normal" template: 1 audio, 1 MIDI track, by interting the VSt imnstruments you get more instrument tracks.
On the other hand, I usually proceed as described in the other link, "Why don't I hear MIDI-playback", where I route the MIDI events from the MIDI track to the soft synth.
The thing is, I started with the (nowadays almost prehistoric) Cakewalk 3.0, advanced from there to Cakewalk 8.3, and remained there for a long time, being reluctant to use heavy software. That was due to the limitations of my first PC. Then I got a real fine machine, but clinged to that Cakewalk version very long before daring to try Sonar 4.0. It seems that I have "spoiled myself" with too simple solutions, and now that the real fine software is at hand, I easily get confused. Apparently I start understanding I could do things far more efficient, and I shall try out to continue that way, but it might happen that I suddenly turn up here with seemingly silly dummy questions that you even would not expect from a total newbie.
But maybe one of you could give a try to this thing:
http://www.dskmusic.com/dsk-mini-drumz-2/I constantly get error messages that some modules could not be loaded. In case you do not get those messages, it's me again messing up things, but I'd feel very convenient in case you encouter them, too.