Hey CanopuS-
Can you give me more info on your available equipment? Is it Cakewalk Sonar ? Do you have a MIDI keyboard or controller of any sort?
My first instinct is that you might benefit from having some sort of trigger/midi controller that you could play into Cakewalk as MIDI data, assigning different samples to different keys or pads (i.e. mapping a drum kit on the keyboard or on a set of mini-drum pads, depending on your controller). You could then play your parts track by track (i.e. hi-hat,kick, etc.) and then fix the timing with quantizing in Sonar. One of the many advantages of MIDI is that you can do short phrases and then cut/paste them so you don't have to play a hi-hat pattern all the way through a song, etc. Plus, you can assign different sounds any time before you mix and burn, so you are never stuck with a particular sound. There are also a ton of pre-made MIDI drum groove patterns out there that you can plop into trax and then assign drum sounds to--a really quick and oftentimes cool way to save on playing the physical parts on the keyboard.
There are just way too many MIDI keyboards and controllers to even start a list on, and many are very, very inexpensive (i.e. $99). Google it...
There are TONS of other options, though. Here are a few:
1- Get a looping program- I LOVE Fruity Loops, but it ain't free. For $99, you get free lifetime upgrades, though, and it is bad-a$$ IMHO. This program allows you to step-sequence drums (and any other sound) and is extremely powerful and fun (addictive) to use once you get the hang of it. You can load any of your samples into it's directory so your favorite hits will be there. There is a demo you can download that is pretty much fully functional, but no saving I believe. You can use FLoops as a DirectX instrument within Sonar. Way cool.
http://www.fruityloops.com/
2- Look into pre-recorded drum loops (I use a ton of these). There are a lot of killer drum loop CDs out there that sound great. Also not free, but some great deals. Of course, the drawback to these is that the beat is already pre-defined, and most are stereo .wav files, so no real control over individual drum kit elements. However, they usually sound great, have a good amount of beats and fill variations and are a SUPER FAST way to get workable, great-sounding drum tracks going. Saves me boatloads of time and effort.
Beta Monkey is the cheapest that sound great. Drums on Demand is my favorite for overall quality/sound/price. Some are even "multitrack", in that they have the indicidual kit components of their loops isolated, so you can put hi-hat, kick, snare, overheads, etc. on individual tracks and then mess with levels, FX, etc. Most (if not all) also come with one-shots of the various drums used so you can build your own. Many group their offerings by style, so you can just search for (for instance) dub and electronica, or Dirty South beats, or jazz drums, etc. Almost all have listening samples on their sites. Check out:
http://www.drumsondemand.com/index.html
http://www.betamonkeymusic.com/
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/loop_libraries/
http://www.sessionloops.com/index.html
http://www.bigfishaudio.com/4DCGI/detailDemos.html?836
If you get ACID-based loops, you can use them in a variety of tempos (they can "stretch"). Read up on using Groove Clips in your Cakewalk (Sonar?) manual.
3- There are also dedicated drum kit/ MIDI programs like Drum Kit From Hell and BFD (I forget the name here)-- they are pricier, but also pretty flexible. Check out Steinberg's Groove Agent as yet another option.
Hope this helps- sorry for the book!!!!
