OK I'm a musician and im trying to record a prog rock opus. Here's my home recording setup:

-Sonar 7.0 for recording/arrangement

-Reason 4.0 for synths/effects

-various refills for Reason

-Alesis I/O 26 firewire interface box

-Line 6 POD pro rack mounted guitar/bass fx processor

-Crappy 100$ 61 key keyboard that i used simply as a midi controller for Reason

-several guitars, basses, banjo, mandolin, violin, etc.

-BFD2 acoustic drum sampler



My plan is to do all of my composing/recording at home and use BFD and reason for my drums. My roommate is a capable drummer, but we don't have the facilities to record (or play) drums, so my plan is to sample them first and then have him replace the samples eventually with his drums.

I'm having a lot of problems, particularly with Sonar and BFD2, and I have no idea how to use Reason so i'm kinda shooting in the dark there.

Basically what i wonder is if any of you are familiar with how to use any of these programs, and can you help me understand them. Also if you recommend other recording interfaces over Sonar, then I'd like to know that too.

thanks