and you want to ....

Record what you're playing? I'm only seeing part of the picture you're painting here. What's the end result, and what isn't working about what you're trying. Are we taking MIDI here? Do the samples come up in a different software package?

well, i dont' necessarily need to be able to record it in this way (though that would be nice). basically i want to be able to try samples--just .wav's saved on my computer--without actually having to stop and insert them into the multitrack.

sorry, i'm a novice, maybe this is midi (?) however, when i go to device properties>midi in i'm not able to enter anything into midi in.
that is, i can't figure out how to tell it where to get the sample from...

i do also have some samples in a different software package i'd like to play in there if that's possible...

thanks!

Cool Edit's MIDI capabilities are very limited. I'm not a MIDI kind of guy, but I suspect what your asking for is beyond what CEP can do. Depending on the capabilities of your sound card, you might be able to us a different application to play the MIDI samples.

this isn't the kind of thing cool edit is gunna do. Frankly, it just isn't set up like that. It really isn't a digital instrument environment. I realize you just want to sample but to the software it's about the same thing. It expects you to lay everything in yourself. You may be able to set it up with a VST. I use audition and i don't remember how well CEP works with those, but if you can find a VST sampler try running it in cool edit.
The basic point: third party stuff or a whole different program

Audition 1.5 is the first version to support VST or Rewire. Cool Edit Pro will only support DX, although some VST effects could be used with a DX Wrapper. VSTi or DXi are not supported in any Audition or CEP version.