I know this is going to sound like a really basic question. I have been trying to get MIDI playback to work for a few days now, and have read the manuals, still nothing. I know that I am missing something really simple here...can anyone give me some pointers?

I am trying to get some MIDI files to playback through a VSTi drum machine, and for the life of me, I can't get things to work out...I used to use Cakewalk, and it was a pretty easy thing to do in Cakewalk, but in Cubase?

Here's the scenario:

Cubase/32 v. 5.1 on a PC...Echo Layla & Tascam US-428...I do *not* have a MIDI keyboard (synthesizer), although I do have a SB16 card that I use for computer bleeps and blips.

I have some .MID drum loop files that I would like to audition through Cubase using the SR-202 VSTi drum machine. (I have also tried the VSTi drum machine that comes with Cubase...what is it again...the LM-4 or something? Sorry, I don't have it in front of me, but you know which one I mean...)

Two questions:

1) How can I easily get the .MID the files into Cubase? I somehow got a .MID file to insert into a Cubase project, but I'm not even sure how I did it...importing a MIDI file doesn't seem to work...drag-and-drop from Explorer doesn't do anything, and I can't import into the Audio Pool since it isn't audio...Grrrr...!

2) Playback? I set the output for the MID file to the SR-202 (after setting up the 202 as an instrument for th song), and nothing. If I set the output to the SB16 card, I can hear playback through my tiny little computer speakers, but I don't want to use the SB synthesizer obviously. I *thought* that I could playback MIDI files using a VSTi without an additional synthesizer. (Maybe this is my whole problem!)

I also have a "standard" drum machine (Alesis SR-16) that would work for me if needed. This would involve hooking up the Alesis to the MIDI ports on either the Tascam or the Layla (I can handle this...I hope!), but I want to try and use the VSTi first if I can.

Any help would be appreciated!

DH