I'd suggest keeping it simple and just learning the basics of working with MIDI by itself before trying to incorporate samples. Here's a simple workflow that will get you moving. Everything you learn here will lend itself to other workflows down the road.
1. Assign Calf-fluidsynth plugin to a track
2. In Calf-fluidsynth, load the FluidR3_GM.sf2 soundfont (this is a very standard file I'd expect to exist on your system)
3. Back in Qtractor, change the track to use MIDI Channel 10 (this is the channel your drums are available on via the soundfont)
4. Create a clip of 4 bars
5. Loop the 4 bars
6. Double-click on the clip to open PR and start adding notes (Your kick drum will be found on MIDI Note 35)
I'm not covering every nuance here as you'll eventually want to speed up productivity through key-bindings, perhaps creating a template, other things.... This workflow is just designed to get you up and moving around; on your way toward understanding what MIDI is and how it works.
Personally, I'd strongly suggest avoiding any "drum pattern" stuff as that approach offers a mere subset of what is possible in a full sequencer. You can always just tweak a "clip" to your liking and just copy/paste it as much as you like anyway. Beyond thinking in terms of "reusable clips", a full blown sequencer allows you a much finer grain of control and IMHO lends itself much nicer to collaborating with others since exporting/importing should be much easier (there's no "translation magic" to figure out in either direction).
I'd suggest keeping it simple and just learning the basics of working with MIDI by itself before trying to incorporate samples. Here's a simple workflow that will get you moving. Everything you learn here will lend itself to other workflows down the road.
1. Assign Calf-fluidsynth plugin to a track
2. In Calf-fluidsynth, load the FluidR3_GM.sf2 soundfont (this is a very standard file I'd expect to exist on your system)
3. Back in Qtractor, change the track to use MIDI Channel 10 (this is the channel your drums are available on via the soundfont)
4. Create a clip of 4 bars
5. Loop the 4 bars
6. Double-click on the clip to open PR and start adding notes (Your kick drum will be found on MIDI Note 35)
I'm not covering every nuance here as you'll eventually want to speed up productivity through key-bindings, perhaps creating a template, other things.... This workflow is just designed to get you up and moving around; on your way toward understanding what MIDI is and how it works.
Personally, I'd strongly suggest avoiding any "drum pattern" stuff as that approach offers a mere subset of what is possible in a full sequencer. You can always just tweak a "clip" to your liking and just copy/paste it as much as you like anyway. Beyond thinking in terms of "reusable clips", a full blown sequencer allows you a much finer grain of control and IMHO lends itself much nicer to collaborating with others since exporting/importing should be much easier (there's no "translation magic" to figure out in either direction).