Reply to A few questions

Alright, first of all, I have no knowledge of this what so ever, so any information from the most simplistic point to the most advanced would be widely appreciated.

Ableton and myself just cannot get along when it comes to grooving out a beat, I know it has the groove presets that you can attach to the beat, but it just doesn't do what I have in my head. I also know that you can basically 'jam' once you have any Drum Rack or Impluse filled with sounds/instruments with the computer keyboard/external MIDI Device (like a keyboard or drum pads), but what I believe I really want, after being a drummer for 11 years, is to use an actual Electronic DK as a MIDI device, this is where I am in over my head, first of all, I don't even know if they can be used as MIDI Devices and I also don't know which ones can/cant be used. I'm a real hands on musician and need it best suited to my style. If I could somehow trigger my acoustic kit to respond to MIDI notes (is this possible?) then I would.

Second of all, I am having great difficultly getting a full bodied track laid out in Ableton, I have your usual Synth VSTs (Massive, FM8, BassLine, etc..) what I am missing out on is the background noises to complete the sound, the ambient long piano key noises, the swoosh build up noises. I have samples of these that I have further processed through programs like Audacity to get my desired sound, but I just wanted to know if their where particular VSTs that could help me out, to get that non-synth harmonic sound?

Last of all, I plan on buying a MIDI Keyboard, I was looking at the Akai MPK 49 with the 12 pads and all the knobs, are the knobs auto assigned to the knobs when you open up a VST or do you have to custom map them/can they be custom mapped?

If anyone can help, I'd love to hear your thoughts, thank-you.