Keep trying. Things will improve with a bit of practice, and you'll be having allot more fun in the studio as opposed to frustration. If you're on a tight budget why not move toward using virtual instruments? Have a look at Native Instruments Komplete. For the price of one piece of decent outboard gear you'll be well on your way to having almost everything you'd ever need. Alternatively you can have a look on http://www.kvraudio.com/ for links to stacks of free, and often high quality VST plugins and instruments. Outboard isn't always a better solution anyway.

I'm not trying to bash the newbie (I'm still fairly new here), and you're welcome to post your tracks up here for review. Just bare in mind that if you follow the standard protocols things will be easier on everybody though.