Well I'm doing a bachelor of science degree in music technology... Luckily there was a module looking at the sequencing software that I use which is Adobe Audition. It's mainly for sound editing on TV shows and stuff like that, but there's absolutely no reason why you can't use it to musically edit stuff. It's just like, instead of having epic guitar reverb, you sound like you're in a shower or something...
Other than audition I use a Digitech RP100 multi effects pedal (it's really quite a shit pedal) to record the guitar in on the line-in on the computer (that's why it sounds kinda synthetic).
For drums I use GuitarPro4 to tab it as a midi then I take it to my uni, where they have some mint midi modules, and I simply import the file to cubase and use some of the "real drum sound" options. I mean, it's still sounds fake and shit to me (and most other people too), but it's the best option I've got available to me.
Doubt that's been of much help... but yeah, I'm just being resourceful with what I got, which isn't much.