Bootleg Girl

I had formal training with a piano teacher as a kid. I understand time signatures and note values although I have lost the ability to sight read notation.

So, I'm a hopeless fantasist with dreams of composing progressive rock/prog metal, but I understand this is an enormously complex undertaking that can't be done by just learning an instrument and a DAW. One of the challenges I face is that most of the music that I admire and want to emulate - Evanescence, Nightwish, or Muse are all good examples - draw heavily upon drums to afford their power. I played keyboard as a child and understand how to play it although I'm not much good; I'm currently working on upping my bass and guitar skills, and can play tabs. But both understanding rhythm and staying in tune with it are challenges to me. I'm not going to go out and buy a drum set, so I'm wondering how I can understand composing percussion. I use Logic Pro to put tracks together, and Guitar Pro allows me to make percussion tabs - and to study stuff from GP5 files. Anyone got tips on how I can learn to understand how rock uses percussion & rhythm?