I have a lot of ideas, but have trouble translating them to real sounds. Any tips on that?

I just spent the whole day producing a drum loop, I had a lot of ideas for melodies and synths, but in the end nothing worked... It is an awesome drum loop, probably the best I've produced so far. But I really want to do something with it, I'm just not sure how to start. I have a lot of ideas, some of them more complicated than others, but whenever I start trying to reproduce the melodies/sounds in my head, I rarely come close to what I want. My trick for reproducing melodies, is to hum/whistle them out, and try to play along on the keyboard. When I have the right notes, I start to write out the midi info. But for arrangement/automation/FX/composition/sound-design ideas, I don't have a clue where to start.

Any help?

BTW: I'm not going to upload the loop. I personally think it really is an interesting sounding loop, with lot of potential, but I'm a bit afraid it may be underneath most of your league.