Hello JeeBee,
You may not need to do anything with alsa other than re-initialize it. It should automatically access the new modules. Let's see if things are set up properly..
Do a
$ ls /lib/modules/
You should see the new kernel listed there if you were successful with "make modules_install" during the rebuild process. If it is, do
ls /lib/modules/[your new kernel]/kernel/sound/core
and post the results.
Have you tried /sbin/service alsasound stop/start again? After that it would be good to see the /root/sysound.log file resultsing from system-config-soundcard.