All this reminds me of why I switched to Renoise.
****ing about in a horizontal sequencer to make beats is not the way to go. You can do it, of course, but doing it in a tracker is SO SO SO much faster and intuitive.
I have working on a soundtrack for a new horror film here in japan, and I needed to use Cubase to be able to work with long audio samples.
For old times sake i decided to make a simple 4/4 drum loop with a kick, a snare, two sets of hats and some incedental noises. My god. It took about a WEEK!
Great for long audio work, but a pain in the arse for beats.