Thanks RumDrum for all your help! Unfortunately I don’t know what the problem is either; maybe I just need to go get me some rum, LOL.
It may be nothing more complicated than I don’t know enough about how Cubase actually works rather than how I think it should work and so I’m trying to do something it doesn’t do and yes I’m mostly interested in orchestral music and that was why I wanted QL Spaces since I thought it was the best of the bunch for that. One thing I’ve found in my 80 years is that if I go away and let things simmer awhile and then come back with a fresh outlook, I can often get things to work. Obviously at 80 I’m just a hobbiest doing this for fun and not profit, and for the most part I really enjoy doing it but every once in awhile I get frustrated when something just won’t work and when that happens I just back off and chill and then see what happens.
BTW at my age I’m just grateful I can do any of this at all 
Tom