Hard to resist this kind of challenge, though finding the right way forward won't be easy. Here's my very preliminary two cents worth. DB already distinguishes between adding BARS (initially blank) and composing DRUMS to occupy those bars. So it's no great stretch to extend this distinction a bit further with some new editing commands. Then how about this? 1) Making CUT/PASTE clearly and solely apply to DRUMS, with no effect on the underlying metric space. I assume that the pasted DRUMS would be automatically superimposed on anything already occupying that space. 2) Adding to the existing INSERT BARS command, two new commands that would ONLY affect the metric grid: DELETE BARS, and DELETE BEATS. You could always, I guess, add COPY SELECTION and REPLACE SELECTION as new editing commands that would grab and transport the whole selection complete with its grid. But it seems somehow cleaner to keep the grid and the pattern as two distinct entities, even if that slows down the editing process somewhat. Actually, I'm not so sure a DELETE BEATS command is really needed. Maybe DELETE SELECTION could do it all, or maybe just DELETE BARS would even suffice. Right now, you can already change the number of beats in any bar, just by changing its time signature, and you can add or insert a bar with any desired number of beats anywhere you want. Being able to delete or insert selected bars from the grid might well be enough, as long as segments of notated drumming can be cut or copied and pasted in anywhere on the existing metric grid. Should it be possible to delete from the grid at LOWER than the beat level? I doubt it. As for cutting and pasting where the item selected is at a higher RESOLUTION metrically than the context into which it is pasted, this might someday be handled by making any bar into which a new pattern has been pasted expand itself automatically to display at the higher resolution of the two. Ideally, the same resolution should always apply to the whole bar, in any case. These are exciting times for Doggiebox. Am eager to see what others think. -Sterling