Cubase does have a demo. The thing is, it requires a dongle. It's a messy situation. All of Steinberg products have a dongle. So, let's say you had Halion or some other Steinberg product. Then you would already have the demo. Then you could download a demo of Cubase 6 and try it out for like 30 days. This started with Cubase 5. Or, if you're really serious, you could actually buy a dongle so you could demo Cubase. LOL Crazy I know. But I'm a big Steinberg product fan so I have Halion, Halion Sonic and Cubase 6.
As for sampling in Cubase, I would say it has amazing sample editing tools. It doesn't have a proper built in sampler such as EXS24 in Logic or NN-XT in Reason, but it does have the very best audio editing tools of any sequencer and it has Groove Agent One which is one of those software MPC thingies with pads. You can import a sample from anywhere, any format, and go from the sample editor or sequencer to Groove agent. Cubase has built in beatslicer, timestretching and pitch shifting, and also a Melodyne style audio editor. A real cool feature is you can chop up a loop and go from audio to midi and use the feel of an audio loop to drive a Vst instrument and play a vst drumkit. So Cubase definitely has you covered where sampling is concerned. The big issue is the way then deal with their demo software. It's terrible.
