essentials can do step right.
i hope im understanding you correctly here.
i step right in the piano roll view.
are you furmiliar with a PRV ?
if not look it up on you tube and watch a few vids.
you can step right everything except audio instruments(wave file) things like guitar you plug in,vocals,exc.
though you can get very indepth.
they make guitar midi synths so you can get great results with that.
and Vvocal in x2 essentials will let you basically step write your vocals(or better said fine tune,tweak the notes that are off a little bit.)
im almost positive MC 5 has piano roll view,or PRV for short.
look into it.hope this helped.