Geno- I have never used a step sequencer. Since I can't really play keys as such, I often find a musical loop I like (maybe it inspires me) and a groove that fits it, and I start building up from there. I then add my own synth lines- sometimes just straight audio on the fly, or sometimes as a MIDI track if I need to search for the right sound and/or need to quantize for tightness. I tend to write dense material, and the tracks build up rather rapidly.
The Intro for this tune is about 46 secs. long and takes up 10 tracks, of which 7 are loops, 1 is Z3ta, and 2 are Alchemy. Then I played the NI Mutations 2 drums on my keyboard, added some more droning musical loops, added the Massive bouncey synth, then the FM8 distorted flangey lead (which I programmed myself). Under that is 3-4 layers of kick drum and groove loops. Throw in some synth and loops for the breaks. Then I played live guitar for the solo over a couple of synth loops and groove loops. A lot of Guitar Rig 5 on the guitar.
I imported the original Smoke On The Water mp3, and cut out just the signature lick and using the Loop Construction view, time-stretched it to fit my tempo. (Many of the loops have to be edited in the Loop Const. View to get them to the right tempo and pitch... they are NOT just transposed cuz it sounds like crap.) Then I used it in the Verse, and also took a snippet of it and assigned that guitar tone to a pad in Battery 4 (you can hear it in the intro.)
The Chorus guitars are the MOTIF XF keyboard played in real time as audio tracks over more loops and beats. Then some more breaks... then 4 mellow loops come in and I played keyboard bass and some some drum hits over that to end it.
Lots of ProChannel stuff, and F/X Chains in use. I seldom use a loop that I don't "doctor". LOL
End result- 91 total tracks, both MIDI and Audio to be mixed. I make a 24-bit undithered wave file out of my mix and import it into a new project, then use Ozone 5 to master it.
I only have a 32-bit Win 7 machine, and so I am limited to 4GB RAM, and really only 2 is available for the tune itself...so I have to freeze everything (tracks) as I go and my workflow is hindered quite a bit by this. It forces me to be creative with song construction. Actually, I had to get my mix right and export it as a stereo wave to a new project before I could lay down the live guitar solo.... my machine just would not run anymore! LOL
It was a lot of fun to produce. Sorry about the long answer.... did it answer your question?