My workflow hasn't changed all that much from the old days when I was playing in a band, TBH, if not for the fact that back then, we wouldn't really mix things, just create a static balance on the 4 tracks...
 
I'd pretty much always record a dummy guitar track to a click, laying the proper groove, accents and all, so that the drummer could get a sense of that. Sometimes I'd also record a temporary vocal track if he felt it helped him get into it. Then after he'd cut his drum track, we'd record the other instruments and I'd re-do the guitar and vocals.
 
The main difference is that the stuff we recorded had been rehearsed countless times, so it was always just capturing the song rather than experimenting w/ different structures and adding parts. Everything had to be planned ahead.

paulo
...

 
In my case ... a slight difference
 
15) Think, sod it and start on another song thinking I'll come back to that one and finish it some other time.
 
16) Never finish it.

This happens to me, but I have come to know that many of these pieces are not usable as stated and I have, for the past several years, pretty much thrown them away. Why? Easy. Something else shows up tomorrow and plugs itself just fine!
 
All in all, the things that never get finished, FOR ME, are the ones that got caught in my own inner transitions, and the older "process" just was not good enough, and the details in it, were not vivid enough to make it anywhere else. So I drop it.
 
It's weird, for me, from a theater/film and acting perspective, that you do not have the "trust" that you can bring back up something that you did before. That is deadly on stage! If you lose something, sometimes it is the best thing that happens to you, but you have to learn to trust what you know and did, thus, something that you "lost", or "dropped/erased", should still be in your internal memory banks and you will one day use it ... and go ... son of a **** ... ten years for you to show up and make yourself known!
 
So, Randy's suggestion is hilarious and a good one. Basically stop thinking that every note you have done and used is GOD, and you have to treat it like ... (not even saying it!)!!!

Do you have "loopitis"? I have it and so do many other makers of computer music.  Here's an interesting article which talks about how to overcome it...
 
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/overcoming-loopitis/
 
Actually one of my main problems is this: I come up with what sounds to me like a great few bars of music. From playing around with these few bars, a related piece of music springs forth. Aha, this will be my "B" section. And then I start playing with that. Pretty soon, it's morphed into something that's so far removed from the "A" section that the two of them no longer connect, and I can't think of a way to make one progress into the other. But I love what I've done to both parts! Deep down, they're still related and so I'm loathe to split them into 2 different songs, but when I play them in succession the contrast is jarring. 
 
Take the doomed project I'm working on now. I started off by playing something vaguely Spanish sounding on guitar, which I then turned into MIDI with Melodyne Editor and sent to a patch in Prism which sounds like a very authentic plucked Eastern instrument (of some sort ). By chance, I happen across a couple of Indian vocal samples in the Cakewalk Content (yes you heard right) which are just MADE for the Prism part. A bit of Melodyne adjustment and some ping pong delay and a bit of percussion and I'm thinking this is the best thing I've ever done. So then I wonder how to progress. I pick up the guitar again and play with the original piece. Pretty soon I've composed something in the same mode, only this time it's in a really weird meter with disjointed phrasing. Turning it into MIDI I realize it sounds great through a Rhodes with lots of chorus. And then I get some heavy hip hop style drums and a phat bass line going. Wow! I'm listening to it loop over and over thinking that THIS is now the best thing I've ever done. 
 
So then I'm curious as to what weird ass chords it's comprised of (I rarely stop to consider things like chord names when I'm playing guitar) and so I put it through Strum Acoustic and realize that it's quite "quartal" and out there harmonically. I play the chords that Strum Acoustic is showing me (which aren't exactly the keyboard part, but close), and come up with a funky guitar part that again is related to the previous part, but a totally different feel. Pretty soon I've got a jazzy outside bass line thumping along, a Reaktor synth playing a very electro style lead and Jamstix going absolutely out of its freaking mind through Addictive Drums. 
 
Now I have 3 sections that I'm absolutely stoked with. And they're all sort of related harmonically, because one led to the other. But I've screwed with them individually so much that I'm confronted with the reality that I have three different song embryos in the same project. And it's going to be really hard to connect them. I guess I could just continue what I'm doing, come up with a few more sections, split them into their own songs and call it a concept album 
 
But boy, I find this whole arrangement thing to be very hard. I always did. 
 
 

Most of what little I still have are song segments...  *Sigh*

sharke
 
Take the doomed project I'm working on now. I started off by playing something vaguely Spanish sounding on guitar, which I then turned into MIDI with Melodyne Editor and sent to a patch in Prism which sounds like a very authentic plucked Eastern instrument (of some sort ). By chance, I happen across a couple of Indian vocal samples in the Cakewalk Content (yes you heard right) which are just MADE for the Prism part. A bit of Melodyne adjustment and some ping pong delay and a bit of percussion and I'm thinking this is the best thing I've ever done. So then I wonder how to progress. I pick up the guitar again and play with the original piece. Pretty soon I've composed something in the same mode, only this time it's in a really weird meter with disjointed phrasing. Turning it into MIDI I realize it sounds great through a Rhodes with lots of chorus. And then I get some heavy hip hop style drums and a phat bass line going. Wow! I'm listening to it loop over and over thinking that THIS is now the best thing I've ever done. 
 

I can relate to this. Done loads of 8 or 12 bar segments which sound killer, and never went anywhere.  The only answer that worked for me is don't overdub anything until you have the whole track laid out with one instrument, then it's got a better chance of hanging together.

i use the Step Sequencer to programme drums, i've said this a number of times in various threads and i think most people prefer drum maps and the PRV, but I find the flexibility of the SS works better for me...
 
doing a song, I usually play it a few times first ouside Sonar, then get a quick  basic 4/4 (or whatever) groove up on the SS to record to, as I find recording just to click can be difficult and you lose some groove.
 
Once the guitar section is done i'll programme the drums, then add in bass/synths etc, and finally vocals. sometimes I do the whole song just guitars first, then the rest, sometimes I'll do it in sections. I'm not afraid to use Copy and Paste for drum sections, especially as you can unlink individual clips in the SS and change the odd hit.
 
i can imagine that if you were doing more EBM style you might want the right drum pattern first before recording anything else...

Hi,
 
This is strange and weird.
 
I take my cue from folks like Peter Hammill and Roy Harper, people that write forever and their material is always different, and makes you wonder where it all comes from. Lately, for my tastes, Peter is not as good with VdGG.
 
If you're gonna sing the song, for example, it should be more important to detail the voice and its inflections and abilities. You can do it with a piano, and a guitar ... easily. In general, from my stupid way of thinking, using a drum track or bass track first, is weird, specially if you are going to treat them as background anyway ... you lose the ability to ACCENT the voice, or the guitar, and have to make changes later, and you will be ADJUSTING to the drum beat, instead of the strength of the song, ie. its message and voicing ability!
 
That would be weird.
 
Thus, similar to what/how I write, no two situations would ever be the same, or you have no idea what you want your piece of music to say and DO.
 
It would seem to me, rather strange, and I am a person that appreciated and appreciate the empty head, all experiment stuff that had no meaning, but what we don't see is that stuff like that TEACHES you how to work with "meaning", instead of you having to scratch and claw to create something that is not totally a part of the piece, and has a tendency to split it up.
 
This is the case in the CHB, where the tendencies go in 15 different ways, WHICH, is one of its most attractive parts as to how it all came together! Tremendous work making it so, but also a bit harder in the end, and then you endup trying to accent details that were already done and changing them could be more difficult!
 
You write, for what you "see", not JUST for a drum beat, or a bass guitar -- although they can be a part of it. If you are trying to add lyrics, now, to a song you already have with a solo, the chance of it matching is not as good as coming directly from the lyrics. There is one EXCLUSION to this ... Bob Dylan, since you all know that everyone else can do his music better, but the music itself has never been important to him, as the lyrics are! We need to see that! He's not interested in Manfred Mann's solos, or Jimi's solo splash! But it tells you what you can do when you work on the lyrics that DRIVE forward.