I was never much for ALL sources of music creation...I simply like picking a style (usually one edited by me) and playing a tune, being able to repeat as necessary, change keys, and even the style without a hitch.

As far as track by track recording, I spent many years in recording studious doing just that, as arrangers hadn't progressed to the point where they could be viably used in recording. It's tedious and time consuming and necessary in some cases.

Having the style saves the person recording a lot of time, and in a studio, time is money. Using an arranger, I could lay down a complete bed of drums, bass, and rhythm guitar in one simple pass. A workstation isn't as powerful in that respect, and although it does offer other options, they wouldn't appeal to me.

I've heard performers using their own homemade SMF and others using commercial files, and unless the former was a very experienced player, the latter were usually a lot better. In most cases, the only person who knew the difference was the player. A fixed backing track is just that, fixed, and even using markers, it always comes out pretty much the same overall...it's just a recording of the backing tracks of a particular song...same chords etc.

It's no doubt very handy for the entertainer who is primarily a vocalist first, and a keyboardist second.

I don't envy today's OMB performer, as it appears they have to spread themselves rather thin and use all kinds of extras, and, again, the audience doesn't care one iota...as long as they are being entertained.

Ian