My current process:
Get into the studio few hours before the DL and try come up with something. Also use new tool every week.

I think next step for me is to bring other musicians in at least once in a month.

It would also be fun to try to collaborate with some other WB members.

Mission accomplished: Week 6 will feature only one kind of sound sample.  (Though it's several different instances of the same kind of sound.)

This week, I've taken a challenge from a friend to build a piece using a single kind of sound source.  I'm not entirely decided on whether I want to narrow that down to a single sample or leave it at the current several-instances-of-one-kind-of-sample status.

Doing all 2016 songs as Sonic Pi Ruby code.

Amazingly, I've started two tracks exactly the same way (week5 and week1), the Matrix device in Reason is amazing.
Reason in general is such a power house to get an idea flowing quickly

Depending on the type of music I'm making, I'll employ various tools. For WeeklyBeats (and other electronic oriented productions), my usual/preferred starting point is the Matrix device in Reason since you can take a simple idea/pattern and mold it like clay. From there, I'll use that content to generate the other instrument layers and create a framework for the piece. If things are pleasing to my ear, I'll start getting inspiration for other elements, like melody, bass, form, and/or narrative.     

Compositional process inspiration comes from the pattern use and manipulation in the music of Ligeti, Reich, Riley, Lang, and Gordon. Vibe and Atmosphere inspiration comes from artists like Prefuse 73, Boards of Canada, Amon Tobin, Air, Trent Reznor, and Battles. These all slip into my mind in various ways.   

From there, it becomes a stew in my mind that I'm still trying to figure out.

^ That's seriously cool.

My process today, until I ditched the Max For Live Feedback Network plugin/effect/instrument: edit, edit, crash, try restarting, crash, try restarting, crash, try restarting...oh, that worked! Edit, edit, crash, try restarting, crash, try restarting, crash, try restarting...oh, that worked!  (Repeat.)

This week: making a SuperCollider patch that is similar to my week 2 one, using less reference material, to solidify my understanding of the syntax in this rudimentary way.

Screen Shot 2016-01-30 at 3.10.44 pm by Vincent Giles, on Flickr

i just plonk a few things down.  then listen for a few days . then add sections and add more and more as the sections go on.

Tracking phase: "I'll don't have enough material for a decent track. Better record some more parts."

(Arrangement phase, recording triggering clips in Session View.)

Editing phase: "How am I going to fit all these parts in?"

I start with a simple beat first and work around that. I hate metronomes. Then I start messing around with my synths. Designing patches on the fly, sequencing the arpeggiator, recording some chords to the midi sequencer... It's just a massive quilt of educated guesswork of what will and won't sound cohesive.

Eventually, I'll have a massive blob of sound I need to record into Ableton to add additional samples to, chop up, EQ, compress, and serve out.

This week was wildly different as I used no instruments, just prerecorded samples.

Based on some suggestions from a producer meetup I went to this past week, I'm going to use convolution reverb instead of Live's built-in, and use some M4L Humanizer in front of Impulse...and possibly some LFO. Might do some side chaining to avoid sending too much hat to the reverb...but I'm undecided there. (I'm definitely pulling down the hat levels.). Time to add another couple of electric piano lines, maybe.

pretty much sums it up LOL

panic.
don't panic.
panic.

Beginning of the week I just toy around with my synths, record 1-4 bar loops to octatrack, and then try to arrange something out of them on sunday. Trying to keep this as stress free as possible.