You’re pretty close, but not quite there yet 
First: create racks from your plugins - these are the “Instruments” you use in your songs.
Why create racks? Two reasons:
First: racks get re-used across songs and (for pre-loaded set lists) are kept im memory only once, So, if you use the same rack (“Piano Rack”) in 15 songs in your set list, it gets loaded only once. If you put the plugins into your songs directly, all individual instances need to be pre-loaded for each song. Racks keep your setup efficient!
Second: racks encapsulate complexity. My E-Piano Rack contains two vst instruments plus a number of effects like EQ, amp, phaser, flanger, reverb etc. All these are then configured in detail for each rack state - and the whole configuration is saved with the rack state. So, by selecting one rack state, I can recall a very complex configuration of a number of plugins that I don’t really need to worry about when building a song - I simply load a “rack preset” like “Dreamy Wurlitzer”
So, now you create rack states in your racks for every basic sound you may want to use later in your songs. Of course, you can start with a few and add additional states later on.
OK, now you have your racks - your building blocks for your songs.
Now: build songs from your racks
For each song:
- load the racks you need for this song (PianoRack + StringRack for one, HammondRack and SoloSynthRack for the next…). Select rack states for these songs to set them to the sound you want.
- Now make connections: create Routes from your keyboards to your Racks’ MIDI inputs, make settings for these Routes to create splits or layers, etc. Also connect your Racks’ outputs to the correct output ports (Main Speakers, Secondary Speakers, …)
- Next, set volume levels for your racks to tune the sound to taste
- Last, create bindings to react to controllers (bind volume for a specific rack to a slider, etc.)
Now you have a song with one setup: your keyboards will play the sounds with splits and layers, and you can control some volumes or effects parameters with sliders.
If you don’t want to automate sound / setup changes between song parts (piano in the verse, organ in the chorus), you can stop right here!
If you DO want to automate these changes, you need song states (but only then). Song states allow you to save a certain configuration of your song and recall it later. A configuration essentially consists of
- Racks being turned on or off
- Rack states selected (“presets” for your racks)
- Rack (and Route) volume levels
- Configuration of your Routes, especially from your keyboards to your racks (change split zones)
- Configuration of your Bindings (expression pedal may control different things in verse vs. chorus)
So, you configure your Racks, Routes, and Bindings a certain way, then save this to a Song State. Now, with the press of one button, you can change from verse configuration to chorus and back
Of course, there is shedloads of additional stuff that you can do, but this should be enough to get you pretty far. Then come back and ask for more
Cheers,
Torsten
@terrybritton: do you think this could be a worth-while first tutorial for your planned video series? I guess it would take care of a lot of entry-level questions…