Here's a suggestion: try figuring out what you want your song to be BEFORE you start recording it. The problem I see with those struggling with arrangement is that they start recording before they ever had a finished idea, as if the idea is supposed to "write itself" as they go along. This usually leads to a bunch of unfinished projects and discarded ideas. Thats like building a house with no concept of what the finished structure iwill look like-who does that? Architects don't start building anything until the house is finished on paper. I guarantee they aren't acting like "Uh, I don't know what this building will look like when its finished, I can't decide how many floors its supposed to have, I'll just keep building until I decide its done, I guess". That doesn't make sense in real life, so why do we think it does in the creative arts?
The key is to VISUALIZE the project as a completed SONG, and then record it. All those "what sounds to use, what instruments to use, what arrangement to use" questions should be answered in the visualization phase-not in the production/recording phase. You should already know what the finished song sounds like before ever stepping to your daw, then you can make small adjustments from there.
In film, everything crucial to the development of the project from casting actors to scripting to location scouting is done in pre-production. The director and production team, having the full vision of what the completed project will look like in their heads, are just translating it to film.
The key here is to write the song in your head first, and then take that finished song and turn it into sound. You guys are working backwards trying to figure out "what you want" as you go before you ever knew what you wanted in the first place.
