At peak (December 2017 to February 2018), my small python bot was making between 500 to a couple thousands dollars per day. It was even possible to do arbitrage by hand at that time since you sometimes had a 10-20% difference between the markets.
Can confirm. Early January 2018 I made $10k in a week because the BTC/JPY price was 10% higher than the BTC/USD price. It required a partner in Japan and lots of international money remittances though...
Here are some sequencers you could look at (that I've personally owned)
Zaquencer - $200. The most sequencer you can get at that price point. But lots of knob turning, no real displays. Its fun though.
Toraiz Squid - $600. But it has some great features, and its very 'playable'. You can also drag and drop all of your midi from the device into the DAW.
I would suggest starting with purchasing a MIDI interface and a sequencer. Just use them to control software instruments in your DAW.
This is my workflow. Make a bunch of patterns in a sequencer. Record audio or MIDI into the DAW. Arrange the patterns. You get you brainstorming done on the hardware but the editing on the software.