Work method ? Do's and Don't ?

Hi,

I'm currently in production for like a month or so, and I am experimenting on Live.
Given my tastes, which includes some brosteppish stuff I've been wondering about something.

Wether it's in electro, brostep, moombahcore, now basslines are made by tons of different noises like what i believe is called "reese bass" etc.
I'm not asking how to make these, but I notices it's often the same basis but with tiny variations (LFOs, attack, filter resonance or cutoff).

So here is my question :
Is that better to create a different VST preset for each sound, or is it better to do all that stuff in automation mode ?

I do believe the first method is "cleaner" and allows you to work back on your track easily, but I find the 2nd method nice since it's faster and allows you a good visualization of your track. Plus it's not a mess in Ableton with all the different clips for just tiny variations.

Hope you can help me on that one :)