Let me offer testimony here. For a while I was one of the users like Rob mentioned who only used BIAB. My process to that point went like this.

Write the song either on paper or in my head.

Open BIAB and enter the chord progression.

Experiment with the style over and over and watch it regenerate the song every time I changed styles.

Once I got that to where I wanted it, I then had to start playing with the solo generation features. That was another learning curve. Finally I would end up with an acceptable solo and move ahead.

From that point I would record my song off onto my Tascam 8 track digital recorder. I would then play that back a number of times as I added supporting keyboards, vocals, harmony vocals.... quite often running out of tracks.

No more. I have not powered the Tascam on in 6 weeks.

I had really taken that about as far as I could go with it and started following the threads about Real Band. I started into THAT learning curve with the same brash attitude I approach everything I do, that this should come easy to me and I will master it in an hour or so.

Reality check.

Real Band is SO full featured that there are nuances even the most experienced users may still be discovering after years of use. However, with the help of these great people on these forums, a few in particular but everybody in general, I was able to get enough of a grasp on Real Band that I could start using it.

Now, what did that do for me? Plenty. I have a 48 track sequencer with a full stable of experienced studio musicians there to play for me. Not one of them has talked back to me, told me my song was bad, that I couldn't play or sing.... I don't have to pay them, and they don't hit clams. I have cut and paste, volume boost and cut, fades, effects, and things I will be discovering for years. The point is that since one of the forum people was kind enough to invest some of his personal time to take remote control of my computer and show me on my own screen how to do several "this and thats", my whole world of writing and recording changed.

I still have to enter chords in and pick a style, but once that is done and the basic song is generated, then the true fun begins. Adding background instruments, setting levels so they appear to be coming in and out of the mix, generating multiple solos and then cutting and pasting them measure by measure on to a completely new track, using trial and error until I get the exact solo I would have asked the player to play if he was at my house. I can add those supporting keyboards, drum fills or accents, vocals, harmonies.... all right on my screen where I have MUCH more control. AND THEN fix the timing if it's off, control levels, fade in and out.... to be honest this is ruining me for actual playing to the point where I need to play in a band again so I have a reason to practice. Once I get everything recorded and mixed down, the consolidated track dump to .wav or .MP3 (I do both) is a breeze as well.

BIAB is fine for what I will call quick and dirty or scratchpad work, getting the basic framework done to take with you and play out and sing over. And it does a great job for that. But when you want to go further, Real Band is truly the better option.

The best example I can offer is one of my songs called Insignificant Other out on my Sound Cloud site. Other than the faux steel guitar part on the head, after the first chorus and on the outro (which was all from an Ensoniq SQ1 synthesizer), I didn't play a note on that song. If you go listen, pay particular attention to the guitar solo. What I got from Real Band fit the groove of the song so perfectly I wouldn't have asked Brent Mason to play anything different, and he couldn't have played anything better had he been in my house doing the session.

Also check out The One That Got Away, where I had to do a lot of fine adjusting on timing because of drum pickups that I played in manually on a Roland drum machine. One fill was a little early, another a little late. Select it, slide it to where it needs to be, and drop it. Timing fixed without another take.

And that pretty much explains what my original comment meant about BIAB being like RB with training wheels.