Thanks for your input folks. Very helpful. I should add that I am a semi-professional musician and play guitar for a blues/soul singer songwriter. We perform 5 times this weekend as headliners in a blues festival with 50,000 in attendance. So I am not new to songwriting, playing or recording.

My question was more about your opinions about the tool itself, and what success you folks have had. That's why I said "assuming good songwriting" etc. Of course you need the skills and "raw material" - with bricks, wood and hammer you still need the skills to build a house, but if all you have is straw and mud, skills won't take you as far.

Other than on this forum, there is lot of poo-pooing BIAB as a recording and production tool out there on the net. The main complaint is that the realtracks are all based on a limited number of musical phrases. (However, to be fair, most studio musicians have a limited number of phrases too ... or at least a selection of favourites).

So your responses have been great! Thank you. As an experienced musician, but less experienced with recording engineering/production, my biggest take-away from this discussion is: 1) make sure the vocals are killer and 2) spend the money on professionals to do what they do best: polish arrangements, and edit the post-production in a studio. Fortunately, my friend, producer Dan Cutrona, will be helping me with that.

Thanks all.

ps. I probably won't be the vocalist in final versions :-)