Drutgat, you have some good answers above.

One thing that's been hinted at but I don't think stated, is that whatever package you buy, the main program is the same. What you pay for is more RealTracks, RealDrums, styles, MIDI supertracks etc.

Also, you wrote this question as your #3: Is BIAB / Real Band capable of automation for volume, panning and effects ... I will just comment that BIAB does allow you to set the volume, panning, reverb and tone for a song. However, it does not support automation curves for these. For example, if you had a Mackie Control Surface or similar, you could ride the gain on a setting but it won't be recorded by BIAB. It's better to send the tracks to Reaper or any DAW and do it there.

BIAB even has a setting to make all tracks dry and centered before exporting to a DAW, so you can do all the effects in the DAW on a 'clean' track, I think that's the workflow you will be using. As also mentioned, RealBand, bundled with BIAB for free, is a simple DAW that can be an intermediate step. It reads BIAB files directly, something no other DAW does. And it allows regenerating parts of a track, rather then the whole track in BIAB.

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