Real band is a must for larger track counts. It's integrated with biab and real tracks and they really go together. Even though you can mix in real band, I can't get the business of editing done there. Simply put, if you've never used any other daw, then real band could work for you. If you have used other daws, it makes real band mighty tough to deal with. But for me, I don't use real band as a daw. I use it as an extension of my productions in biab. I'm very thankful for real band. I couldn't do what I do with this software WITHOUT real band- it's that integral to me. But once all the real tracks are keepers in real band, I use plugin mode [thank you PG] and move everything out to reaper, where I can edit and mix much more to what I expect and need. I could just mix in real band I think, although it would be a challenge. But I could not edit in there. It has to come quite a ways more in it's feature set and the way it works before I could contemplate doing so. And yet without real band, PG software would be very limiting for me- all but useless except for the most basic of things. I like Reaper but I've used many along the way, including my software in my recorder, Sony Vegas, Sonar, Cubase, Pro Tools LE, and Nuendo. The only other daw I like besides reaper is vegas. Those two daws remain the ONLY daws I didn't have to spend oodles of time studying and learning- constantly reading the manuals. With reaper and vegas, I just work. That's how good they are. To each their own though. It's a personal choice.

Dan

My YT Channel- http://www.youtube.com/user/dfizzbom