Yes to everything, but there are a few things to think about. You can get a midi based
control surface like this one:
but:
1) you'll probably need to individually map the different controls to the things you want covered in the DAW. Sometimes there are templates and preconfigured settings files that take a lot of the work out of this, but you have to be lucky to find one that matches your surface, your DAW, *and* your intended use, and even if you have one, its utility will decrease over time as the DAW receives software updates and your needs change. Count on a somewhat painful mapping exercise and count on not having enough of a particular kind of control (be it slider or knob or whatever) for everything you want - or a sub-optimal configuration - e.g, 5 controls covered by two rows of 4 knobs, with three of them not being used. Also, as time goes by, you'll need to maintain the mappings. And each time you start a new project, you have to make sure you don't lose your mappings. Actually, if you use
Logic (like I do), it's not that painful.
2) you may have problems with latency. This will depend in part on the speed of your computer and your interface, but also on whether you're using a lot of plugins at tracking time. Latency can be so distracting to the musicians that things just don't work. But maybe it won't be a problem.
3) you have a lot of "moving" parts in that there are several vendors (software, hardware, equipment, etc.) involved, and there are multiple points of failure. You can overcome this, but make sure you test like crazy before trying to use the setup for a live gig, for instance. In particular, gain staging issues may be a problem - if you have clipping, it may be difficult to determine where it's happening.
so - totally do-able, but you have to budget in extra time for all this stuff, and be ready to accept some amount of risk of interruption and fussing with things to get back on track. This is true for any system to a certain extent, just moreso for what you're describing, in my experience.
