I have to admit it, I miss having a mixer.  I know in this day and age it is an unnecessary waste of space and $$.  And I have the Beringher X-touch and Softube Console 1 plus 2 RME FF 800s (lots of IO) and they are great and everything and I have enough UAD and other plugs to never need to us an FX send or an eq.  But there is something nice about running stuff through an analog front-end.  There is something nice about returning 8 busses to the mixer and messing with levels with real, long-throw faders.  
 
How many of you still have a mixer?  Is it analog or digital?  I was looking at a 16 channel Toft but talked myself out of it based on reviews.  I want analog.  16 is enough channels.  I used to have a Mackie 24*8 plus a 24 channel expander.  Everything was hooked up to it.  Then again, I had tons of room.  I traded for a D8B.  Not going digital again.  I can get that functionality with Sonar and the X-touch.  I do have a UAD LA 610 mic pre/leveling amp.  Maybe I should focus on a series 500 lunch box and a summing mixer.  
Advice?  Who of you have made the switch to back outside the box and how did you go?  
 
Thanks
An old guy who likes the smell of warm tubes and transistors more than a USB flash drive.  

I have two setups with analog mixers.
1. Beringher MX9000 with a Tascam US 1800 that I use recording drums and to monitor out to headphone recording. But in the passed I have set it up a million ways... I'm trying to move away from the drum MX9000 setup for something smaller. But last time I got rid of my MX 9000 I ended up missing it and got another one. lol
 
2. I use an old 1642 VLZ Pro (great color) with a Tascam US 12 for GTR, BASS and Vocals.
 

For a long time I was using a Tascam M-50 and a Tascam studio 8 track reel. I would catch it at the insert and use the mic pres. those mic pres in the older Tascams are no joke. they had sweeps and boost/cuts on 4 bands. Some will say they sound dark but I believe they are possibly one of the warmer sounding pres' I have ever used. I sold the M-50 about 3 months ago and still have the studio 8 (I need it for conversation work I do) However, I now use a Mackie Pro FX 16 for summing (drums, exc) More often than not use my Focusrite mic pres' as its easier and they sound great but more important are neutral.
I have a Mackie Control for a control surface (love it) and use a lot of external hardware using a patchbay and a ton of 19 inch rack gear.
There is a lot to be said about having an analog front end but my most challenging task has been the noise floor.
Unless you have everything grounded to the tee, your going to have hum, buzz and every thing else that accompanies older analog gear.
 

I used to use an 8-channel mixer that ran through a stereo signal into my computer.
It was great for quick setup:  2 channels for my drum machine, 1 for bass guitar, 1 for electric guitar, 1 for keyboard, 1 for a vocal mic, and 2 that I didn't use.  I kept cables plugged into each input, and had the controls set for my "standard input sound."  When I wanted to record something, I didn't have to mess around.  Simply turn on my DAW and grab whatever instrument I was looking for.
 
Now that my studio has evolved into a laptop on my wife's sewing table in the spare bedroom, I don't have a mixer.  But I miss it.

In the last year I moved to a Raven 27" touch screen and a Digigrid setup with the Soundgrid ASIO driver.

Really couldn't want for more. One day when a mate was over I was online looking at a really nice mixer when he reminded me of our previous conversation how my touch screen and Digigrid system were going to obviate the need for a mixer. I think it's just that deep seated need for for touch in mixing that touch control doesn't provide. Ah the dilemmas we face.

My thing with mixers and any external gear is the components used to build these items.
No matter what we have (Software) it can never match the high grade components (caps, diodes, exc) in hardware. In other words in this day and age we live in, we are relying on a pc motherboard to house all the necessary electrics needed to produce sounds that high grade parts once used. It will never happen. it can come close in the mimicking stages, but it cant replicate and there is a huge difference in my opinion between mimicking and replicating.

Have you considered a touch screen with TotalMix?

Your best bang for buck is front end hardware and a patchbay, or inline with a summing mixer.  While a mixer is nice and very organizational, you have to spend some major bucks for quality and to get that big-studio sound.  And while most boards and whatnot are transparent not to damage your signal, a Mackie won't give that electronic goodness or the umph one gets from tracking on an old neve or the mix buss on an SSL.  Just a professional preamp with good components that will last a long long time start about $400 to however large your bank account is.  How many of those things can you put into a $500 mixing board?  Again, a low-cost board isn't going to ruin your signal but isn't going to wow you with its sound, either.
 
I've found that good outboard going in really helps me get better recordings.  Of course, I'm a better engineer than musician, so I don't have to spend money on expensive guitars and other such nonsense (tho my guitarist does) and I haven't even bought any new soft synths for a while.  Again, an interface pre is perfectly fine for most recording duties, I've found but a nice external unit adds just a hint of air around the recording, a transformer thickening and component excitement that separates each sound itself out in a mix.
 
For my money, a summing mixer and good outboard gets one the best sound, if you don't have enough room (and money) for a new or old Neve.

I haven't used a mixer since moving to digital recording. At first, it was because I was set up in a spare bedroom and just didn't have room for it. But after a year or so it became evident that I'd never need it again, so I pulled it out of the closet, blew the dust off and gave it away to a needy rock band.
 
I do use one for my keyboards on stage, though, where physical knobs and easy-to-access connections are a must. But even in live performance we don't use a conventional mixer for the mains. Our mixer is a tiny box with nothing but XLR connectors on it. It's controlled via an app over wi-fi.

When I was running SONAR on an underpowered Windows XP PC, I used my Mackie mixer all the time. I could overdub tracks with zero latency by monitoring in the mixer even if I had to run SONAR at high latency settings to keep it from choking. Plus, the mic pres on the Mackie sounded better than the ones on my old Delta 1010LT.
 
Now that I have a more powerful PC and better sounding pres on my audio interface, I hardly use the mixer at all. Latency hasn't been an issue so far, though my projects don't have high track counts or large numbers of soft synths. But I have the room, so I'm in no hurry to get rid of the mixer.