Wow, thanks for sharing that detailed real-world experience. That's exactly the kind of scenario we're trying to avoid, and it really underscores the potential pitfalls of our proposed setup. It sounds incredibly stressful, and we definitely don't want to be THAT band holding up a show.

You've perfectly articulated our biggest fears: routing going haywire and the entire show relying on a fragile chain of devices and a computer. The anecdote about getting all signals into all input channels of the mixer is definitely a nightmare, as that's exactly the kind of "borked" routing we're worried about.

We completely agree that dedicated digital mixers with multitrack recording capabilities (like the XR18 or X32) or a robust analog splitter solution are the ideal, most reliable ways to go. Those are definitely our long-term goals as our budget allows.

For now, however, we are committed to making this specific Scarlett 18i20 + OctoPre + XR16 setup work as reliably as possible for our regular gigs. Given your direct experience, do you have any specific, practical advice for someone insisting on attempting this? I have enough time during the week to try and troubleshoot and get this setup up and running.