John,

I was the one who suggested the control surface - and it had nothing to do with physical audio outputs whatsoever. The suggestion was merely to help him avoid mixing outside of the PC then re-inputting those channels into another PC.

I thought that you mixed in an external mixer for live show usage - so that you could process individual channels with different pieces of hardware gear - perhaps a source specific (say bass) hardware compressor or EQ or whatnot.

If not - if you are using multi-outs just to mixdown, then a control surface would work for you in certain programs that utilize automation fully.

However, if I read your post correctly, it seems to me that you depend on the mixer for live playback and live mixing of individual tracks. A control surface wouldn't be of any use without actual physical multiple outputs.

-Scott