Short story which maybe of interest. Years ago ( in the 90's) in my home studio I had a little Macky 6 channel Mixer which I used as a matter of convienance as a input to Audio Card (too long ago to remember the name). This was before USB devices - it was plugged direction on to the motherboard. I thought it was working fine for my novice ears. Then I had a "pro" come to my house for some guitar lessons. Some of you may know this guy, Johnny Monaco - https://www.johnnymonaco.com/) - one of my early guitar teachers. He took one look at my little mixer on my DAW and said "...what the heck is that doing there?". I explained how I used it. He said lets do a test - sound recording quality with and with out that mixer. Oh, my, I was very surprised at what that mixer was doing to the audio. Johnny explained it was "coloring" my sound, and not in a good way. I had to hear it myself. It has been in the closet for all these years.

BIAB – 2025, Reaper (current), i7-12700F Processor, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz RAM, Motu Audio Express 6x6 - My SoundCloud (Tip: No need to create a SC account to hear music - just hit ESC ).