There's a comparison of analogue vs digital on one of the pro audio sites, something like proaudiorec.com i think, someone did a mix of a band (not techno unfortunately) on both an SSL desk and on Protools and I'll be damned if I could tell which was which, I mean I got it arse about tit, they did the mixes, posted them up and let people guess which one was done on the computer.

Trouble was one had a slightly nicer eq'd bottom end which i think was down to the taste of the person doing the mix. But that aside I couldn't say which was better (the band weren't that great though I can tell you that).

Anyway, that aside, having a decent analogue desk lets you be freer in your mind when you're mixing (if you follow) but the convienence for us of being able to have like 8 projects on the go at once and practically instant recall of everythiing (except the reverb which is all outboard) just blows the entire analogue mixing idea out the water.

Also the EQ on cheap desks sounds cheap so you'll end up usingthe computer EQ for a lot of stuff anyway ... but it starts to get interesting when you talk about the Mackie 8 bus / Soundcraft Ghost / Allen and Heath stuff where the EQ is probably a bit nicer than the computer.

on the other hand I just remember a lot of hiss and hum came into the equationwhen there was that much analogue kit around and having to be well careful about that kind of thing.

Might be somethign to be said for buying a posh analogue EQ one day and carrying on mixing in the computer.

There's been a whole lot of noise made about whether digital summing and that kind of thing actually makings some computer software flawed when it comes to mixing. But it's not something I've managed to train my ears to hear at all ...

so my vote, mix it in the computer and buy ssome (very) tasty outboard to help you along. cheap outboard and analogue pretty isnt' worth the money to me, even if it takes all year to save up for the stuff (I really want a culture vulture next I think).