There used to be an engineer who kept a Polaroid suspended above his mixer. If you aren't old enough to remember, a Polaroid was the world's only instant camera. Forget all those factory supplied blank control sheets and putting notes in Nuendo's mixer. A cheap digital camera with USB is the easiest and fastest way to record front end analog control settings.
The H8000 has scads of compressors, but I still like to compress a bit before the A/D converters where going over 0 dB can make things really ugly.
Also a tube pre to warm things up doesn't hurt if not used on every track. Be careful though. There is a whole lot of snake oil in this area. For example, since its inception way back when, the LA 610 pre has suffered from a lack of headroom. But now that is considered to be a "classic" tube sound.
If each H8000 patch was considered to be a plug in valued at $25 with quite a few worth over a $100, then we've really got a bargain. Especially when one considers that even after 30 years general purpose computers still are risky on stage and often tend to improvise in unforeseen ways. Windows machines seem to be the most creative at this.
My suggestion years ago to a couple CEO's for a Linux based OS for computer music to eliminate these problems went nowhere. Apparently there is no advantage in timing and quite a few in marketing.
