I’m currently using a mackie 1202vlz4, and my aux send loop goes first to my heat (I’m just using left channel for that, don’t care about stereo on distortion at the moment) and then into a tc helicon M300 multieffect ( for [compression or delay or chorus] and reverb ). I record into Ableton off the control room outputs, and use the aux3/4 routing to map what goes to control room. This is a perfect setup for jamming and recording jamming, but isn’t strictly ideal for purity of signal path with synths. It is awfully convenient, and It is pure enough for me however. It is also perfect for analog instrument recording, such as vox, tin whistles, mandolins, guitar, and bass, which i also do.
I tend to track one instrument at a time into my DAW.