Hi all!
I am sniffing around for good information, tutorials, manuals, videos etc etc describing how to set up vMix in a more complex production environment regarding handling audio where some factors are:
- Physical audio mixer with minimum 16 channels with faders.
- 2 XLR audio from studio microphones
- Embedded audio from 3-4 SDI inputs (or maybe deembedded xlr audio from these?)
- Embedded audio from srt/NDI streams
- Line input audio from one or two external PC:s
- 4-6 IFB return channels for comms to phone hybrid, meets videomeeting, studio hosts etc etc via a talkback interface

So what to do where regarding the adiomixer vs vMix?
I have read that vMix supports something called Dante which I have no experience with. Is it something useful here?
What kind of video and audio interfaces is recommended for the vMix PC?
... and everything else that is useful to know.

I don´t expect a full information and tutorial here in the replies but maybe there are already threads dealing with this, or manuals or videos available somewhere

Thanks in advance for any input!

Dante is just a transport to replace traditional cabling with audio over network. Nothing magic about it, but can reduce a lot of wiring to a single network cable. Add the Dante Virtual Soundcard to your PC to enable this workflow. If you want to include the external mixer you'll need a Dante interface card in the board, or a board with Dante built in. Run Dante on its own managed network for best results.

Using an external mixer with a good USB interface can be very helpful too. The X-Air and X32 series can both add over a dozen channels of IO over USB. Many other options available along these lines too.

As far as best solution, LOL changes every gig for me. I will say that a lot of times I end up using a combination of mixing, some in vMix and some externally and this usually comes down to the sources and what the gear has for native IO. Virtual connections and embedded audio are not always the easiest thing to deal with externally without extra gear some people will never have access to. In room mics/PA are best left to external mixers IMO, much easier to manage the room sound and feedback this way. Whatever way you feel works for you, go with it but know there's always dozens of other ways to do the same thing - some may be better, some not.

There's lots of audio "glue" I use for this kind of thing too. You can convert NDI audio from sources and vMix to something your external mixer can access. Multichannel de-embedding from SDI into your mixer is very helpful. External coms that include IFB are wonderful, after you get past all of the audio paths you'll need to make it work.