this is a huge help. i understood most of this, there are just some foggy areas i'm trying to clear up. and if i want to send to tape without going through the groups i can just use the channel line out, right? i know this seems like a really stupid question, but right now i have my line ins going through my patch bays, but i don't have my line outs wired up. given a better understanding of the difference between the line inputs and the tape returns, i can simply pull whats plugged into the line inputs, and plug into the line outputs, and relabel the patchbay, right? and if you're not comping tracks, there is no reason to go through the groups, right?also, when coming in through the tape returns, are the tracks still routed through the mic pre? or does the tape return insert into the channel fader, like where an insert point would?

Tape inputs often directly feed a monitor level control for... Monitoring the tape, it is usually post preamp, eq, aux send. The flip button allows you to flip the line input with the tape in, allowing you to take the tape through the eq, and aux sends and allow you to mix on the big boy faders instead of little knobs. [Line/rev] on the Elite is where I first ran into this and discovered how cool it was. It also can give you some backdoor line level inputs at mix. If you have a 24 ch inline board with tape Mon you have an additional 24 line level inputs at mix making it a 48 ch board if you have like... 20 drum machines. Or what not.