Alec

There's also Van Damme (obviously much lower with trade prices)

Not at all what the OP was asking about!

OP asked for cheap - these 12xRGBW come in at just £20. I've had 4 that I've used for years. They're plastic, and the yokes are pretty thin metal. Fine for personal use, but wouldn't lend/hire them to anyone. Whiny fan, but never a problem in a band scenario, and wouldn't be in a bar with music. I like the fact that the sockets are side mounted, so the units will sit on their rear as uplighters, which is how I use them. The colour fade pattern is less smooth than I'd like. But DMX control is great. Blinding on axis - fairly narrow bearm angle. At that price, they're disposable. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32984755709.html

I'll save you the time, then. If budget is tight, get a Kindle Fire, 7" or 10". 10" is more pricey, but much better. Either will support Mixing Station just fine. Trust me, you'd soon regret trying to mix on a non touchscreen laptop if you're juggling other stuff.

A non-touchscreen device is probably the least friendly thing to mix on. If your fingers and eyesight are not up to using a phone, you will probably struggle with fader operation using a mouse or, even worse, a trackpad. If you're really wedded to the idea of a laptop (and it's an odd thing to want so strongly), then you could go for a touchscreen laptop, but suspect you wouldn't want additional spend. Not sure what you're saying about tablets, but I happily put my tablet down when I'm not actively using it. Are you the only person that will ever use this? What happens when you're not there? A lot of churches end up with multiple people mixing. BYOD can work well there. Don't be too sold on the platform agnostic concept of browser based control. In theory, it's great. But people have had issues with OS/browser updates causing problems with it. And it's highly unlikely to get *any* further update from the vendor. Thankfully, Mixing Station would come to your rescue. In the end, though, your choice...

Why on earth would you have a separate monitor desk? Just run mons from the FOH desk like every other small club does. And why not just avoid all the cost/effort by hiring in bands with PA?

I'd agree with that - much easier to mix from a tablet than a laptop. And, with your simple requirements, using a smart phone is perfectly reasonable. And likely outside the seemingly tight budget for a modest channel count. The OP already said they were planning to connect to a wired network, so that was already in hand. I helped a church that moved into temporary accommodation for 9 months during a refurb. They left behind an analog desk, and returned to an x32. We deployed my XR18 for the interim period, where it was a setup/teardown every week, most notably for ease of deployment. For the various volunteer engineers, it was their first taste of digital mixers and mixing on glass - and was impressive how quicky they all took to it. And had the side benefit of pre-training them for the bigger setup when they finally moved back in. XR series are a cracking little utility workhorse at the bottom end of the budget. For their size/cost, they're very flexible in terms of the I/O, they sound just fine, they're as reliable as anything else, and they're very well supported with third party tools.

Any decent 12" over 18" (or even 15") system would be as good, if not better, than most social clubs have. As budget is tight, something like Yamaha DXR or RCF ART 700 series would do a reasonable job. Glad you're thinking X32 & digital stagebox. That means you can forget any outboard - that would would be a complete waste of time, as well as adding a load of unneccessary cabling and bulk at FOH. Don't most social club bands tend to bring along their own PA, though? What about lighting?

What was the physical separation between all the systems - most notably the two additional ones? I'm guessing they were just piled in. Spacing them out can do wonders with intermod

The wrong product at the right price is still the wrong product. Do you really want connection issues, that people still have, or noisy phantom power pre-s, that people still have, or the janky PSUs? Don't be over-persuaded by the HTML5 browser control, while some love it, I hated it when I had to use it. Thankfully, Mixing Station is available to rescue you if you need it. I don't know why so many people still seem desperate to follow the path of woe that the UI12/16 have been over the years. Not to mention that Soundcraft are essentially a dead company now. You're clearly in the low budget arena, nothing wrong with that. Just get the XR mixer

Don't forget that you need continuity from shell to shell, which requires metal RJ45s to have been used. Easy to check continuity with any multimeter.

Why not look at the details of the DM3 on Yamaha's product page, it'll tell you what it can do. Regarding apps available, maybe watch this video, you could download the apps and see what you make of them, and dry-run the mixer. And, like Stuard91 mentions, you're not limited to their apps, as Mixing Station is available - which you'd need if you wanted an Android solution.

For most people, with a laptop, the cheapest & easiest method is usually just to get a multitrack interface and use a DAW. For a cheap 16-in interface, it's hard to beat an XR18. There are obvously the standalone options, but typically pricey, albeit tidy to use. But hard to beat the bargain of a DAW & cheap interface.

There's nothing wrong with X/M32 and, at the price, simply can't be beaten. Although old and no touch screen, they have the benefit of ubiquity and a number of third party apps. A few things aren't user friendly. An 11 year old design, but still perfectly functional - and CHEAP! For a bit more, SQ is better in most respects. My favourite bits - 48 channels, fully customisable layers, easy routing, proper stereo in/out channels. My irks - useless scribble strips, stereo/mono assignments not stored in scenes (and I know why A&H say they don't do this), the cryptic file structure they use on USB, charging for additional FX. Mind you, I cringe to see some of the fanatical A&H fans, saying how brilliant their (rather basic) QU is, or how fabulous their SQ sounds. I've hated my few Presonus experiences. I would once have recommended Soundcraft VI, albeit not their lower desks, but Soundcraft seem to have given up these days. Digico never seemed to find much love for S21/31. With all that, at the budget the OP is talking about, SQ would be a great choice.

If you've bothered to look at A&H's product list, you'll know that the answer is no - and there'd be no viable market for it. As Richard says, if you are Dante equipped, then the options open up. But why wouldn't you simply rung a pair of XLRs? Or, if desperate to use only one cable, or to use existing structured cabling, use 1 CatX cable to run both signals analog, and you still have two more lines spare.