The track routed to an instrument channel strip, which is being used for an external MIDI sound module, behaves just like a standard software instrument track. This enables you to record and play back MIDI regions on it, with the following benefits:
You can take advantage of the sounds and synthesis engine of your MIDI module, with no overhead on your Mac CPU—apart from effects used in the channel strip.
You not only can use insert effects, but you also can use send effects, by routing the instrument channel strip to aux channel strips.
You can bounce your external MIDI instrument parts—with or without effects—to an audio file, in real time. This makes the creation of a mix, inclusive of all internal and external devices and tracks, a one-step process.
Note: Bouncing an External Instrument track cannot happen faster than real time, as is the case with any bounce operations where MIDI hardware is involved.
When using multitimbral MIDI sound sources, maximum flexibility can be gained by using multiple External Instrument instances. In this situation, a separate audio output of the tone generator (if equipped with multiple outputs) would be connected to different inputs on your audio interface—each addressed by individual External Instruments.
Connect the output (or output pair) of your MIDI module with an input (or input pair) on your audio interface.
Note: These can be either analog or digital connections if your audio interface and MIDI sound generator are equipped with either, or both.
Create an instrument channel strip.
Click the Instrument slot, and choose External Instrument from the pop-up menu.
Choose the MIDI Destination from the pop-up menu in the External Instrument window.
Open the Input pop-up menu and choose the input (of your audio interface) that the MIDI sound generator is connected to.
Adjust the Input Volume, if necessary.
Insert the desired effects in the Insert slots of the channel strip.