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Chapter 10 External Instrument 217
Use the External Instrument
The track routed to an instrument channel strip that 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 benets:
•
You can use the sounds and synthesis engine of your MIDI module with no overhead on your
computer CPU apart from eects used in the channel strip.
•
You can use insert and send eects. To use send eects, route the instrument channel strip to
aux channel strips.
•
You can bounce external MIDI instrument parts, with or without eects, to an audio le in real
time. This makes the creation of a mix, including 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 operation where MIDI hardware is involved.
When you use multitimbral MIDI sound sources, you can gain maximum exibility by using
multiple External Instrument instances. In this situation, connect a separate audio output of the
tone generator (if equipped with multiple outputs) to dierent inputs on your audio interface—
each addressed by individual External Instruments.
Process external MIDI instruments with eects
1 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.
2 Create an instrument channel strip.
3 Click the Instrument slot, then choose External Instrument from the pop-up menu.
4 Choose the MIDI Destination from the pop-up menu in the External Instrument window.
5 Choose the input (of your audio interface) that the MIDI sound generator is connected to from
the Input pop-up menu.
6 Adjust the Input Volume, if necessary.
7 Insert any required eects into the Insert slots of the channel strip (or channel strips, if you are
using multiple External Instrument instances with a multitimbral sound source).
You can also route the instrument channel strip to aux channel strips, if you want to use
send eects.