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Bouncing External Midi Instruments


klettermax

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I'm new to this forum with one big question that probably has been asked and answered many times but I really could not find a satisfying answer to:

I'm currently recording a tune with 8 external MIDI instruments that I plugged into 8 different inputs of my Apollo interface. Those inputs are routed to 8 different channels in my Logic Pro X 10.6. Each channel contains an External Input Plugin an of course a couple of effect plugins, some sends etc. Then those individual channels are routed to group channels wich are again routed to the main output channel. The group channels as well as the master channel of course contain more plugins for further processing. In short a very classic mixing table setup. So far so good.

What I want do do now is recording the DRY signals of the external MIDI instruments and then replace the external MIDI track by an audio track with the same plugins and sends as the original external MIDI track. I am of course able to do this but it turns out to be a very painful and time consuming process with a lot of traps an possible mistakes to happen. A real workflow killer if you think of doing this 8 times:

1. Create a new audio track with the input set to the physical input of the external MIDI instrument from the audio interface

2. Realtime recording of the entire track or of the corresponding parts

3. Manual correction of the time-offset resulting from the recording (this one is very very annoying)

4. Copying all the plugins one by oine form the original external MIDI instrument channel to the new audio track (since it seems not to be possible to copy the external MIDI instrument channel and then convert it to an audio channel with the same settings or copying only the entire plugins from one channel to another)

5. Manually re-create all sends on the new channel

6. Recreate or copy all the automation data from the MIDI parts to the new recorded audio channel (since I recorded the dry signal)

7. Erase the volume automation on the new audio track

8. I'm sure I forgot something

As you can see this is a nightmare. Even more so if you have to do it 8 times!

Is there really no way around?

I simply would like to replace the external MIDI track by an audio track containing what the dry instrument recording. The channel needs to automatically contain the same plugins, send, routing etc. So I can play on with the audio instead of the MIDI notes. It seems such a simple and natural idea and I can't believe that either I am too stupid to find an elegant way or there really is no solution for this in Logic Pro X (bouncing really does not work on this!)

Please HELP!

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I'm new to this forum with one big question that probably has been asked and answered many times but I really could not find a satisfying answer to:

I'm currently recording a tune with 8 external MIDI instruments that I plugged into 8 different inputs of my Apollo interface. Those inputs are routed to 8 different channels in my Logic Pro X 10.6. Each channel contains an External Input Plugin an of course a couple of effect plugins, some sends etc. Then those individual channels are routed to group channels wich are again routed to the main output channel. The group channels as well as the master channel of course contain more plugins for further processing. In short a very classic mixing table setup. So far so good.

What I want do do now is recording the DRY signals of the external MIDI instruments and then replace the external MIDI track by an audio track with the same plugins and sends as the original external MIDI track. I am of course able to do this but it turns out to be a very painful and time consuming process with a lot of traps an possible mistakes to happen. A real workflow killer if you think of doing this 8 times:

1. Create a new audio track with the input set to the physical input of the external MIDI instrument from the audio interface

2. Realtime recording of the entire track or of the corresponding parts

3. Manual correction of the time-offset resulting from the recording (this one is very very annoying)

Wouldn't it be easier to route the output of the instrument track to a bus and then use this bus as the input to the audio track?

4. Copying all the plugins one by oine form the original external MIDI instrument channel to the new audio track (since it seems not to be possible to copy the external MIDI instrument channel and then convert it to an audio channel with the same settings or copying only the entire plugins from one channel to another)

My suggestion would be to sort the new audio tracks always next to the respective instrument track. Then you can easily copy the plugins by alt-drag and have immediate visual feedback. This should take a few seconds at best.

5. Manually re-create all sends on the new channel

I don't think there's a way around this.

6. Recreate or copy all the automation data from the MIDI parts to the new recorded audio channel (since I recorded the dry signal)

7. Erase the volume automation on the new audio track

There are a couple of possibilities here.

You could use the original automation instead by cabling the instrument track to the audio track in the environment. This would mean that you would have to continue to make all changes to the automation in the instrument track, though.

 

On the other hand: Copying the automation data is a matter of seconds.

 

Select instrument track

Hit key command for Automation list (here it's Control-Command-E)

Command-A (select all)

Command-C (copy)

Command-W (close window)

Select audio track (if they are sorted as I suggested above it's merely arrow down)

Hit key command for Automation list

Command-V (insert automation data)

Command-W (close window)

if you want to erase the Volume Automation right away: select a volume automation event in that window, hit Shift-S and Backspace before closing that window

 

Again: This takes a few seconds.

8. I'm sure I forgot something

As you can see this is a nightmare. Even more so if you have to do it 8 times!

The longest time should be the recording of the audio data itself; the transfer of the plugins and the automation should take just a few seconds

Is there really no way around?

I simply would like to replace the external MIDI track by an audio track containing what the dry instrument recording. The channel needs to automatically contain the same plugins, send, routing etc. So I can play on with the audio instead of the MIDI notes. It seems such a simple and natural idea and I can't believe that either I am too stupid to find an elegant way or there really is no solution for this in Logic Pro X (bouncing really does not work on this!)

Please HELP!

While I agree that it would be nice to have an even shorter way to do this (there might be one I'm not aware of!) I don't consider this as a major workflow killer. When using the key commands as described above it should be fairly quick.

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