Roland Integra 7 midi and audio recording in Logic Pro question

[Orourkekings]

I've been researching and asking a ton of questions about the Roland Fantom06, Roland RD88 and Roland Integra 7 products.  I like their vintage synth sounds which come with their zencore technology, primarily the Roland XV-5080.  I considered just getting the VST version but I'm reading about a lot of cpu spiking problems with it and its tied to Roland Cloud authentication even with the lifetime license.

My problem with the Fantom06 and Roland RD88 is like any external instrument they require you to record midi and audio seperately and "merge" them inside your DAW (record the midi and then route it into the audio track).  Its obviously a totally different workflow from using a midi controller and vst. 

My question is this: I was under the impression that the Roland Integra 7 COULD be used like a VST because its a sound module.  In other words I believed you could load up the Integra on any track in Logic, pick the sound and use your midi controller to record the midi and audio at the same time.  I saw a video where it appears this isn't the case.  The example was in Ableton. It appeared you still had to record the midi and go back and add the audio.   Is this the case across the board with the Integra 7?

[des99]

An external synth is more or less the same, regardless of whether it has keys or not.

You either sequence it via MIDI, and have the module playing back the audio it's generating into the mix live, or you print the sequenced parts and commit to audio (or you can of course skip the MIDI sequencing part and just record your playing directly to audio, like the old school recording to tape method.

Plugins are generally much moro comfortable, easier, quicker and more flexible to work with, you can have as many as you need, each with their own independent audio, the patches are saved with the session, and you don't need to print to audio (you can, of course too).

The most comfortable way of using external synths is using the External Instrument plugin, which handles both MIDI and audio routing (ie, it behaves a bit like a software synth, in that it receives the MIDI data, sends it to the hardware synth, and handles the audio coming back from it all in the one channel strip). (Though you can't *record* the audio this way, you'd need to print to a separate track.)

However, you have problems as that channel contains the full mix output from the synth, so you don't get individual audio channels per part, and it generally gets messy. You can start routing individual patches to separate outputs on the hardware, but again it's more faff and you don't get a lot anyway.

If you want less hassle, less money, and more convenience, going the plugin route is just way easier. Even I would prefer to mostly use the XV5080 plugin over my hardware for the most part. A lifetime key is also much cheaper than buying the module, and doesn't require the space!

Have you given the Roland Cloud service a demo to see how it behaves on your system?

[Orourkekings]

1 hour ago, des99 said:

An external synth is more or less the same, regardless of whether it has keys or not.

You either sequence it via MIDI, and have the module playing back the audio it's generating into the mix live, or you print the sequenced parts and commit to audio (or you can of course skip the MIDI sequencing part and just record your playing directly to audio, like the old school recording to tape method.

Plugins are generally much moro comfortable, easier, quicker and more flexible to work with, you can have as many as you need, each with their own independent audio, the patches are saved with the session, and you don't need to print to audio (you can, of course too).

The most comfortable way of using external synths is using the External Instrument plugin, which handles both MIDI and audio routing (ie, it behaves a bit like a software synth, in that it receives the MIDI data, sends it to the hardware synth, and handles the audio coming back from it all in the one channel strip). (Though you can't *record* the audio this way, you'd need to print to a separate track.)

However, you have problems as that channel contains the full mix output from the synth, so you don't get individual audio channels per part, and it generally gets messy. You can start routing individual patches to separate outputs on the hardware, but again it's more faff and you don't get a lot anyway.

If you want less hassle, less money, and more convenience, going the plugin route is just way easier. Even I would prefer to mostly use the XV5080 plugin over my hardware for the most part. A lifetime key is also much cheaper than buying the module, and doesn't require the space!

Have you given the Roland Cloud service a demo to see how it behaves on your system?

In other words, the Integra 7 is no different than any hardware synth?  Its called a "sound module" but behaves like any other hardware synth.  I've tried Roland Cloud and couldn't get it to activate for some reason.  I've researched Roland Cloud and that was just gonna be the START of my problems with them.  I was trying to avoid them which is another reason I didn't want to go the XV-5080 vst route which authenticates through Roland Cloud.  Now, if I could get it to perform properly, yes, its the better route.  As you stated, why spend a huge sum on the hardware when the VST can be had for $129 or so. 

Edited February 4 by Orourkekings

[des99]

A sound module just has no keyboard, that’s all.

[Orourkekings]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:00 PM, des99 said:

A sound module just has no keyboard, that’s all.

I found a solution for my hard synth problems. I'm purchasing a Akai MPC Key 61.  It doesn't have the XV 5080 sounds from Roland but its a standalone option that allows me to use hard synths like a DAW whenever I want and be able to print audio and midi simultaneously.

Edited April 2 by Orourkekings