External instrument audio bounce

[Jgirv]

Hi all, enjoying LPipad, and I have the students in our music lab use it with their iPads connected to a basic interface into which is plugged a small desktop synth.  About 10 stations in the classroom, in addition to the 14 stations with full-blown Logic on Mac.   Since the whole point of using these additional iPad stations is to enable recording of the hardware, I find myself trying to figure out how to make the bouncing of audio less clumsy. 

Currently, student sequence a track using the External Midi plugin, and add a little comfort reverb and delay on that same track.  (Most of the hardware doesn’t have any built in effects)  The recorded region contains only MIDI data, as expected, and routes the audio from the synth to an appropriate output.    So far, so good, and I’ve done this many times with external gear in regular Logic. 

Bouncing in place doesn’t work, as it needs to be done in real time, I get that.  But when creating a new audio track for the synth performance, I have to go to the mixer and remove the audio sends, otherwise I get double tracking.   Plus I need to setup the same basic effects in the new audio track.   Should I just setup from the beginning a partner track for audio instead of using the special External Effects plug?    The scenario is that the students record a MIDI performance, and then go back and do the usual knob twisting and button pressing in real time as the MIDI track plays back and the result gets recorded to the new audio track.  

Just wondering if I’m making the whole process overly complicated.    (I thought there was a little magic in that plugin that would mute/unmute, send effects to new track, etc??).  

Generally, the program behaves well… students are able to switch stations to access other synths, and LP for iPad has little trouble recognizing the new synth through USB, and the audio interface gets picked up pretty reliably, too. 

[oscwilde]

Sounds like fun.
Is there a reason why external MIDI tracks/instruments are used - rather than using a built-in software instrument on student iPads?
This simplifies the entire process - bouncing and/or transferring of projects between iPads/the Mac.
i.e. students could compose/save a project using Alchemy or Retro Synth, or whatever, and process (and easily bounce) directly on the iPad....or they could do the above and then transfer/open the project on the Mac - as settings/plug-ins, etc. are directly transferrable between the platforms.
Similarly, a project started on the Mac can be opened on the iPad - if no third-party plug-ins are used.

The primary issue with using the external instrument plug on LP4iPad is that the app is (currently) limited to stereo I/O. In practical terms, using a multi I/O interface is the most (only???) efficient way to use the external instrument plug-in.