Logic Pro X : Using Hardware Synths & Drum

Machines
Apple Logic Pro X Tips & Techniques
DAWs > Logic
By Paul White Published April 2019

The External MIDI option can be found in the upper left MIDI input box on Software Instrument tracks.

Play and record external MIDI instruments in Logic.

The way that Logic handles external MIDI instruments such as hardware synths and drum machines has
changed over time, and some people now find the method less than totally obvious. It is actually easy enough if
all you have is a single mono- or multitimbral synth: create a new track, select Software Instrument as the track
type and then choose External MIDI in the upper‑left MIDI input box. In the box directly below the track type,
select the audio interface input(s), mono or stereo, to which your synth is physically connected — 'Presonus 7/8',
in the screen shown above. In the Output section select the MIDI port connected to your synth, select the MIDI
channel and, in the box below, set the audio output to the main stereo output (1‑2), or to wherever else you wish
to route the audio from the synth.

If you need more than one synth track, as would be the case for a multitimbral instrument, just enter the number
in the field at the bottom of the New Track screen and you'll get multiple tracks, all set to consecutive MIDI
channels. The track that you get looks just like a software instrument track but you'll see an External plug-in
inserted instead of an instrument. Open the External plug-in and you'll see that the settings you entered when
creating the track are all in place. Hit Record in Logic and you can record MIDI just as you would with a software
instrument, but now your external synth is providing the sounds. At this point, patch selection can be handled by
inserting Bank Select and Program Change messages in the Event List, or you can choose to set these directly
on the external synth using its own front‑panel controls.

An important fact to note here, however, is that although each External MIDI track displays the usual areas for
inserting audio effects plug-ins, only the ones in the first track will actually do anything. Also, whatever you insert
there will be applied to all the parts coming from a multitimbral instrument unless it has multiple outputs routed
individually into Logic and sending separate audio streams.
Of course, if you've got enough separate outputs on your instruments and inputs on your interface you can leave
your external MIDI as 'live' sources right through to your final mix. Otherwise, at some point you'll probably want
to record the synth parts as audio so that you can apply individual effects and EQ to the different parts of
a multitimbral source.

Despite numerous suggestions to our Apple contacts, Logic's bounce-in-place doesn't work for external MIDI, but
it is easy enough to create a new audio track with the input set to the interface inputs where your synth is
connected, then record that — though you must first mute the MIDI instrument track so you only monitor the
sound from the new audio track. The External MIDI instrument will still play and its audio will still be routed to the
audio interface: the track mute button affects only the audio you would have heard from the External MIDI
Instrument track. To stop other MIDI channels from playing while you record individual parts as audio, use the
Mute tool to mute all the MIDI regions in the tracks you are not recording in that pass. Individual effects and
processing plug-ins can then be added to your new audio tracks after recording in the usual way.

Environmental Science
That's all easy enough, but some years ago, back when Logic users had to make frequent visits to the
Environment pages just to make things work, I set up all my external MIDI instruments as multitimbral
Environment objects. This allowed me to enter patch names and bank-change protocols so that I could call up
patches and banks directly from within Logic's Main page Inspector window. I could also use MIDI mixer controls
to adjust the level and pan of each part of my multitimbral instruments, with the audio from the synth conveniently
coming back into Logic via a Live Input Track.

This way of working was so intuitive and efficient that

I decided to see how close to that setup I could get starting
from scratch In Logic Pro X. Of course, if, like me, you created
a setup like this in an earlier version of Logic, it will still open
and be converted to Logic X format. Having done all the hard
work, make sure you save your setup as part of a new
Template so that you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel,
so to speak. In fact that is exactly what I've done for my own
sessions, but in the interests of science, here's one way to set
up a similar system from scratch. I'm not claiming it is the only
way to do it, or even the officially approved way, but it works
for me.

First, rather than use the external MIDI Instrument plug-in,

I started by creating my own version of a Live Input Track by
creating an audio track, then inserting the I/O plug-in found in You can use Logic's I/O plug-in to effectively turn
the Utilities section of the plug-in menu. Here you just need to any audio track into a live input track to monitor
set the output to 1-2 and the input to the interface inputs to and record audio from external synths.
which your synths are connected (7-8, in this case). Set the
Track Input to 7-8 also. This is the track where your synth sounds will come back and also where you can record
them as audio. (Once recorded, I just drag them across to a fresh audio track.)

Now, from the MIDI Enviroment menu, go to the MIDI

Instruments layer and select New Multi-Instrument so a 16-
part multitimbral Environment object is created for you. By
default, all 16 parts are switched off, denoted by a diagonal
line through each numbered block. Just click on a block to
activate that part. Note that if you need to switch blocks off
again, just select them and then untick the 'Assignable' box in
the Environment Inspector window. Your 16-part instrument
defaults to being named after the port to which it is connected,
but you can give it a more useful name. Click on the name and
the Inspector opens up. Here you can change the MIDI port, if
necessary, and also tick the Program and Volume boxes to
allow control over these parameters. Tick all the inspector
boxes for all the active parts if you need full control over them.
If you need to deactivate a channel in
Now double-click on the loudspeaker icon at the top of the a multitimbral Environment instrument, just select
Multi-Instrument icon and you'll see a new window full of the relevant block in the graphic and then untick
General MIDI patch names by default. Four boxes at the top of the 'Assignable' box in the Environment
the window allow you to select a Bank Change message from Inspector.
a menu of common options (you can add your own bank names). You also enter a short name for the synth and
a full device name, which defaults to the port name unless you decide to change it. An Options window allows
you to cut, copy or paste the preset names shown and to choose either patch numbers or GM patch names.
There's also a tick box in the Inspector for disabling transposition for channel 10, if you're using it for drums.

You can click on any patch name and replace it with your own,
but as I remember all too well from when I owned an
Oberheim Matrix 1000 (with 1000 presets), it can be fairly
tedious! Fortunately, you can import lists of preset names if
you can find them online, and users have even been known to
resort to text-reading programs to extract patch names from
a scan of the product manual. There are also completely filled-
in Environment objects for some synths available online,
thanks to some very altruistic users out there, and these can
be imported directly into your MIDI Environment page or
copied and pasted from another Logic song.

So, how to create the necessary MIDI control tracks? That's

actually pretty easy and no longer involves 'knitting a scarf' in
the Environment. Just select the Multi-Instrument Environment
object and drag it into the Tracks section of the Main page.
A dialogue box will open up, asking if you'd like tracks to be
created. Tracks are only created for those instrument parts
that have been activated, but if you turn off a part
retrospectively, the corresponding MIDI tracks don't disappear,
so you'll have to delete them manually.
Once you've completed the epic task of typing in
your patch names, save as a Template and back
it up in as many places as you can find —you
won't want to do it twice. Now you can select
your MIDI synth patch in the Track Inspector,
where you can also change the bank.

I fell foul of one issue, which may be related to the fact that my
synths are mixed externally, so they all go to the same two
ports on my audio interface. With two or more Multi-
Instruments set up, things could get confused unless I moved
the audio track I created as the synth return to come below,
rather than above, the MIDI control tracks in the Main
window's track area. Until I moved the audio track to the end,
any MIDI track I selected also selected the audio track and
any port changes I made applied to all instruments, not just
the one I'd tried to select. Other audio tracks placed above the
MIDI control tracks worked quite normally.

The audio input track for the synths doesn't need to be set to
input monitor to hear the synths, as the I/O plug-in takes care
of that, and if you need to record one of the synth parts as
audio, just set that track to Record and mute any MIDI regions
you don't want to be included. All in all, it's not as onerous as
I'd expected, though trying to find out how to deal with external
MIDI synth patch names by searching Logic's Help was so
frustrating that I gave up and resorted to trial and error! I hope
this column will help anyone grappling with the same issues. In this window you can select a Bank change
message from a menu of common options.

BUY PDF VERSION Published April 2019