Logic Pro X - Use External MIDI Synthesizers and Instruments Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hey guys this is music tech help guy and
today I want to show you how to use
external MIDI synthesizers with Logic
Pro 10 for this we'll be using the
external MIDI tracks along with the
external instrument utility plugin what
I'm going to do is I'm going to send a
MIDI signal out of logic to a Yamaha
motif rack excess synthesizer and then
we will take the audio output from the
the motif back into logic and print it
in logic as an audio recording it's a
rack mount synth with no keyboard so
we're just using it as a sound module a
lot of people have asked me to do this
video and I'm going to keep it as brief
and simple as possible it's entirely
possible with logic to have a whole rack
of hardware since and have multiple
channels of external MIDI running but
for this video I'm just going to use one
motif synth and this basically allows me
to avoid having to talk about you know
chaining sense or using a MIDI patch Bay
which I'm pretty sure most of you guys
don't have alright let's talk a little
about the the MIDI and audio signal flow
that we're going to use to send our MIDI
signal out of logic and then receive an
audio signal back into logic this is
basically the way my MIDI and audio
setup is set up right now you may think
that you have to do something like this
where you have your MIDI controller
plugged into the motif rack via a MIDI
you know standard MIDI cable like a
5-pin din connector and then your audio
output goes into your audio interface
I'm using a focus right liquid sapphire
56 that's 2 TRS connectors because it's
a stereo signal for left and right and
then just a firewire connection to the
computer the problem with with this
setup is that if you go this route all
you're going to be able to do is play
the synth and try and track everything
that you play in as audio you're not
going to be able to quantize your MIDI
notes or change velocities after you've
played in the the MIDI sequence so this
is the setup that I'm going with I'm
just plugging my Novation MIDI
controller directly into my computer via
USB my sapphire's plugged in via
firewire the back of my in the back of
my Focusrite interface there's a MIDI
and a MIDI output plug and most audio
interfaces will have MIDI in and MIDI
output so there's no need for an
external
separate external MIDI interface so all
I'm doing is I'm plugging the output of
my focus right into the input of the
motif now some people will also plug the
output of the motif back into the input
of the focus right that's if the
that's if the the motif needs to send
say like clock values like tempo changes
and things like that
back to logic so the two can communicate
with each other but for just to keep it
simple today I'm just doing out to end
no no return back and then I have a
again two TRS cables for stereo that's
going to be the the main stereo output
feeding back into logic so this is the
way I'm going to do it but there's some
variations one variation is if your
synthesizer already has a USB input on
it like the motif rack does so instead
of having to use those din connectors
coming from the audio interface all you
have to do is just plug your plug your
synth in via USB and some of them some
sense out there allow you to even bypass
using the using the audio interface all
together so you can really just hook the
synth up and then forget about the audio
interface except to monitor your main
levels and then another alternative
would be to use some sort of a USB MIDI
interface so again we've just were
instead of using a din connector to come
from our audio interface down to the
motif rack you could directly connect a
USB MIDI box like this this is an M
audio MIDI sport it's a two to channel a
two by two so it's back technically four
channels two ends and two outs and this
can communicate the MIDI values out of
logic to the box and then ultimately
down to the yamaha motif rack so this is
another way to do it if your audio
interface does not have MIDI ports on
the back of it so let's get into logic
and I'll show you how to set this up
with the external instrument plugin
alright so to get started in advance I
put together a really simple musical
example with three MIDI based
instruments a drum loop and a kick
sample for all three instruments I'm
just using logic stock electric piano
instrument for now we'll replace these
tracks with the motif rack sounds later
let's just give this a listen real quick
and see what it sounds like raw
so next we need to create an external
midi track so that we can send some of
this midi data out to the motif rack so
I'm going to pull up the new track
dialog by pressing option command n I'm
going to choose the external MIDI track
and open up the additional details and
we're also going to choose the use
external instrument plugin now we also
need to choose the midi output to route
our midi data out to the synthesizer in
my case I'm using my Focusrite interface
as my MIDI interface so it says liquid
56 MIDI 1 that's just saying that all
the MIDI data on this new external MIDI
track will go to MIDI channel one from
my interface if you're using a USB synth
that synth will show up in this menu as
well and you can select it directly and
if you're using a USB MIDI interface
like the M audio on I showed earlier
that interface will show up here too
again remember that this is the MIDI
output not the audio output MIDI data
does not create any sound on its own
we're just sending the MIDI data through
some interface to get to the motif so
the motif can generate the sound you can
also choose which MIDI channel you want
to send the midi data through this is
really only applicable if you have
multiple scents hooked up to a MIDI
patch Bay each assigned to different
channels or if you have two or three
scents that are daisy chained together
again all assigned to different channels
since we're only using one synth here
I'm just going to choose all I'm fairly
certain my motif is currently set to
channel one so either choosing channel
one or choosing all will work here next
we need to choose the audio input where
the sound generated by the motif will go
to I'm going to choose channel seven and
eight because that's where I have the
TRS cables coming from the motif plugged
into so we've got the whole signal chain
set up now MIDI data will be output to
the motif from the Focusrite and then
sound from the motif will be returned
back to logic via the focus right on
channel 7 & 8 so now I just hit create
and it'll create our new external MIDI
track I'm going to rename it and call it
output to motif
you'll also notice that the external
instrument utility plug-in shows up on
the instrument tab of the MIDI track and
if we open it you'll see that all of the
settings reflect what we chose earlier
in the new tracks dialog now that we
have that set up as long as the external
MIDI track is armed we should be able to
play our USB MIDI controller and hear
sound
as you can see the stock patch on the
motif is a grand piano setting so the
next I'm going to do is I'm going to
pull down the chords region to my
external MIDI track and we should hear
the chord sequence through the stock
piano setting on the motif
you
cool it seems to be working just fine
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
take a moment and just find a nice synth
or string pad patch on the motif to work
with so I found a nice string pad I like
let's see what this sounds like with the
drum loops kick back in
cool I like that the next step is going
to be to print the output of the motif
to a new audio tracks on a crane new
audio track we're going to make the
input seven and eight so that's matching
the inputs where the motif is going to
I'll hit create so there's a new audio
track to capture the audio I'll call it
motif strings and I'm actually going to
mute the track and arm the track so this
is going to allow us to capture the
audio from the motif but not here of
both the external track and the audio
tracks capture at the same time
all right there we go we captured our
first recording from the motif notice I
left quite a bit of tail on the end of
that clip to make sure I get all the
reverb in there so all I have to do is
repeat the process for the lead in the
base and what I'll do is I'll find a
nice patch that I like for both of those
and print them as well all right off
screen I found a patch for the base and
printed that and now I'm going to print
the lead track
you'll notice that the synths and drums
seem a little off rhythmically this is
something to do with logics delay
compensation system as well as the fact
that I have my buffer size set to its
maximum value 1024 so you'll find
sometimes that you have to nudge your
audio slightly forward or backward after
printing to make sure that it's properly
aligned you'll find that if you set your
buffer size to the lowest value like 32
as opposed to the max value like I have
here 1024 you'll minimize latency issues
in my case it looks like it wasn't a
latency issue but rather logics delay
compensation system overcompensated
so the printed audio is actually
slightly ahead of the rest of the track
this is actually pretty easy to fix with
snap mode off I'll just drag this over
into place using my bass and the kick
drum as a reference so let's see what
this sounds like now
one last thing I want to cover is how to
send controller messages to your
external sin and have those interpreted
along with your note on and note off
messages keep in mind that note messages
are not the only messages that the midi
language interprets ccs or continuous
controllers are also midi messages that
can be sent to an external synthesizer
this includes control messages like
modulation wheel faders knobs and the
sustain pedal the specific effect that
the cc's are assigned to are controlled
within the synthesizer this particular
patch on my motif as a vibrato effect
that is engaged by pulling the
modulation wheel upward
you can edit your controller messages by
clicking on this button which opens up
the MIDI draw Lane which used to be
called hyper draw in logic nine on the
left here I can choose whatever
controller I like this is essentially
MIDI automation so for this patch I want
to automate the modulation wheel to
engage and disengage that vibrato effect
so what I did was draw in some MIDI
automation to ramp up the modulation
wheel on the fourth note this takes the
place of me having to play in the mod
wheel manually
so that wraps up this video on using
external MIDI sense and logic 10 I hope
you guys enjoyed the video and thanks
for watching
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