How to record hardware synths using Ableton Live's "External Instrument" device

In my last video, I covered my basic workflow for recording external synths in Ableton Live. One question that came up a lot in the comments for that video was, "Why don't you use the 'External Instrument' device in Live?" The answer is I do use it...sometimes. I figured I would make a video showing off the process and talking about the pros and cons of using it.
Here's a link to that last video: • How I record hardware ...
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[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

You can see part 1 of this video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpzViJ6upKeprJI

[@teluig9551]

OK, I've watched a lot (too much ?) Ableton tutorials videos and after this one I will definitely focus on yours. Thanks for this crystal clear explanation.

[@MrOlish]

Thanks David! Both videos is so good and well explained! I finally know how to set up my monologue properly 😊

[@maffstenning9627]

This video has honestly saved my sanity David! Thank you beyond words mate and all the best from North Wales, UK :D

[@S_e_a_n]

David thank you for posting. I really enjoyed both videos. You have a gift for teaching. Cheers!

[@Luke_Carberry]

Thanks David! These videos are so helpful and are also enjoyable to watch!! Patreon subscribed !!

[@jordiclaes5031]

in regards to the program change: imagine that your synth has patch banks of 128 each, calculate from there, and you should be spot on to find your desired patch

[@Drinkyoghurt]

what if your synth has more than 128 banks?

[@earkittycat5421]

I read banks of 128 as blink-182

[@waldojams]

David, thanks for that! Really nice tutorials.

[@grizcuz]

Thank you. This is a far better workflow than what I currently use [with separate midi and audio tracks for each external device]. Like your previous video, I couldn't understand the benefits of the 'external instrument device' as I'm constantly refining and changing the midi and audio on each track throughout a song. But having the 'external instrument device' routed to another audio channel now makes more sense.

[@robertgrabowski2265]

Great and useful tip. I tried and used your first manually method but needed fix latency every time. This method with external device works much better.

[@KordTaylor]

Great video. One of the great things about Ableton and you cover it so well. Now time to Share this with my son 😃. Thank you!

[@theblowupdollsmusic]

Very well explained and presented. Thank you!

[@NoReason2Liv]

Great video. I like your style a lot. I believe the 'External Instrument' is the way to go.

[@cedricscheibel2297]

Thanks for your videos! Really helpful - you explain everything very well :)

[@DMS198526]

Your videos are great mate, subbed, thanks

[@CoreyLaGray]

Very Aphex Twin feel, love it. Thank you for making this, I'm brand new to Ableton.

[@Sr7Sr7Sr7]

Such a helpful video, thanks a ton. You are incredibly good at producing and delivering this clear and concise instructional content... you should be an instructor for this stuff, or put together some course :)

[@nozzlegoblin1]

Hey, thanks for the latency tip!

[@deepdepth6712]

Very helpful, thanks!!!

[@feelthecosmos1266]

Thank you! You save the date!

[@florianmartini785]

Hy David. Thank. U. This was the missing Puzzle Pic i needed:) Greetz Florian

[@silvermyth2119]

Thanks. I'd heard of the External Instrument but wasn't using it. I was still able to plug my synths and get them to play & record but this looks a lot more intuitive.👍

[@silvermyth2119]

@@Annie-zd7mx I did actually but didn’t notice a difference from the way I was connecting my synths in the past

[@choktmusic]

Thank you for these videos! I just bought a Moog Matriarch and looking for the best/most efficient way to get it to work with Ableton 🙏🏼

[@marktwomey5083]

A lifesaver. So useful

[@untitleds856]

dope sounds

[@marcosrotllan]

1st part was great. 2nd one will be the seed for some new music in the world.

[@KSKSKSx2]

awesome, thanks a lot

[@Palooka37]

I don't suppose "Record early, record often" was paraphrased from slightly painful early computer game memories was it? Great stuff. :)

[@Dziricani]

I noticed your synth only has one audio output (mono). How are you making the final song sound stereo? Panning your recorded audio tracks? Also, what audio interface are you using? Great presentation. Thank you for sharing.

[@leroycarr9]

Super helpful videos as always David. Thank you! I was already successfully recording from external synths before watching your videos but I find your attention to detail necessary to complete my own understanding. I always learn from you and appreciate your suggestions. One thing that I do not understand and cannot figure out: When I record some automation, like filter cutoff with my MicroFreak, the actual changes that I make are recorded in the clip, but there is no visual evidence in the clip editor -- I do not get a blue line showing the automation even though it is clearly heard. (And no blue dot next to 23 or any other CC number.) But when I modulate the pitch bend, the pitch bend is recorded AND the blue line appears in the editor. As I watch your first video I see clearly you moving the filter cutoff knob and the blue line recording your movements. Any ideas? (I am using Live 11). Enjoy your illustrative compositions as well. Inspiring. Thank you!

[@kaitlyn__L]

Depending on your synth settings you may be recording those modulation changes as NRPN or RPN data rather than CC data, so you won’t get them showing up on the CC channels

[@wentzr]

next up: record and play back system exclusive dumps from the external synth using ableton live so you can store your patches in the project like weve been doing since atari cubase.

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

That would be a really cool video actually. I'm told it's possible using Max4Live.

[@wentzr]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic somewhat. its really clunky and requires a lot of extra clutter last time i tried. I had my hopes up live 11 would handle this natively just the way it records MIDI CC automation. unfortunately all sysex is still filtered out of live natively

[@wentzr]

serendipity. someone just uploaded cf-sysex-recorder to maxforlive.com and first tests here indicate it works like a charm besides the fact that the sysex data values are in decimal and not hex. Regardless it's great to see this appear. It was the first max4live patch I searched for when i upgraded to 10 not long ago. Let's see how it deals with dumps from the microwaveXT.

[@rayderrich]

External Instrument will from now on be available from Live Intro, making your tips even more handy!

[@bubbacorndog]

Thanks for this! Do you ever have any issues recording the sequencer or Arps into Ableton? I seem to have to flip flop my input on the ext. instrument, otherwise it's fully out of sync, octave and timing..

[@qwerwerterytrtyutyuiyuiouiop]

I only have Ableton Live Lite! How can I sequence my hardware drum synth (Vermona DRM1) using this version of the program? Is it possible...? Thanks for the great videos!

[@Atatsounds]

100% thank you

[@SunlightOfTheSpirit]

Hi David, in this video you explained the set up i/o but in part 2 you didn’t. I have been using part one all weekend and find it useful workflow but not sure if my set up is correct. My 27” monitor is fussy and I can’t read the settings properly.

[@AGNTSCLOTHING]

I have 3 Emu rack synths connected Via a Digidesign Midi I/O that's connected to a Midi keyboard. My goal is to use the keyboard to trigger the diff rack synths I have in Ableton and no matter what why I try they won't talk. The midi channels are matched to the unit and the midi I/o but when I come to Ableton and getting everything to talk that's where I get stuck. any suggestions? great video by the way very helpfull

[@dj_Davepz]

Perfect

[@jclark521]

My two legacy synths, Access Virus C and Korg MS2000R, do not properly sync with Ableton Live 11's clock when activating their arpeggiators. Neither synth contains USB, so I use MIDI IN/OUT cables through a MTU Midi interface, then USB1 into my Macbook Pro. All of my settings are set up properly in Ableton. Cubase 11 on the other hand? No problem! Cubase detects my instruments perfectly, clock-sync is precise, life is good. My conclusing is that Ableton does not like USB1 or MIDI interfaces. It wants all USB2+, more modern synths, etc. Just my two cents.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Now I’m curious to see whether it’ll play nice with my microKORG. I use regular MIDI cables, but it’s a modern USB2 audio and MIDI interface box.

[@ItsWesSmithYo]

Nice. Bizarre Ableton doesn’t provide a way to disable the midi tracks like soloing. Disabling devices or muting clips is not efficient. My workaround is to send all the midi enabled tracks, other than the one I’m working with, to a midi channel that isn’t being received by the synth. Still clumsy, vs. bouncing around and soloing while composing and arranging. I’ve seen a few M4L devices I’m going to try but any options would be welcome. 🎉🎉🎉

[@user-ef4zt6no3h]

Thank you. I only have 1 input on my Apollo Twin, but several external instruments. For example, I have a Synth which output goes in to a drum machine, and from the drum machine the audio signals fpo in to the Apollos 1/2. When setting up a MIDI track for each external instrument, I get input on every MIDI track, since they are receiving from 1/2. Is it possible to set this up so that each instrument is sending to separate MIDI channels?

[@erikacgr]

I can sync my synth in Ableton 11 lite, and I can listen the synth through Ableton, but why not appear in my instruments the option external instrument, I try many ways and I don't find how to put that into my instruments or what is not there like your video and others I watched, could you help me? thanks

[@thompsonbertschy7453]

Hi there! Very new to this world, but have my microfreak that I'm trying to set up in Ableton Live 11. Realizing that in order to get audio into and through my computer, I need an audio interface. Any recommendations for a beginner/budget friendly audio interface? Thanks in advance!

[@lyntonfairbourne7408]

Hi David, I'm new to Ableton and have followed many video's on how to use the Ext Instrument function. I can get a Midi track created in Ableton to play an external hardware synth but I can't control the volume or mute the synth through the track. The audio plays through my monitors via a Mackie Big Knob Studio interface and the volume level shows in the Ext Inst track but the slider and mute button do nothing. My Mackie doesn't have the option to disable direct monitoring so I was thinking that this might be the problem until I saw this video where you create an Audio track to handle the sound. Is this where I'm going wrong and I need to create an Audi track to do this? Thanks

[@kaitlyn__L]

The audio track to handle the sound here was in lieu of hardware monitoring, in part 1 he said he always uses software monitoring to preview effects. I find it a bit odd you can’t disable hardware monitoring though - mine has no switch on the box but I can disable it in the control panel software. Either way, you shouldn’t have much problem using hardware monitoring while recording the audio in to an audio track, you just disable any software monitoring while recording. After it’s recorded you work on the audio track after the fact and the synth won’t generate the sound anymore, so there should be no conflict. This is how I personally handle it because I’m more sensitive to lag than David.

[@Sr7Sr7Sr7]

Preset 150 mapping to Bank 2 Preset 22... sounds like each bank in the External Instrument drop down caps out at 128 presets (128 + 22 = 150). Interesting. Is that how the synth presents itself to Ableton? Or is that just a generic structure for the External Instrument in Ableton, where it always caps out at 128 for any synth?

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

I think that’s actually in the original MIDI spec from the early 80s. I wonder if they addressed it in the MIDI 2.0 spec that came out last year.

[@Sr7Sr7Sr7]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic Ah so what’s shown on the synth’s screen (the numbers above 128) is for our human brains to see the number be unique, but what it maps to in the spec is for the sake of having a generic container that suits all types of devices and uses cases. Makes sense. Thanks!

[@kaitlyn__L]

128 comes up a lot in MIDI, like CC and velocity values as well. MIDI is generally a 7-bit system. Since MIDI2 is 16-bit, maybe each bank will have 65536 slots 🤔 all presets could fit in one bank and we’d unify the “user presented number” with the backend one in all but the most extreme cases. Do any synths even have over 65k preset slots? lol. Maybe the concept of a bank number of fixed length will be eradicated entirely and it’ll just be an arbitrary-length integer.

[@arysonck2753]

I only have audio coming from my left speaker. I’m using the TRS output

[@jonathanagent9000]

I'm really hoping someone can help me out here. I have tried connecting with this method, and the method explained in video 1 of David's. I can hear the instrument as I'm playing, I can see the midi notes being recorded. However, when I try playback, I can't hear anything. I've made sure tracks are on appropriate "in" "auto" or "off"

[@ihasmax]

I assume this external interface like the UAD/Apollo Twin is required to get this to work? I've tried plugging the Microfreak directly into my Mac through USB but unfortunately not able to monitor the actual audio output (MIDI works fine). Hearing conflicting information as to whether the microfreak transmits audio over usb but it seems like it does not.

[@kaitlyn__L]

You can record with a laptop’s built-in input, but the noise floor will be higher. It won’t be super noticeable for one or two tracks but if you’re layering a lot of elements the final track will be pretty noisy. You can of course apply noise reduction plugins but that will inevitably also cut-into the frequencies of your instruments to greater or lesser degree. That’s the main reason for committed hobbyists and working musicians to use external interfaces, to be able to layer dozens of tracks without noticeably adding noise or having to cut-into the desired signal to eliminate the noise after the fact. Of course not everyone is against noise. If you for instance used a 4-track cassette-studio emulation plugin to make it noisy and dirty, you may not care to keep your original noise floor particularly low to begin with.

[@rarturas]

weird question but, how do i put recorded samples from session view to timeline? just by dragging? or..

[@ardiejasso3316]

David.... I need help. I have an Arturia Microfreak and I can't get it to record in STEREO it only comes out in MONO. How did you get your recording to come out like that?

[@aloha2713]

Can you do this for the minilogue xd please ❤?

[@tarekbarraj3811]

Microfreak MIDI data & input is being recorded into Ableton, but no audio coming out. Please Help!

[@squareinsquare2078]

Hi Dave. I'm Square.

[@samueldr6500]

Hello, when I want to play another external instrument, both sound at the same time and both sounds are modified at the same time, any solution?

[@luciendemoulin6297]

hey ! i have a problem who is driving me nuts, i want to record my microfreak using the arpeggiator but it always plays like one note and bug ive tried to syncronize the tempo but it doesnt work too. Please help me :O

[@Loumont_2]

There must be an issue with mine, Im following your steps but when i want to playback my recording as midi i am not hearing anything back on what i just played. Any idea what it could be?

[@ItsWesSmithYo]

Make sure audio from on the ext inst device is set to receive from an output on your sound card that is sending audio from your synth;)

[@Robert-kx8mp]

Sweet, and then Ableton introduced these killer CV tools with a self calibrating CV Instrument, but guess what no latency compensation :(

[@patrickdowd2293]

Great video. Very helpful. Just one thing, timbre is (pronounced tam’-br, as in tamborine, not tim’-br, as in a tree falling. (From Moog manual. )

[@aceofdub]

Isn't there a way to just "bounce" the solo track without rendering the entire project, or manually record the audio?

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

You can freeze the track, but my sense is that if you accidentally unfreeze it, you’ll have lost your recording.

[@fuzzjohn]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic When you freeze a track, Live renders it as audio (for the length of the active clip) and saves it in Samples > Processed > Freeze. If you unfreeze and freeze it again it will just render it as a new file without overwriting the original.

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

Thanks! That’s great info.

[@fuzzjohn]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic no prob, it's handy to know because you could use it to quickly render out all of your clips to audio, you could even render out variations of clips with different processing. The only thing you want to keep an eye on if you're rendering lots of clips from the same tracks is the file name. It will add 'Freeze', then the track name, then a timestamp so you might want to rename after each render to help keep it organised.

[@PantaFlux]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic Plus when the MIDI track is freezed you can Ctrl+drag (Windows) the *audio* of that clip onto an existing audio track.

[@carlosaguilera9933]

Great video but now I have to buy the Standard Live edition :(

[@TonyThomas10000]

Don't forget Ableton Intro! External instrument is not included in that version either. Resample mode is also an option if you want to record stems from multiple tracks.

[@shashankssawant]

Mention the synths you’re using.. I’m on MicroKorg. :)

[@SunlightOfTheSpirit]

8:15 ‘fast as anything’. I’ve never heard an American use this phrase. I thought it was quintessentially British or am I tripping? Lol

[@kaitlyn__L]

New England has some phrases like that which the rest of America lacks, as do some Canadian places. Of course people sometimes just pick things up from a British pal, LGR has been increasingly using such phrases the longer he’s known Techmoan.