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A way to use 32-bit plugins as external MIDI instruments in Pro X

Logic Pro X only supports 64-bit AUs. For those who are curious, it's possible to do the following to use a 32-bit AU instrument as an external MIDI device and have the audio recorded back inside Logic as if working with any other MIDI device.


Of course this is quite crude / cumbersome and misses out a fair bit of the usual integration/automation but it might help someone out if they're really stuck and it can be done without purchasing any additional software.


The idea is this: You use an external piece of software to host the 32-bit AU plugins, have that software send audio to something that can be routed into Logic Pro X for recording, duplicate your old plugin's settings in Logic 9 or earlier into the plugin instance running in your external AU host, then with the project loaded into Pro X, change over to using an external MIDI track for the plugin in question and add an audio track to record the audio from the external AU host.


  • You will need Soundflower for audio loopback and Soundflowerbed to control Soundflower
  • Use a host such as AU Lab, a developer tool free from Apple, for the plugin(s)
  • MidiKeys is helpful for testing out AU Lab setups


Cycling 74's Soundflower is a tool which provides virtual audio outputs and inputs on your Mac in 2 and 64 channel configurations. Soundflowerbed sits in your menu bar and lets you control Soundflower, if you want to change how by default it links together its inputs and outputs. You'll want the most recent version (currently 10.6.6b) for Mac OS X 10.8 or later from the Google Code project page - the installer includes both Soundflower and Soundflowerbed:


https://code.google.com/p/soundflower/

http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/ for more information


AU Lab is part of the Apple developer additional applications set. You can install XCode for free from the Mac App Store and then use its menus to install the extras package including AU Lab, or hopefully you can just use this link to get the DMG directly:


http://adcdownload.apple.com/Developer_Tools/audio_tools_for_xcode__late_july_20 12/xcode44audiotools6938117a.dmg


As far as I know there's no developer subscription required for the above package, since it can be installed directly from XCode and XCode can be installed without a developer account. That said, you can probably use any decent AU host - and may well have better results with something more fully featured and robust - but with AU Lab as a worked example:


  • Start AU Lab and set up a new document with stereo out - surround might work via 64-channel SoundFlower but I've not tried it, might be fiddly on the Logic side to record that - anyway, set your document to use one of the SoundFlower outputs. Choose "no input". Create the document.
  • Use the Edit menu in AU Lab to add a new instrument track. Note that I find AU Lab quite flaky at present - IK Multimedia stuff was OK, but GForce plugins made it crash and some freeware plugins didn't crash, but didn't produce audio either. It's worth a try though!
  • Configure the plugin and any effects you might want to add.
  • In Logic, test it by creating an external MIDI track. You should see that in the track inspector, the "Port" entry's pulldown menu includes the name of your plugin so you can route MIDI to it directly. You will probably want to make sure the program change entry in the track inspector is turned off, so as not to disturb the chosen patch in your AU Lab setup, should your instrument respect patch change commands.
  • Use Track -> New Tracks... in Logic. Select Audio. Expand "Details" if necessary. Under Input, choose Input 1+2 (or whatever you need to get surround if trying that). Note under that there's an "Input device" that you can't edit directly... This is the really annoying bit; per-track input devices don't seem possible (can anyone help here?) - instead, click on the small circular right-facing grey arrow and your Logic audio preferences will be opened, so you can then select SoundFlower as an input device.
  • Turn on "Input Monitoring" so you can hear if MIDI is working.
  • Try entering or recording some MIDI data. The MIDI data should be sent to AU Lab, then to your AU Lab hosted instrument; it'll send audio to SoundFlower, which is thus routed to Logic, which if Input Monitoring is enabled, is in turn routed to your currently selected main output.
  • If it all works you can then record the audio on the audio track once you're happy with your MIDI.


MIDIKeys is a bit like Logic's "Musical Typing" but in a separate application with configurable MIDI output.


http://www.manyetas.com/creed/midikeys.html


As with Logic you should see your software synth instance listed in its outputs. If you're having trouble, you could retry by creating a new AU Lab document that uses your default output - something you can directly hear, not SoundFlower - then add your AU instrument strip, get a plugin, select a patch and try sending MIDI to it with MIDIKeys. If you hear audio, then you can try again using SoundFlower. In theory you should be able to change the output of your current document in AU Lab but that just seems to kill everything for me - I have to start a new document each time.


I was able to create an external MIDI track and copy notes previously used for an equivalent internal 32-bit AU plugin successfully with this approach. You may find you need to use the inspector's transpose function to shift it up an octave or so though.

Posted on Jul 17, 2013 4:37 PM

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A way to use 32-bit plugins as external MIDI instruments in Pro X

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