Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/06 External Instrument
- A routing utility, not a sound source: it sends MIDI to a hardware synth or a multitimbral plug-in and brings its audio back.
- MIDI To — two choosers. The first picks a MIDI port or a track holding a multitimbral plug-in; the second picks the MIDI channel.
- Audio From — for hardware, the audio interface inputs wired to the synth's outputs, as set in the Audio Settings; for a plug-in, its auxiliary outputs. Main outputs play on the plug-in's own track.
- Gain — level of the returning audio; set it to avoid clipping.
- Hardware Latency — manual delay compensation for the external device, in ms or samples. Use samples for digital connections so the count survives sample-rate changes, ms for analog ones; samples allow finer tuning, but switch back to ms before changing sample rate. Disabled for internal routing, which is compensated automatically, and when Options → Delay Compensation is off.
- Routing details: Ableton/Live/UG/17 Routing and IO. Related: Ableton/How To/Record MIDI and Audio from external device
