Hello

Wondering, is there any way rack effects can be used with MIDI inside your DAW?

If so, how and what do I need?

Thanks

 

A rack effect that's compatible with MIDI, an audio interface with phisical MIDI I/O (unless the effect unit can send/receive MIDI through USB) and the cable(s) to connect them.

The rest is internal routing. Your need to enable the MIDI Out of the interface (and send clock through it) in the daw, figure out how can you send MIDI CC from your DAW, and read the effect unit's manual to see if there's any particular configuration you need to do there and also to know which CC you need to send to make it do this or that.

You'll also need to connect the phisical audio I/O and do all the routing for that, but that's the same as any other hardware thing.

 

What about just plain audio? I have the Apollo Twin MK2 what would I need but more to the point can the Apollo manage it in the first place

 

If you want just audio the apollo should be able to handle it on it's own. Assuming it's a stereo effect unit you can use outputs 3+4 of the interface as sends inputs 1+2 in line mode for the return. That, or use the optical input to make the return of the effect if it has an option for that.

The first option obviously means you won't be able to use a mic at the same time as the effect, to solve that you'd need external analog inputs likely in the form of an external AD/DA converter (check out Behringer ADA8200 if you want to go low budget on that, or Audiend SP8 if you want to go for something of better quality).

The second method is a bit more unusual, because IF the effect has a digital output, it's probably S/PDIF coaxial, and you'd need S/PDIF optical. Luckily the converters for that are fairly cheap, don't know first hand how well those work though.

Another problem with both those options will be syncing these things, you'd need both devices (interface and effect) to be working at the same sample rate, usually that means either connecting both things to an external wordclock (not possible in this case) or one of the devices sending the clock to the other via optical connection. The Apollo Twin only allows you to either use the internal clock or the one provided via optical, you won't be able to send the clock from the apollo to the effect unit, that means you're pretty much stuck with the effect's or AD/DA converter's clock. Shouldn't be a big deal if they have decent clocks, but you never know.

So as you can see, unless you really need to use the mic inputs at the same time as the effect, it's probably best to just use the interface's analog I/Os.

And If you'd still want MIDI, you'll need a MIDI interface, which is like an audio interface but MIDI only.

 

The Twin (depends on actual model #) can have 1,2, or 4 DSP Sharc cores. The number of plugins they can handle seems very low, to me at least. You can use them as send effects for multiple channels in your DAW, to minimize the number of instances. You can hit almost total dsp usage with not all that many plugins. Some seem to use much more resources than others.

You should be more specific about what you are really trying to do.