At this point, my fellow old goat, I have to use what I have as there is no budget to buy much more. This track needed a very specific "side stick on the quarter notes with high hat 8th notes" pattern over the verses, and nothing in RB came close. As far as the physical side of it, MIDI is second nature to me. I just had never used it inside of RB for clock, only to play parts in, and that's where the questions started. My M-Audio is now fed into an MX-8 MIDI patch bay, with 6 ins and 8 outs, and patched to the drum machine, the digital reverb, a vocoder, 2 synthesizers and a sampler. Also note that at this point I am not playing anything back via MIDI outside of the pass through the song when I record what the clock is controlling. That will also come into play later when I do backup vocals through the vocoder. (I LOVE that thing!!!)

All the audio stuff runs into a patch bay, so when I want something from the ESQ-1 (which does organ VERY well), I run a cable from patch bay point #7 to the input of the M-Audio, and that routes the audio from the ESQ-1 to my interface. If I need anything from the ESQ-1 via MIDI, that is connected through the MX-8. All started with buying that control surface. Then the server rack. Then a change in thought process about mixing. Now to keep learning about what fx do what.... and how to use them.

Remember, I am just trying to write songs here. I will never play this stuff out anywhere. It's just to make good enough quality demos to shop. Outside of my annual reunion I really don't want to play gigs anymore. It used to be that I was a professional musician that was a network nerd on the side. Now I am a professional network nerd and a music hobbyist. I am not likely to ever play out again. Too much like work moving stuff. Dragging it downstairs, packing it somehow into my little Kia, set up, perform, tear down, unload.... nah. Not for me anymore. Your needs are very different because you play gigs. I can't even imagine where I would try to find the energy to play gigs after working a 40 hour week in a stressful position like mine. And I will never be able to retire and do this as supplemental income (too many years with no W-2 income) so this will remain a hobby.