"The only way to get an audio file of what you are hearing from any hardware MIDI synth is to do it the old fashioned way: You must hook up the audio output L & R channels of that MIDI synth to the L & R channel Line inputs of your sound device, and record the performance from beginning to end."

Indeed, that's what I thought I was doing. In fact, at the start of the rendering process, a window pops up allowing me to select an Audio input source...and it had my M-Audio already selected. Seeing that, my thought was that during the rendering process, the external synth audio via the M-Audio interface would be added via the "Merge in Audio Track" check box.

Now I realize that that check box means that the pre-recorded audio track(s) will be rendered with the song, and I still have no idea why the input select window appeared. Now that I've downloaded the trial Coyote DXi synth (since the included Roland VSC DXi synth does not support Windows 7 64 bit), I don't see that audio input pop up window anymore.

All is well, and in another month, it's going to cost me another $40 to keep the Coyote synth going, unless Roland releases a 64 bit Windows 7 driver for the VSC3 soft synth before then.

Jeepers...