Couple of noob questions.
From what I see, I have to use two tracks in Live to integrate with a hardware synth -- a MIDI track to send the notes, and an audio track to catch the synth output. This is in contrast to softsynths, which only use one track. The softsynth takes MIDI as input and produces audio, so you see MIDI and audio in the same track for a softsynth. Correct?
Is there any kind of plugin that would make a hardware synth work using a single track in Live? Say, a plugin that takes MIDI as input and produces audio, but instead of synthesizing, it just routes MIDI out to a hardware unit and then routes the unit's audio back into the track. Does that exist?
I'm guessing the answer is "no". So then, how do control surfaces like the MCU work when controlling hardware synth tracks? Are they smart enough so that a single strip's mute button controls the MIDI track, but the fader controls the audio track? Or do you have to use two strips on the MCU that match the two tracks in Live?