Ableton Forum

so ive got my synth hooked up to my audio interface with an audio cable as well as midi.

the audio works fine and the midi seems to be working, im able to do mapping from ableton to my synth but for some reason i cannot get the midi effect like the arpeggiator to work with the audio from my synth. any ideas why?

I'd suggest using lives "external instrument" plugin, set it's midi out and audio in as needed. Drop midi fx in front of it & audio fx behind it.
Midi fx like the arp wont work on audio.

yeah im actually already using the "external insturment" i got all my midi stuff set up right and ive got the arp to work before like this. also, its only letting me drop midi effects to the left of my External Insturment.

Midi fx should be to the left of an instrument, the signal flow is left to right so....

[midi fx] --- [instrument] --- [audio fx]

If you put the external instrument plugin on a track, can you get it to play back from a midi clip on that track?
Perhaps you could post a screen grab of how you have it set up or maybe provide a bit more info.